Additional editorial commentary by Ilia Bromberg
The challenges of high-traffic events
Brands that host high-demand events, often called “hype sales,” face multiplying business challenges. The rapid increase in visitors, amplified by scalping or inventory hoarding bots, can overwhelm infrastructure and negatively impact customer experience.
These automated attacks disrupt the sales process and can impact consumer trust, making it harder for genuine shoppers to purchase highly desired items. The consequences include frustrated customers, damage to brand reputation, and operational inefficiencies as businesses struggle to manage unpredictable traffic spikes.
Big launches, big problems
One of the most visible examples of this problem comes from large-scale ticketing and product launches, during which bots flood the systems to secure limited inventory before real customers have a chance.
The result is widespread frustration, website crashes, and inflated resale markets — exposing vulnerabilities in online sales platforms and highlighting the need for more sophisticated traffic control measures to prevent bot-driven inventory hoarding.
Akamai’s partnership with Queue-it for Hype Event Protection
In partnership with Queue-it, Akamai is excited to introduce a new capability to our Akamai Bot Manager and Akamai Account Protector products that directly addresses these challenges by mitigating the impact of malicious inventory hoarding bots and providing businesses with greater control over event traffic.
Hype Event Protection combines the power of Queue-it’s virtual waiting room and Akamai’s sophisticated Akamai bot and abuse protection solutions to ensure a seamless shopping and customer experience, maintain infrastructure availability under peak loads, and internally reduce resources required for businesses to host major online sales events.
By combining Akamai’s advanced bot management capabilities with Queue-it’s traffic control, organizations can ensure fair access to inventory and deliver a reliable, stable shopping experience for legitimate customers.
Hype Event Protection helps businesses:
Mitigate scalping and inventory hoarding bots: Prevent bots from monopolizing inventory and blocking real customers from completing purchases by controlling the traffic flow
Extend bot visibility into the pre-queue: Expanded detection into Queue-it’s pre-queue provides earlier insights and richer telemetry for bot analysis
Keep sales fair and fast: Every shopper enters through the same secure traffic flow, blocking bots right at the start
- Protect performance and resources: Keep your site stable through traffic surges while minimizing the staff needed to manage them
How does Hype Event Protection work?
Hype Event Protection integrates Queue-it’s virtual waiting room with Bot Manager and Account Protector products. Traditional bot mitigation methods often tip off bot operators, prompting them to pivot and intensify disruptive traffic during sales events.
By allowing bot traffic into a virtual waiting room but using specialized techniques to prioritize human users, vendors can manage these events more effectively without triggering endless cat-and-mouse tactics.
Hype Event Protection IRL
Over the past few months, several customers have benefited from Hype Event Protection across hundreds of major online events, experiencing dramatic improvements in bot detection and mitigation.
This data comes from a real-life ticket sale run using Hype Event Protection by a top-five global ticketing company:
98% of the total traffic to the sale was identified as bots and mitigated
Genuine fans had a 50x higher chance of getting tickets
Just under two million bots were blocked in total
Get started today
Hype Event Protection is available to any new or existing Akamai customer with Bot Manager or Account Protector combined with EdgeWorkers and Queue-it’s virtual waiting room.
For more information on how Akamai can help safeguard your next high-traffic event, talk to an expert.
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