Audit Performance Medium

Website Performance Optimization Audit

Every second of load time costs conversions. We audit your site performance with a focus on what tracking and third-party tags cost you and give you a prioritized plan showing exactly what to fix for the biggest speed gains.

6-12 hours

Tags Are Probably Your Biggest Performance Problem

You've optimized images, minified CSS, lazy-loaded below-the-fold content. But your Lighthouse score still tanks. The reason is usually in your tag manager: 15 marketing tags, each loading their own JavaScript, making their own network requests, some blocking rendering while they do it.

Most performance audits focus on your own code. They miss the elephant in the room: third-party tags. That Meta Pixel initialization script. The Google Ads remarketing tag that fires on every page. The chat widget that loads 400KB of JavaScript whether anyone opens it or not.

We audit your site with a specific focus on the impact of third-party tags and tracking scripts on Core Web Vitals Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). You get a report showing exactly which tags cost how much performance, and a prioritized plan to reduce their impact without losing the data you need.

Audit Process

Baseline Performance Measurement

We measure Core Web Vitals on your key page templates using both lab tools (Lighthouse, WebPageTest) and real user data (CrUX). This establishes the baseline we're optimizing against.

Third-Party Tag Impact Isolation

We systematically disable tag groups and measure the performance delta. This reveals exactly how much each tag (or group of tags) costs in LCP, INP, and CLS. Most clients are surprised by the results.

Resource Loading Analysis

We analyze the full resource loading waterfall render-blocking scripts, unoptimized assets, connection overhead, and redirect chains. We identify opportunities beyond tags as well.

Tag Loading Strategy Review

We review how your tags are loaded firing priority, trigger timing, async vs sync, and page-specific targeting. Many performance gains come from simply loading tags more intelligently, not removing them.

Prioritized Recommendations

You get a report with every finding ranked by impact (expected performance gain) and effort (implementation complexity). Fix the biggest problems first.

Deliverables

Core Web Vitals Report Baseline measurements for LCP, INP, CLS across all key page templates
Tag Performance Impact Matrix Each tag's performance cost in milliseconds and CWV impact
Resource Loading Waterfall Annotated waterfall charts showing bottlenecks and optimization opportunities
Prioritized Optimization Plan Ranked recommendations with expected performance gains and implementation effort
Tag Loading Strategy Guide Recommended firing priorities, trigger timing, and page-scoping for your specific tags

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this just a Lighthouse report?

No. Lighthouse is one input. We combine lab testing, real user data, and manual tag isolation testing. A Lighthouse report tells you your score we tell you why and exactly how to improve it.

Will you actually implement the optimizations?

The audit is a standalone deliverable. Implementation is a separate engagement but we can absolutely do it. Many optimization recommendations require TMS changes that we handle in-house.

What if the recommendation is to remove a tag our marketing team needs?

We never recommend blindly removing tags. When a tag has a high performance cost, we first look for ways to reduce its impact (defer loading, page-scope it, load it conditionally). Removal is the last resort, and we always flag the tradeoff.

How does this relate to the Tag Performance Monitoring service?

This audit is a one-time deep analysis. Tag Performance Monitoring sets up ongoing measurement so you can track tag performance over time and catch regressions after changes.

Prerequisites

• Website URL (production preferred)
• Tag management system access (read)
• Google Search Console access (for CrUX data)

Assumptions (for 6-12 hours)

• 5-10 representative page templates
• Standard web application
• Tags managed through a TMS