Partner with Econify to strategically use full stack, AI, mobile, OTT, and cloud engineering to solve complex challenges.
Challenge
Timeout.com, the global media and hospitality brand, partnered with Econify to tackle persistent performance issues that were slowing down page loads, weakening SEO rankings, and increasing user frustration. As the brand scaled globally, its digital platform faced growing pressure to meet modern technical standards—particularly those tied to Google’s Core Web Vitals (CWV), which are essential for search engine visibility and user satisfaction.
Goals
Timeout.com aimed to dramatically improve its website speed and technical SEO performance, focusing on the Core Web Vitals metrics:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – measuring how quickly primary content loads
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – ensuring visual elements remain stable as pages load
Interaction to Next Paint (INP) – capturing responsiveness to user interactions
Reduce render and load times to improve site engagement and search rankings
Solution
Econify’s performance-focused engineering team was engaged to conduct a comprehensive audit and optimisation of Timeout.com’s frontend architecture and infrastructure. Drawing on tools such as PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, and New Relic, the team identified key performance bottlenecks that were dragging down Core Web Vitals scores. Targeted improvements were then made to optimize content rendering, minimize layout shifts, and streamline asset delivery. The team also reworked blocking JavaScript and optimized server-side rendering pipelines, reducing visual delays and improving responsiveness across devices.
In parallel, Econify introduced advanced observability strategies to maintain visibility into performance over time. A full audit of New Relic instrumentation was conducted, which not only improved the granularity of performance monitoring but also significantly reduced operational costs—from £2,000 per month to just £140—by shrinking the telemetry data footprint from 4.5TB to 22GB. This observability overhaul ensured Timeout could continue tracking CWV metrics and page speed trends with precision while keeping tooling costs under control.
Business Value
The outcome of Econify’s work was a substantial improvement in Timeout.com’s performance benchmarks:
- LCP dropped from 1957ms to 1600ms, improving the speed at which meaningful content loads.
- CLS was reduced from 0.21 to 0.13, providing a more visually stable browsing experience.
- TBT (Total Blocking Time) improved by nearly 10x, and the Speed Index fell from 11s to 4s, dramatically accelerating perceived load times.
The optimisations that Econify carried out boosted Timeout’s SEO performance by aligning its technical foundations with Google’s CWV benchmarks, enabling higher rankings and faster user engagement. Critically, all changes were deployed preserving business continuity while delivering long-term value. By focusing on web speed and observability, Econify helped Timeout.com build a faster, more efficient, and search-optimised platform that is enabled for continued global growth.
