Residential proxies and how they help with digital marketing
Nowadays, all businesses require an online presence to stay relevant and competitive. Digital marketers face an ever-changing landscape of complex algorithms and digital advertising to ensure their business remains competitive. Digital marketers are constantly looking for ways to automate and improve their efforts, such as using proxies to improve data collection. But, exactly how does a residential proxy help digital marketers?
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how residential proxies can be used for marketing. We’ll look at how they enable users to collect more data and more varied and accurate data. We’ll also look at location-specific proxies like a France proxy from providers like Smartproxy and how these enable you to collect even more useful data.
We’ll be covering the following topics while looking at the use of residential proxies for marketing:
- What are proxies?
- What makes residential proxies different from others?
- How can residential proxies be used for marketing?
What are proxies?
Proxies are intermediary servers that act like firewalls and filters, among other things. The proxy intercepts any search requests made by the user and then sends them along to the necessary web servers from their side using their IP addresses instead of the users. An IP address is required to use the internet. However, they also share a lot of your personal details with websites. For anyone looking for online anonymity to safely browse the internet, collect competitor data or analyze SEO, a proxy can help.
Another reason why proxies are so popular is that they allow the user to bypass geo-restrictions and gain access to any data. A France proxy, for example, makes it appear that you’re accessing the internet from within the country even if you aren’t. This will allow you to see localized data even without being in the country. There are many similar location-specific proxies, such as a France proxy, so that you can choose from various countries according to your needs. These include Brazil, North America, China, Russia and more.
Benefits of using a proxy:
- Improved security
- Online anonymity
- Increases the functionality of automation tools
- Bypass geo-restrictions
What makes residential proxies different from others?
There are many different types of proxies, and many of them have been designed for specific uses, such as Instagram proxies or HTTP proxies. However, not all proxies are residential proxies; some are datacenter proxies. The main difference between the two is that residential proxies are linked to real devices with IP addresses. This means that when they are used alongside automation tools such as web scrapers or social media tools, they look like real users instead of bots and won’t get banned. This means your data collection and marketing efforts can be scaled without bans and incomplete or inaccurate data.
How can residential proxies be used for marketing?
Marketers are starting to rely more on proxies to get an accurate image when conducting market research. Since your IP is tied to your physical location and contains details such as the devices you use, you see personalized data when browsing competitors’ websites. The information you see can be completely different from what another user sees, especially if that user is in another country. Proxies are required to ensure digital marketers get a complete image of the market data they collect. Here are some ways that a residential proxy can be used for marketing.
Price comparison
Digital marketers should use residential proxies that allow them to select different locations when conducting price comparisons. There are many things that can affect the price you see on a website. From your location to the devices you use, it can affect the prices you see.
Ads verification
Your location can also affect how you see ads and how others see your ads. As such, a residential proxy can be used to see how ads appear in other countries. Marketers can use these proxies to verify their own ads to prevent ad fraud or to see how competitors curate ads for different audiences.
Account management
Residential proxies also make it possible for marketers to manage multiple social media accounts. Most platforms only allow a handful of accounts per IP address before banning the accounts. With a residential proxy, you can allocate a different IP to each account, ensuring you can manage many different accounts from the same location without getting banned.
Data collection
Residential proxies work well alongside your web scraping tools to automate your data collection efforts. With more data at your disposal, you can make better marketing decisions by monitoring the market, competitors and more.
SEO and SERP analysis
A residential proxy also allows you to monitor your SEO and SERP results by identifying what works for competitors and improving your own content to surpass them.
Final thoughts
Residential proxies have become essential for businesses. It protects the users’ network and online privacy and can also be used for marketing. With a residential proxy, you can collect better data to monitor and influence your marketing efforts. They also allow you to see localized data from other countries by selecting IPs in that country.
