The advertising market is continuously growing, with the growth rate of online advertising significantly outpacing that of all other ad types (on TV, radio, billboards etc.). This is a global trend. Just in case, here is a link to a study by Markets and Markets (2023).
Naturally, when outsourcing the display of their ads on various websites and in contextual advertising networks, advertisers want some clear guarantees: to ensure adequate coverage, correct materials display (not just inflating statistics) and relevant targeting set up.
But here arises the problem - how to control contractors? In this material, we will discuss options for verifying online advertising and how this may be related to proxy rental.
Ad verification is the process of qualitative and quantitative control of the display of ad messages to ensure compliance with the conditions of their display outlined in partnership agreements. For example, the verification may include checking the display region, targeting parameters like reaching the intended audience, timing of display and other targeting criteria.
Controlling contractors responsible for displaying your ad messages helps address several related issues:
In some cases, monitoring competitors may be required to analyze their advertising policies and marketing strategies.
To achieve the outlined tasks, a high-quality technical component is required - everything that allows the emulation of user behavior, virtualization of parameters of digital footprint and location (for targeting conditions verification), taking screenshots and collecting evidence.
In fact, the advertising verification script differs from parsers. It is just focused on blocks of ad messages not on the main content. Such a specialized parser can work on different target sites or on a specific one. In the former case, a separate handler for the page structure has to be created for each target resource.
As with regular parsers, scripts for ad verification may encounter attempts at blocking:
Detailed problems with blocking parsers were described in the article "Scrape Like a Pro! Best Practices for Web Scraping Without Getting Blocked".
Why verify ad displays at all? Contractors or end sites that provide banner rotation services on their pages may:
Additionally, intermediary services may not control targeting conditions themselves: the location of customers, their interests, digital footprints etc.
All this ultimately results in the waste of your ad budget without producing the expected result: in the form of increased brand recognition, sales growth or promotion of new products/services.
Note that not just HTML parsing scripts may be required for the highest quality ad control, but also complex solutions with elements of computer vision (for screenshot recognition), tools for working with a large number of user profiles (anti-detection browsers), APIs for user behavior emulation (headless browsers) and external services for solving captcha (with computer vision or those that involve manual labor).
Now let's talk about how the process of ad display verification and large proxy databases are related.
As mentioned earlier, target sites (internet resources where your ads or competitors' ads are displayed) can defend themselves using available methods - they detect parasitic traffic and block all automated requests.
Naturally, many security checks are based on the analysis of the structure of browser HTTP headers/requests as well as on the analysis of the IP address.
Based on the IP address, you can determine the approximate location of the user, their network operator, the IP pool owner as well as the type of connection (mobile network, home or corporate).
And if the user's profile does not match the IP parameters, this is the first reason for blocking, or at least a reason to request re-authorization/verification of the user's "humanity" (captcha, solving logical tasks, confirmation of authorization by additional factors etc.). For example, when a mobile app client tries to connect from a server IP, the site may have legitimate security concerns about the session.
Even if you have high-quality user profiles (digital fingerprints) at your disposal, they must work with equally high-quality IP addresses.
But where can you find IP addresses that meet your criteria? In proxy server networks.
As mentioned earlier, the match between the IP address and user profile is crucial. Advertising networks can determine many different parameters based on IP, including location, connection type etc. This means that an ad verification proxy should not just be a mere "proxy." It must closely match real clients from specific regions or even specific cities.
To acquire proxies that match your criteria, you have to be aware of their types and associated features.
Proxies vary: they can be direct and reverse (back-connect proxies), transparent and anonymous, public (open) and private (exclusive), static and dynamic. However, the most critical division of proxies for ad verification is based on the type of device they belong to.
In particular, the following proxies are distinguished: mobile, residential and server (corporate) proxies.
It's worth mentioning the convenience of selecting addresses and the method of connecting proxies to niche software. Classic direct proxies are usually connected by lists, while the latter are exported in a specific format: IP:port@login:password etc.
Back-connect proxies can be connected with just one line or through multiple ports. Technically, these are the same proxies, in the same format (IP:port@login:password etc.), but incoming requests are routed within the network and can come out with completely different IPs. Consequently, the rotation of non-functional proxies can be automated as well as the selection of proxies based on your criteria: address type, location, retention time etc. The connection parameters remain the same because the entry point to the proxy network does not change.
Naturally, proxies with reverse feedback are more convenient and practical, letting you save much time on connection and automatic rotation.
Only proxy services with extensive coverage and precise targeting will help you emulate location so that security and ad rotation systems perceive the visitor as a real customer.
No other technical solution can achieve this. For example, VPN networks always have a limited choice of addresses and do not provide conditions for their selection in specific locations.
On the other hand, proxies alone are not enough. To ensure the ads proxy verification process is of the highest quality, other technical aspects need to be considered:
Be sure to calculate the approximate traffic and all associated expenses. Based on this data, you can obtain adequate figures for the future budget and assess the profitability of the ad verification process. In some cases, it may be cheaper to manually control the ads or not to control them at all (this also happens).
If you have significant expenses on internet advertising and work with a large number of contractors or partners, it makes sense to automate the process of verifying ad campaigns. This will help optimize expenses and avoid speculation from the contractors.
Automatic verification of ad campaigns is essentially done through special parsing programs aimed at analyzing the content of ad blocks. These can be simple custom scripts or complex software suites with elements of computer vision, integration of third-party APIs and web services. The complexity of the systems primarily depends on the algorithms of protection on target sites. The better the protection is, the more complex and high-quality the means of bypassing it should be.
Multi-threaded operation of any parser is impossible without the use of proxies. The best ad verification proxies are mobile or residential with prompt rotation and precise geotargeting.
You can rent these very proxies from us. Froxy offers over 8 million IPs with selection up to the city and telecom operator. The number of threads may vary. You only pay for the consumed traffic. A special trial package is provided for focused testing.