SOP: Load-Test a Smartlink Before a Traffic Spike

SOP: Load-Test a Smartlink Before a Traffic Spike

Before a big push or media buy, confirm the link won't choke.

— Step 1: Estimate peak clicks/second from your buy plan; load-test at 2x that.
— Step 2: Run the test against a staging route, not live offers, so you don't fire real postbacks.
— Step 3: Measure redirect latency at p95, not average; the slow tail is where clicks drop.
— Step 4: Watch for fallback misfires under load; rules sometimes time out and dump to Tier C.
— Step 5: Confirm your dedup store and geo lookup hold up; these are common bottlenecks.
— Step 6: Verify postback endpoint returns 200 under concurrent load, not timeouts.

Target p95 redirect under 300ms at peak. Above that, fix before you buy traffic.

Repeat before every major campaign launch.