Recently we have had a couple of our clients inquire about AMP. Our first response (said internally of course) was what is AMP? So we did what anyone does when you need to know something, we went to Google! What we found was truly amazing. After loosing half of a day getting lost in the minutiae of information that is out there on the web, we thought it would be helpful to distill what we have learned and give you a high level overview of Accelerated Mobile Pages and how it can be leveraged to make your business and marketing more effective.
What is AMP?
Simply put Accelerated Mobile Pages is a coding platform that is very similar to existing HTML, CSS and Java that is designed to improve page loading speeds and enhance user interaction on mobile devices.
The Pros
There are a lot of really great features in AMP. As I mentioned earlier improved load time, more interactive features, enhanced features right inside of email clients like Gmail and Outlook and enhanced features right within advertisements that allows potential clients and customers to interact with you more seamlessly. Another HUGE pro to AMP is that Google likes it… a lot. “Google put a very big thumb on the scale by introducing that new AMP carousel at the top of its live results page for select, news-related search queries. However, since the list of AMP supporters already contains a Who’s Who of the most important names in both tech and publishing (with the notable absence of Facebook and Apple, of course), it is probable that AMP-enabled pages will continue to get increasingly special treatment in future. Even if your site doesn’t need the speed and usability boost AMP offers, it may still be worthwhile simply to take advantage of the improved visibility for your content.” – branch.io
The Cons
One major draw back of AMP is that it hasn’t fully been embraced by all email clients and browsers. This means that for everything you create in AMP there needs to be a fallback version. It is causing many companies who are already strapped for development resources to put off taking the plunge into AMP and is slowing adoption.
AMP Websites
AMP is a simple and robust format to ensure your website is fast, user-first, and makes money. AMP provides long-term success for your web strategy with distribution across popular platforms and reduced operating and development costs. AMP enables the creation of websites and ads that are consistently fast, beautiful and high-performing across devices and distribution platforms. Publishers and advertisers can decide how to present their content that emphasizes a user-first experience. The great news is, you can often convert your entire website in days – especially when using common CMS like WordPress or Drupal.
AMP Ads
AMP is fundamentally changing the way ads are built, delivered and measured on the web, making them faster and minimizing disruptions for users. This increases viewability and click-through rates to improve monetization, making everyone happy: users, publishers and advertisers alike. In order to engage with your brand and improve the performance of your campaigns, you have to speed things up. AMP ads load on average 5x faster than the non-AMP version, leading to higher conversion rates. Because AMPHTML ads are 3x lighter, the AMP framework guarantees that these ads only behave as intended so users always have a positive experience with your brand. As the owner of your AMP websites and ads, no other parties can modify or add things, ensuring you are in control of the user experience and there won’t be any unexpected surprises. AMP ads are part of a user-first ecosystem and function the way a reasonable user would expect them to. Optimized AMP ads don’t drain the battery life of mobile devices, and clicking on them will lead to AMP pages, which are equally as fast and streamlined.
AMP Email
Use AMP to send interactive, dynamic emails. AMP for email allows senders to include AMP components inside rich engaging emails, making modern app functionality available within email. The AMP email format provides a subset of AMPHTML components for use in email messages, that allows recipients of AMP emails to interact dynamically with content directly in the message.Senders can include AMP components inside rich, engaging emails, making them dynamic and interactive. Users can engage with content and quickly take action such as RSVP to events, fill out questionnaires and personalize their content. AMP emails are always up to date and can function like digests, with fewer clicks necessary to achieve efficient results.