In modern day society data is everything. Individuals aren’t made of atoms; rather they are made of data. In order to be successful it’s crucial for businesses to gather such data. Free data is available throughout the Internet, but just as trends change rapidly, so does data. Businesses can use freely available data but data sources are often outdated. Consequently businesses are required to gather data using their own software tools to keep up with changes. The two basic tools you need for data scraping are automation tools and a proxy server.

In this article, we will delve into the necessity of a residential proxy server. The advangtages of residential proxies are numerous.

Market Research

Market research becomes harder day-by-day. Especially if a buisness is trying to research its competitors’ data. Most businesses take meticulous measures to protect their data from their competition, but there is a wall that prevents them from securing their data completely. The wall is consumers.

Residential IP addresses give businesses access to the data of its competitors. When a business uses a residential IP address the competitor’s servers see an incoming request from a potential customer rather than from a business competitor.

For example, Business A is an airline looking to compare its ticket prices from Canada to Cuba with other airlines. If Business A uses a datacenter IP address other airlines will detect that a business competitor is making a request to see the ticket prices and block Business A from seeing their true prices. However if Business A uses a residential IP address, other airlines will detect a potential customer from Canada who is looking to buy round-trip tickets to and from Cuba. These airlines will freely show Business A their true ticket prices.

Ad Verification

Brand safety concerns continue to rise in the world of marketing. One of the biggest issues with brand safety is ad verification. Purchasing media placements is not cheap and it’s crucial for businesses to make sure that their ads are being placed correctly.

One of the problems that businesses can run into with ad fraud is the problem with hidden ads. Ads are hidden in many different ways. It could be hidden in a 1x1 pixel iframe; it could hidden outside a viewport area; or it could even be hidden among many other ads that are being shown on the same slot. This can lead to false reports of viewership and inhibit a company from getting real insights on the effectiveness of their advertisement.

Another problem businesses run into is the problem of laundering. Sometimes ads end up on fradulent websites or websites whose contents and audiences do not match the advertising business’ model. This results in ineffective and expensive advertising and could cause damange to the image of the brand.

With residential IP addresses, businesses that run ads online can check up on where and how their ads are being posted. Fixing the problem with ad fraud is not a one-step process, but uusing residential IP addresses to make sure the ads are being properly placed is the first step to creating better protection against ad fraud.

Summary

These are a few of the ways a business can utilize residential IP addresses. Reasons to use residential IP addresses for a business are numerous. If you are a business looking to utilize residential IPs, PacketStream offers affordable high-quality residential bandwidth for $1.00/GB.