How to fix low performance score on Gladly

Steps for Gladly

1. Audit where the Gladly Sidekick (chat widget) script is loaded: in your theme's layout file (e.g. theme.liquid) or via a tag manager, locate the Gladly snippet — typically a <script> tag loading cdn.gladly.com/gladly/chat/widget.js or similar.
2. Change the Gladly script tag to load with the 'defer' attribute (e.g. <script defer src='...'>) so it no longer blocks the browser's critical rendering path and does not contribute to render-blocking resource warnings in Lighthouse.
3. If Gladly is injected via a Tag Manager (Google Tag Manager, Shopify Scripts, etc.), set the tag's firing trigger to 'Window Loaded' or 'DOM Ready' instead of 'Page View' so the widget initialises only after the main content has painted, protecting LCP and FID/INP scores.
4. Enable Gladly's lazy-initialisation option if available in your Gladly Admin under Settings > Sidekick > Widget Behaviour: toggle 'Delay widget load' or set a timeout (e.g. 3–5 seconds after page load) so the widget assets are fetched after Core Web Vitals are measured.
5. In Gladly Admin (Settings > Sidekick > Availability), restrict the widget to pages where customer support is most needed (e.g. cart, order-status, contact) rather than loading it site-wide. Remove it from high-traffic landing and collection pages to avoid unnecessary third-party payload on SEO-critical URLs.
6. Re-run PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse after applying changes and confirm that the Gladly widget script no longer appears under 'Eliminate render-blocking resources' or 'Reduce the impact of third-party code', then verify Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP) have improved before deploying to production.

What is low performance score?

The Lighthouse Performance Score (shown in Google's PageSpeed Insights tool) is a single number from 0–100 that summarises how fast your web page loads and responds for real users — especially on mobile. It is calculated from five timing metrics, with the three Core Web Vitals (Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint, and Cumulative Layout Shift) carrying the most weight. A score below 50 is considered "Poor" by Google; a score above 90 is "Good." Think of it as a health-check report card for your page's speed: every point you gain means real customers are waiting less and leaving less.

Google officially uses page experience signals — including Core Web Vitals — as a ranking factor, meaning a very low score can directly suppress your position in search results and reduce organic traffic. Beyond rankings, a slow page destroys conversions: industry data consistently shows that each additional second of load time drops conversion rates by 10–20 %, and mobile shoppers are the most sensitive. A score of 8/100 on mobile means the vast majority of your mobile visitors are likely bouncing before they even see your products, costing you both ad spend and organic sales. Closing this gap is one of the highest-ROI technical improvements an ecommerce store can make.

See the complete Low performance score guide for every platform and the full background.