With Google PageSpeed Insights, you can get a free performance report on an ad hoc basis; however, there are several benefits to automating these checks with RapidSpike.
It is very important to be aware of the factors that influence your Core Web Vital scores as they are heavily impacted by your site at the time of the test and other factors such as device type, signal strength etc. For example, you might manually check your CWV scores every Tuesday at 1 PM but completely miss the drop in scores later on in the day/week caused by a third party.
RapidSpike also allows you to monitor and compare individual pages on your site. When it comes to your monitoring setup we recommend setting up a full monitoring suite on any page that you deem to be important. A full monitoring suite would include Uptime, Page Load, Core Web Vitals, Lighthouse and a user journey to capture pages further on in the customer journey (Such as checkout/billing).
Here is the a recommended set-up for an eCommerce site:
Homepage – Assess the reliability and performance of the first page your customers are likely to encounter.
Product Listing Page – Ensure customers can navigate products
Product Description Page – A popular item that ideally stays on your site. This will provide an indicator of you products on the site.
Essentially you want to capture as much data about the start, middle and end of the customer journey.