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Often the responsibility for a social media marketing campaign’s success is placed on the social media advertising techniques and content alone without giving proper consideration to the user experience after clicking through to the website. The fact is – you can flawlessly execute the best social media marketing campaign ever, but if your website is slow to load, you won't get users to convert. Period.

The first step in creating a high-quality user experience with a website is ensuring that it loads quickly. A recent study of 750 consumers and 395 marketers confirms that page load speed matters more than you might think. A few quick takeaways from the study include:

• Most consumers think that they are more patient than they really are – often they exit pages much quicker than they (or you) realize.
• Almost 70% of digital consumers say that page load speed influences whether or not they will buy from an online retailer.
• Most marketers aren’t making page speed optimization a priority, despite knowing that it is important.

For those of you who are interested in the data from the study, here are 11 reasons why your website's page load speed is killing your social media marketing:

1. 85% of landing pages in a recent study were slower than Google’s recommendations of a 5 seconds or less.
2. The average web page has doubled in size over the last three years while connection speeds have stayed the same.
3. The average time it takes for a web page to load on a mobile device is now 15 seconds.
4. Statistically, over half of visitors will leave a web page if they must wait more than 3 seconds for a page to load.
5. Almost 75% of online shoppers said that they will wait 4 seconds or more before leaving a page; however, Google behavioral data shows that most people abandon a page if it doesn’t load in 3 seconds.
6. Did you know that Android users are more patient than iOS users? 61% of Android users would wait up to 13 seconds for a page to load compared to only 36% of iOS users.
7. 70% of online shoppers say that page load speed has influence on how likely they are to make a purchase.
8. 36% of users are less likely to return to a website with slow page load speeds.
9. Users love pretty visuals and animations; however, most people surveyed said they would give both up if it meant a website would load faster (56% would give up animations and 52% would give up video).
10. Roughly 50% of users said that they would try to reload a page at least once when it takes 3 seconds to load; however, 22% said they would immediately close the session and 14% said they would defer to a competitor’s website.
11. 81% of marketers surveyed know that page load speed impacts their conversions, but they admit not making improving it a priority. (In other words, if you want to edge out the competition, optimize your site speed!)

If your social media marketing campaigns aren’t generating results, the problem might be that your website is slow. If users aren’t getting a fast, valuable experience when they click through social media ads to arrive on your website, they will leave – and likely go check out your competitor!