We have already argued that access to global web intelligence helps brands expand globally. Building on this topic, we aim to highlight a technology that has been increasingly used by both established businesses and young tech innovators simultaneously.
We’re talking about proxy servers.
How to grow globally with proxies?
A proxy server is any third-party device that agrees to share its internet connection with you. Proxy service providers like IPRoyal offer millions of residential proxies worldwide. In this case, global proxy server distribution is the most crucial aspect.
By connecting to a proxy in a different country, you can browse the internet as if you were there. Have you noticed that numerous US websites are unavailable from the EU due to differences in data collection and protection laws between the two regions?
By connecting to a proxy server in the US, you can browse the internet as if you were physically there. This way, you can unblock restricted content, access localized Google search engine results, or verify that your ads in foreign markets are displayed correctly.
Why small teams need global data access
Global digital marketing is profitable, but it is also fiercely competitive. AI now powers many innovations, so keeping an eye out for already available services will help you spot a lucrative opportunity.
Rather than relying on intuition and investing months of work, it’s best to verify that your idea will likely find consumers. To achieve this, you can utilize proxy servers to scrape the web. Web scraping refers to an automated process of collecting publicly available online information.
For example, you can target product review sites and gather thousands of positive reviews. You can then use software like Thematic that transforms chunks of raw text into concise insights. You can then extract what users value most regarding a chosen service and include similar features in your idea.
You can also do the contrary. Scrape negative reviews to find out what people dislike most or what they would like to see added. It is a fast and efficient way to get some brainstorming ideas. Keep in mind that you can use global proxy servers to scrape local web data, which is a tremendous advantage when you want to localize your services or digital marketing campaigns.
Real use cases from youth-led ventures
So, what would a real project that uses proxy servers look like? Let’s take young influencers as an example who manage to grow their subscribers to millions on chosen platforms.
YouTube, for example, is a lot about entertaining content. To give you an idea of what people are looking for, you can use proxies to collect SEO keywords globally. Proxies will help you fetch genuinely local keywords, which you can then insert in your videos so that YouTube displays your content when people search for a specific topic.
Another example is social media marketing, which is a great conversion channel. However, many social and affiliate networks limit the number of accounts per user, identified by an IP address. Tech-savvy marketers use proxies to assign a different IP address to each account.
This way, you can use dozens or even hundreds of accounts to reach many more potential buyers on a chosen platform.
How to choose the right proxy type?
The variety of proxy types can be overwhelming if you’re unfamiliar with this technology. Here are four popular proxy types with their unique benefits.
This type of proxy is by far the most popular because it allows the user to connect to the internet using a genuine person’s device with a real residential connection. Simply put, a residential proxy ensures your traffic “blends in” with other regular internet users.
As a result, these proxies are nearly impossible to detect, ban, or block. They’re ideal for highly sensitive tasks like web scraping, even from highly challenging sources.
These proxies come from datacenter servers, which ensures the best possible connection speed, uptime, and price. However, unlike residential proxies, they are easily identifiable. Still, they’re an excellent option for ad verification, large data transfers, app and localization testing, and similar tasks.
ISP-owned servers in datacenters power this proxy type. ISP proxies offer the best of both worlds: great performance of datacenter proxies and high authenticity of residential proxies. They’re the best choice for tasks that require reliable access to a single highly-trusted IP address, such as managing multiple social media accounts without risking detection.
Mobile proxy servers are more expensive than other types, but they are nearly undetectable, because each mobile proxy comes from a real mobile network operator. In simple terms, they open doors that other proxy types can’t.
With that in mind, they’re the go-to option for all proxy operations that require a genuine mobile IP address, but also excel at online privacy protection. You can safely use them for web scraping, social media management, ad verification, automation, and other purposes, even on platforms with high protection measures in place.
Final words: successful global business growth
This covers the most popular and beneficial proxy server use cases that young tech innovators use. From influencers to data analysts, digital marketing enthusiasts, and beyond, many utilize proxies to explore and conquer international markets and reach local consumers.
When scraping the web, keep in mind that you must adhere to data collection and safety laws, like the GDPR in Europe, or the CCPA in the US. This means that you can only gather publicly available and depersonalized data to respect people’s online privacy. And if you want to learn more about it, check out our web scraping for business article.