There are only 10 days left until the most anticipated shopping weekend of the season. According to Rakuten Marketing data, Cyber Monday was the highest online revenue-earning day for retailers during Cyber Week, outperforming Black Friday by 45 percent. Mobile accounted for 41 percent of retail site traffic, with peak mobile activity on Thanksgiving Day.

By now you should have your content calendar, discounts and promotions in place with your partners, but are you totally prepared for optimal success? Here are a few items to keep in mind as the shopping season draws near:

  1. Ensure your site can handle the additional traffic
    Throughout the next week and a half, you should be actively testing your site or platform for the additional traffic you will be experiencing during Cyber Week. Consumers are going to be swarming publisher sites for deals and purchases, and even the biggest brands and publishers are not immune to getting overloaded. Even going dark for a couple minutes can be detrimental to sales and commissions. A retailer could potentially lose roughly 8 percent of the day’s digital sales for each hour it’s down. It is your job to make sure your site can handle all surges in traffic to your partners.
  2. Have an emergency plan in place
    You can take every precautionary measure leading up to Cyber Week, but something could still go wrong. Taking the steps to plan ahead is important, but creating a plan of action if something were to go wrong is even better. Have a protocol in place so you can react immediately and efficiently. Share contact information among your team and developers, and make sure everyone is clear on what their responsibilities will be throughout the week.
  3. Optimize for mobile shoppers
    According to Rakuten Marketing data, in Q4 2016, attributed revenue for mobile increased by 53 percent year-over-year. This trend is expected to continue for the 2017 holiday shopping season. It is becoming more and more important to make sure your site is optimized for a seamless mobile experience. A number of different publishers and advertisers in the Rakuten Affiliate Network were evaluated to find out if mobile optimization helped contribute to performance. We found that publishers who had optimized their mobile site for speed had 10% more mobile clicks than those who were not optimized, and advertisers saw an average of 3 additional conversions per every 1,000 mobile clicks. By creating an exemplary mobile experience, you can expect a profitable and successful Cyber Week.

A strategic Cyber Week plan will ultimately increase conversions and commissions, resulting in overall affiliate success. It’s important to tackle these last-minute steps to make sure 2017 Cyber Week is the best yet.

Rakuten Affiliate Network is dedicated to helping brands and publishers prepare for the holiday shopping season. Visit www.rakutenmarketing.com/affiliate to learn more.