The Challenge
Cupola Creative builds brand-forward digital work — sites that should feel as crafted as the brand identity they're built to serve. But the team kept running into the same uncomfortable pattern: the design system would land beautifully on desktop in a portfolio shot, then load like dial-up on the visitor's phone.
Three problems compounded:
- Hero imagery and motion came at a perf cost. Brand-forward sites lean on full-bleed photography, video loops, and rich type. Without serious image and font optimization, those elements pushed Largest Contentful Paint well past Google's 2.5-second threshold.
- Plugin sprawl from years of "we'll just add one for that." Forms, animation, popups, analytics, accessibility, SEO — each layered in a plugin until the average site was carrying 30+ active plugins, many of them duplicating functionality.
- No portfolio-wide performance discipline. Each site's Core Web Vitals were measured (or not measured) by whichever team built it. There was no shared baseline and no shared improvement program.
The agency didn't want to slow down design. They wanted the engineering layer underneath to keep up.
The Approach
TopSyde took on managed hosting for the portfolio and ran a focused Core Web Vitals program in parallel.
Step 1 — Baseline every site, publicly
Each site was measured on Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP) on real-device mobile and on PageSpeed Insights, with results visible in the TopSyde portal. The baseline was the contract — every improvement gets measured against it.
Step 2 — Migrate to a perf-first stack
Sites were moved onto Kinsta-managed WordPress with Cloudflare in front handling CDN, image optimization, and edge caching. Migrations were zero-downtime and sequenced around active campaigns.
Step 3 — Image and font discipline
Hero images were converted to next-gen formats and served at responsive sizes. Custom brand fonts were preloaded and subset to only the glyphs in use. Video backgrounds were swapped for poster-first lazy loading where possible.
Step 4 — Plugin audit and consolidation
Every site got a plugin audit. Duplicates were removed. Heavy general-purpose plugins were swapped for lighter, purpose-built alternatives or replaced with custom code where it made sense. The portfolio average dropped from 32 active plugins per site to 18.
Step 5 — Per-site CLS hunting
Cumulative Layout Shift was tackled site-by-site: reserving image dimensions, locking ad slots, eliminating late-loading webfonts that re-flowed text. CLS dropped from a portfolio average of 0.21 to 0.04 — well inside Google's "good" threshold of 0.1.
The Results
The brand agency's work now performs as well as it looks:
- Average mobile LCP dropped from 3.8 seconds to 1.4 seconds — a 63% improvement, comfortably inside the 2.5-second "good" threshold.
- Average CLS dropped from 0.21 to 0.04, eliminating the page-jumping that was undermining the brand work on mobile.
- Average mobile PageSpeed score jumped from 58 to 96.
- Active plugin count per site dropped from 32 to 18, cutting both attack surface and ongoing maintenance overhead.
- Every site in the portfolio now passes Core Web Vitals on all three metrics — removing a quiet drag on organic visibility that nobody had been measuring.
Why It Worked
Three things, in combination:
- Performance treated as a portfolio program, not a one-off project. Every site measured, every site improved, every site monitored continuously.
- A perf-first stack the agency didn't have to manage. Kinsta + Cloudflare + image optimization, configured once, running on every site.
- Engineering depth without engineering overhead. Direct access to senior devs who could do the CLS hunting and plugin consolidation work without the agency hiring for it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long did the Core Web Vitals program take to show results?
First-pass improvements (image optimization, CDN, plugin consolidation) showed up within the first month. Per-site CLS work and font tuning rolled out over the following quarter. Most sites hit "good" Core Web Vitals on every metric within 60–90 days of migration.
Did the agency have to redesign sites to hit these numbers?
No. The redesigns were not required. The improvements came from stack changes, image and font discipline, plugin consolidation, and targeted CLS fixes — design work was untouched.
Are performance reports shared with the end clients?
Quarterly portfolio-wide performance reports are delivered to the agency, who shares them with their own clients in their own brand voice. TopSyde stays invisible.
What happens if a new site joins the portfolio?
It gets baselined immediately, migrated onto the stack, and added to the Core Web Vitals program. The same playbook runs every time.
The Stack — Named, Not Hidden
We tell you exactly what runs underneath. No proprietary black box.
Business Outcomes
- →Brand-forward creative work no longer undercut by sluggish page loads on mobile devices, where the majority of brand discovery happens.
- →Sites pass Core Web Vitals on every metric — eliminating a long-running drag on organic visibility for the agency's clients.
- →Plugin sprawl cut nearly in half, reducing both attack surface and ongoing maintenance overhead.
- →Quarterly performance reports the agency can share directly with their clients, in their own brand voice.
DevOps & Security Lead
12+ years DevOps, Linux & cloud infrastructure certified
Marcus leads infrastructure and security at TopSyde, managing the server fleet and AI monitoring systems that keep client sites fast and protected. Former sysadmin turned WordPress hosting specialist.