Simon LeonardTable of Contents
Meta Title: The Reasons Why Businesses Need Dedicated Proxies (49 characters)
Meta Description: Dedicated proxies offer a number of benefits for businesses, especially when it comes to market intelligence. Discover how these proxies can help. (146 characters)
Many businesses have started using proxies to aid in various processes. These can range from added security and anonymity to improving SEO and even assisting in data collection. However, there are many different proxies available. Each one is best suited to specific use cases. Some are better for completing automated tasks such as buying limited edition products. Others improve competitive online gaming. Then, there are proxies that help businesses with market intelligence.
In this article, we’ll be taking a closer look at the best proxies to use if you want to collect data and improve your market intelligence. Whether you choose to buy datacenter proxies or residential ones from a provider like Smartproxy, make sure you choose a dedicated one. Let’s take a look at why that’s the better option.
What is a Proxy?
Before we can look at different proxy types and why they make great tools for market intelligence, we first need to understand what a proxy is. Proxies act as intermediary servers between the user’s network and the web pages they want to access. As such, all of your internet traffic gets routed through this server. Essentially, this means you’re never connecting directly to the internet.
The proxy server will also assign you a new IP during the process. This means that your real IP and any associated information is protected behind the proxy server. Even if someone tracks the new IP, they’ll never make it back to you. At best, they’ll hit a dead end when reaching the proxy server.
Since proxies started becoming more popular, new proxies have been developed and older ones refined. You can now find various proxies, some suited to more specific tasks while others have more general uses. Proxies can usually be divided in how they assign IPs and the connection protocols they use.
For example, if you buy datacenter proxies, the IPs won’t be from real devices. Instead, they’ll be generated in data centers. These proxies are much faster than other types while also boasting an impressive uptime and affordable price tag. On the other end of the spectrum, you’ll find residential proxies. These are assigned real IPs from actual devices. This makes them more anonymous and very difficult to detect, but they’re often more expensive.
Many general proxies, especially datacenter ones, will often give you the option between a shared or dedicated proxy. The differences between these two will dictate what they can be used for.
As the name suggests, shared proxies share an IP between different users. This means that at any moment, multiple users could be using the same IP. This is fine if all you want is to hide your IP and remain anonymous online. However, you need a dedicated proxy when it comes to more specific tasks, such as market intelligence and data collection.
Dedicated proxies assign a single IP to your connection. This means no one else will use the same one. This is great for business-related tasks. As you know, the proxy is only being used for your needs. However, these proxies are often more expensive than shared options, but they’re also faster and more reliable.
How Do Dedicated Proxies Benefit Market Intelligence
Now that you know why you need a dedicated proxy, let’s look at how it will specifically benefit your market intelligence process.
Improved Data Collection
Effective market intelligence relies on large amounts of data. You have to constantly monitor various aspects of the market. However, this can become tricky if you want to collect market data in different locations. Because your IP is linked to your location, you’ll have a hard time accessing other areas because of geo-restrictions.
However, when you use a proxy, you can choose an IP in any location where you need to conduct research. This will make you appear like a user within that area, effectively removing any geo-restrictions. This is especially helpful if you plan on expanding your business and want to identify the best market.
Monitoring Competitors and Industry Trends
Part of market intelligence is monitoring your competitors and keeping an eye on industry trends. By knowing what your competitors are up to, you can benefit from their successes and failures. Similarly, monitoring industry trends will make it possible to identify new opportunities in the market. However, this requires vast amounts of data in order to drive decision-making. Data scraping will come in handy to help with the collection process.
Data scraping, however, is only efficient when paired with a dedicated proxy. This is because many websites will block your IP if they suspect you’re scraping their site. By using a proxy, you’ll have a different IP that you can use for scraping activities. If that IP is detected and becomes blocked, you can use a different one to continue your data collection activities.
Better Bandwidth Management
Using data collection tools such as web scrapers can place an immense strain on your bandwidth. If you were to pair it with a shared proxy where you also have to deal with other users, this can slow down your connection immensely. However, when you use a dedicated proxy, you don’t have to deal with others consuming the bandwidth. Also, all the data is cached on the proxy server’s side, leaving your bandwidth available for other things.
Having a faster, more reliable connection will speed up your data collection efforts. This means you’ll have access to more relevant data in a shorter period of time. Analyzing and acting on the data you collect in a timely manner is key to your success. As such, you want to ensure that the tools you use, including your proxy, work fast and reliably.
Final Thoughts
Dedicated proxies are essential tools for data collection and market intelligence. Whether you buy datacenter proxies or residential ones, ensure they’re at least private and not shared. Not only will this give you access to different markets, but it will also give you a faster, more reliable connection to ensure your data collection efforts run smoothly.
James Gordan
