Influencer marketing in action: Our approach to managing website traffic spikes.
In this case study, you’ll discover:
Influencer marketing is one of today’s most popular strategies, and when executed correctly (for example, by offering influencers a commission from sales generated by their content), it can be highly effective for online stores.
Vonavy domov embraced this approach and, in collaboration with the Poppies marketing agency, partnered with one of Slovakia’s most well-known influencers. This partnership resulted not only in a special collection of fragrant oils named after the influencer but also in engaging content, such as 24-hour Instagram stories.
One such story was published shortly after the launch of our newly developed online store on November 7, 2022. On that day, the store saw a more than 3.5-fold increase in sales, along with a significant boost in website traffic.
This trend continues whenever a marketing campaign is run through the influencer’s channels.
For nearly all components of the online store (frontend, API, database), we utilized GCloud’s cloud hosting solution. This is particularly advantageous when you need to temporarily boost server capacity due to increased traffic, but only for a few days rather than permanently.
Before an expected increase in traffic, the cloud's intuitive admin panel allows for quick server performance upgrades with just a few clicks. Once the marketing activity is over, these resources can be scaled back, reducing the operating costs. Achieving this with traditional non-cloud hosting solutions would be far more challenging.
Email-related issues can arise during high traffic, affecting not just the server but the database as well. After analyzing vonavydomov.eu’s system, we identified order status update emails as a weak point during traffic spikes. To address this, we integrated Mailchimp's Mandrill add-on.
Mandrill specializes in handling large email volumes, managing SMTP servers automatically to ensure a 99.99% delivery rate.
It also offers templates, tracking, and the ability to resend emails if needed.
To maintain fast load times even during heavy traffic, we implemented caching across the entire frontend. This process stores data temporarily, significantly boosting site performance.
Caching happens at 10-minute intervals, meaning the site only renders for the first user, while subsequent visitors within that timeframe see the cached version. This ensures smooth performance, even during high demand.
Since the store offers products in relatively low price ranges, it’s more beneficial for both customers and operators to encourage larger orders, reducing the frequency of individual transactions while maintaining profitability. To support this, we introduced product bundle options, allowing customers to purchase a set of products at a discounted price. As a result, the most popular item today is a set of fragrant oils.
A sudden influx of orders, such as during an exclusive sale, often leads to errors. Incomplete or incorrect shipping addresses can slow down order fulfillment, requiring administrators to contact customers for corrections.
To streamline this, we integrated Foxentry, which validates form data in real-time by checking it against an extensive database. This feature also offers predictive text to help customers complete forms faster, further reducing errors.
To help administrators track payments for individual orders, we implemented our own transaction monitoring solution. The store is connected via API to TatraPay and GoPay payment gateways.
When a successful payment is made, the order is immediately marked as paid in the admin panel. For bank transfers, a script matches payments to orders and marks them as paid.
Unsuccessful transactions are clearly highlighted for quick identification.
To make shipping orders easier, we developed a bulk label printing solution directly within the admin panel. The system also integrates with major carriers, so administrators don’t need to log into each courier service separately—they can select the shipping provider directly from the store’s admin panel.
The collaboration between Vonavy domov and bart is structured in a way that the IT team is informed in advance about upcoming promotions, influencer partnerships, new collection launches, contests, and other marketing activities. This ensures the team can prepare for potential traffic spikes and adjust the system accordingly.he IT specialists are also available during peak times, including holidays when most marketing activities occur.
This close collaboration between the store operators, the Poppies marketing agency, and the bart developers has proven highly effective. Thanks to the well-coordinated marketing strategy and efficient store management system, vonavydomov.eu continues to grow month by month.
The most important incorporated modules
Technologies used
Marketing activities of the vonavydomov.eu eshop are taken care of by the Poppies agency
We chose to work with bart based on a recommendation from our marketing agency, Poppies. Our old store could no longer handle the volume of orders, and we needed a more flexible solution with more intensive support. We found both with bart. The IT team communicates with us, based on agreement and planning, even outside of working hours, and the store no longer has any issues with high traffic. We believe that we will achieve similar, if not better, success in the Czech market, where we plan to expand soon.
