Infinity Case Study
Infinity's HubSpot Performance Overhaul
Discover how Sputnik's strategic optimisations boosted Infinity's Website Speed and Core Web Vitals.
The Client
Infinity has been helping marketing, sales, and customer service teams make smarter business decisions and improve experiences with call analytics since 2011.
Their call tracking and speech analytics tools are used by enterprises across the world to optimise marketing campaigns, improve sales performance, streamline contact centre operations, and improve experiences for their customers.
The Project
With a history of successful collaboration, Infinity tasked Sputnik with enhancing site-wide performance, optimising modules, and improving page speed within the HubSpot CMS.
Before starting the project, mobile performance scored 36 on Google Pagespeed Insights, which was impacting their Core Web Vitals (CWV). Recognising the critical role of web performance and page speed in search rankings, and with critical pages on their HubSpot CMS underperforming, we aimed for a performance target score above 80.
Additionally, we wanted to achieve uplifts in other CWV metrics such as Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO, despite the inherent challenges of the HubSpot platform.
HubSpot development
With prior experience using HubL, HubSpot's templating language, we were confident in utilising their provided functions and filters for better efficiency.
Hubspot CLI and Sandbox
The HubSpot CLI allowed us to develop locally and sync code changes to the testing environment, allowing close collaboration with Infinity.
Optimising HubSpot Modules
To improve site speed, we concentrated on a loading strategy and optimisations for 35 separate HubSpot modules, taking into account their dependencies across multiple pages.
Performant HubSpot asset loading
Due to HubSpot's strict processes, we had to suppress its native asset loading and re-trigger it only after a user interaction had taken place.
The challenges
Our main challenge was adapting and implementing our proven optimisation techniques and loading strategies to work within Hubspot's rigid platform. Our analysis across multiple HubSpot websites highlighted the difficulties in achieving high performance scores within their framework, and a simple search for "HubSpot website poor performance" will demonstrate this common issue.
HubSpot's modules are self-contained components made up from HTML, CSS and Javascript. They provide specific functionality such as a Carousel or Header etc. Surprisingly, HubSpot does not provide any documented means to query which modules will be present on a page at any given time during loading. This results in module assets (JavaScript, CSS, and Images) being loaded unnecessarily, contributing to low page speed.
We successfully found a solution, allowing us to identify the first loaded module on the page, enabling us to pre-fetch its assets and inline the module CSS in the head for critical above-the-fold rendering. Afterwards, we deferred loading of JS, CSS, and assets for other modules present.
Another significant challenge was Hubspot's inefficient asset loading method, though with some reverse engineering, we were able to remove the tracking, analytics, and forms scripts that contributed to low page speed and load them only when needed, further enhancing website performance.
91 Number of scripts before optimisation
5 Number of scripts after optimisation
The Delivery
We deployed our changes through the HubSpot Command Line Interface, implementing and packaging them as a new theme. This approach served as a precautionary measure, offering a failsafe option to revert to the original, unoptimised theme in case of any critical issues.
Performant Lazy Loading of images and background assets, that work at a global level, through to individual modules.
We addressed script bloat on the initial page load by reducing the number of scripts from 91, which accounted for 36.69% of all website assets, to just 5.
Efficient script loading to improve website performance. Scripts now load only when needed, and HubSpot features activate based on user interactions, resulting in faster page load times.
To eliminate jQuery as a dependency, we replaced Fancybox and Slick slider with smaller libraries that don't rely on jQuery. We also utilised HubSpot's functions and filters to shift unnecessary JavaScript to the server-side (HubL), reducing the overall JavaScript size.
The Results
The client has observed a significant improvement in Core Web Vitals across the website, particularly on key business-critical pages. Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that gauge how fast your website loads, its responsiveness to user interaction, and serve as a ranking signal for Google.
The homepage has seen an impressive increase of nearly 164% in mobile performance. This improvement is attributed to the enhancement from the initial mobile page speed score of 36 to the new optimised score of 96, resulting in drastically improved load times and an enhanced user experience.
Our optimisations have resulted in outstanding growth for Infinity's organic traffic, with a 66.7% year-over-year increase, achieving #1 rankings for key product-related terms, further establishing its market presence.
The website's visibility has lifted from a low of 15.84% to a peak of 28.16%, winning a greater share than key competitors.
Additionally, our optimisations have led to significant uplifts across other key CWV metrics in Google Pagespeed Insights:
Benchmarks
These scores went above our initial expectations on what could be achieved within HubSpot, which is notorious for website performance issues.
For comparison we looked at 5 website homepages built in HubSpot from a reputable partnered HubSpot agency, who claim to be"The #1 HubSpot Website Agency".
| Website | Performance | Accessibility | Best Practices | SEO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sputnik | | | | |
| Infinity - After Sputnik optimisations | | | | |
| Infinity - Before Sputnik optimisations | | | | |
| https://www.breathehr.com/en-gb/ | ||||
| https://www.allica.bank/ | ||||
| https://www.bcas.io/ | ||||
| https://partful.io/ | ||||
| https://www.wavenet.co.uk/ |
1 Our objective is 100, which we routinely achieve in non HubSpot sites.
2 Accessibility failures due to brand colour contrast and module changes outside of the original scope.
Don't just take our word for it
Our partnership with Sputnik has been transformative. Due to the nuances of HubSpot, this wasn't an easy project to execute. Sputnik's team demonstrated unwavering commitment and went above and beyond to get the job done.
Their ability to adapt and implement effective solutions quickly was critical to the project's success. They have once again not only met, but exceeded, our expectations, solidifying their role as a pivotal part of our ongoing digital strategy.
Matt McGillicuddy
Head of Growth Marketing - Infinity
Let's work together.
Call our Managing Director Andy on 0800 680 9777 or fill in our to discuss how we can help.