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Preparing Your Mobile App for the Black Friday Digital Swarm

Derek Stevens

The Black Friday digital swarm is approaching. Are you prepared? Sure your infrastructure is ready to scale, you've issued a production code freeze, and you're actively monitoring your applications with Application Performance Management (APM), but many organizations are overlooking one major component that can have a direct impact on Black Friday revenue: the mobile app.  

Appbusters are the New Doorbusters

Mobile commerce is at an all-time high. In 2014, one in three online purchases came from a smartphone or tablet on Black Friday and at one point, mobile traffic surpassed 50% of all Internet traffic . From Black Friday to Cyber Monday, 70% of all traffic to Walmart.com was from mobile devices. This growth in mobile purchases is set to continue this year with an increasing number brands offering exclusive deals on mobile apps and in-store digital experiences. 
 
Despite the increasing importance of providing a great user experience for mobile apps, there are few companies who have mastered the mobile space. In fact, only 48% of organizations are using a mobile app analytics solution to understand user pain points and behavior. Without understanding how your users are interacting with your mobile app, it's impossible to put yourself in the shoes of your customers and answer key questions like: 

■ Where and when is the app used?

■ What are my users doing with our app?

■ Who is using our app?

■ Is our mobile app successful? 
 
But even if you have insight into user behavior, that alone isn't enough. Without a view into app crashes and performance, you won't understand why your users are behaving in certain ways. Take the following scenario as an example: it's Black Friday and you discover that 20% of your users are dropping off your mobile app at checkout. If you only have a view into user behavior, you won't know if users dropping off because the app is crashing on a specific device type or OS, if it's a certain carrier or network performance issue, if the transaction was taking too long to complete or if the users just decided to not to complete the checkout process. 
 
A mobile app analytics solution that provides you with insight into performance, crash, and usage analytics while providing end-to-end transaction visibility when combined with APM can give you the comprehensive view you need to effectively eliminate your mobile app blind spots.

Derek Stevens is Sr. Product Marketing Manager at CA Technologies.

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Preparing Your Mobile App for the Black Friday Digital Swarm

Derek Stevens

The Black Friday digital swarm is approaching. Are you prepared? Sure your infrastructure is ready to scale, you've issued a production code freeze, and you're actively monitoring your applications with Application Performance Management (APM), but many organizations are overlooking one major component that can have a direct impact on Black Friday revenue: the mobile app.  

Appbusters are the New Doorbusters

Mobile commerce is at an all-time high. In 2014, one in three online purchases came from a smartphone or tablet on Black Friday and at one point, mobile traffic surpassed 50% of all Internet traffic . From Black Friday to Cyber Monday, 70% of all traffic to Walmart.com was from mobile devices. This growth in mobile purchases is set to continue this year with an increasing number brands offering exclusive deals on mobile apps and in-store digital experiences. 
 
Despite the increasing importance of providing a great user experience for mobile apps, there are few companies who have mastered the mobile space. In fact, only 48% of organizations are using a mobile app analytics solution to understand user pain points and behavior. Without understanding how your users are interacting with your mobile app, it's impossible to put yourself in the shoes of your customers and answer key questions like: 

■ Where and when is the app used?

■ What are my users doing with our app?

■ Who is using our app?

■ Is our mobile app successful? 
 
But even if you have insight into user behavior, that alone isn't enough. Without a view into app crashes and performance, you won't understand why your users are behaving in certain ways. Take the following scenario as an example: it's Black Friday and you discover that 20% of your users are dropping off your mobile app at checkout. If you only have a view into user behavior, you won't know if users dropping off because the app is crashing on a specific device type or OS, if it's a certain carrier or network performance issue, if the transaction was taking too long to complete or if the users just decided to not to complete the checkout process. 
 
A mobile app analytics solution that provides you with insight into performance, crash, and usage analytics while providing end-to-end transaction visibility when combined with APM can give you the comprehensive view you need to effectively eliminate your mobile app blind spots.

Derek Stevens is Sr. Product Marketing Manager at CA Technologies.

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According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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