Houska notes the APM tool allowed the team to proactively identify and address performance bottlenecks prior to the Super Bowl. He says it has aided with capacity planning by providing visibility into transaction volume and response time in applications, giving the team the ability to properly size capacity based on upcoming business issues. Additionally, developers are able to gauge performance up front in the development process, taking that onus away from QA teams and allowing them to focus on other issues.

Cars.com is not alone in its desire to gain better visibility into the performance of its applications. A recent survey of IT executives by research firm Quocirca found that 82 percent of CIOs expect their business customers and users to demand better performance-faster page loads, checkout, etc.-from their websites and applications in 2012. And 43 percent of CIOs are not confident that they will be able to deliver.

"The research results were very clear: application performance is the primary concern of the survey respondents amongst the various issues they were asked about, and the majority accepted that measures must be taken over the next 12 months to address this and improve the end user experience," says Bob Tarzey, analyst and director at Quocirca.

"Ultimately, all IT delivery is about application delivery," Tarzey adds. "If the performance of applications that serve a business and its employees, partners and customers is sub-optimal, then so is that business' competitiveness. Although application delivery is complex, it is possible to get a holistic view of the transaction performance and the user experience, but only if an APM system is in place that is capable of achieving this."