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Scaling social media data collection to new heights without IP blocks
Scaling social media data collection to new heights without IP blocks
Cely, a fast-growing startup successfully overcame IP blocks while gathering data from social media targets. Find out how they did it and how you can do the same.
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Case study overview
Use case
Gathering Brazilian social media data in bulk for influencer marketing insights.
Challenge
Collecting massive amounts of data without IP blocks.
Solution
Residential proxies to reach social media targets without IP blocks in the Brazilian market.
Benefits
– <0.5s proxy response time;
– 99.68% success rate;
– City-level targeting;
– Easy-to-use dashboard;
– 24/7 tech support.
About Cely
Cely is a Brazilian startup that claims to democratize influencer marketing by connecting brands and content creators of all sizes and niches. The platform uses data intelligence to help brands find the best match for collaboration and empowers smaller creators to stand out. They provide data insights and consulting services for their clients too.
Cely was founded in 2016, first named as Celebryts, and has been building its technical product since 2020.
"Proxies are critical to Cely's data collection architecture, so we needed a top-notch proxy partner. We found that partner in Smartproxy. Their high-quality residential proxies and exceptional support have made them feel like an extension of our team."
– Mauro Rezende, CTO of Cely
The challenge
Cely, a rapidly expanding startup that monitors over 100,000 content creators, faced various IP blocks and CAPTCHAs as soon as it started to scale data gathering. The company needed a massive amount of data to prepare insights – from real-time engagement metrics to snapshots of content audiences. Besides, the startup primarily serves clients in Brazil and Latin America, so Cely preferred a localized data collection option.
The company initially tried setting up its proxy server to combat IP blocks. As the demand increased, the internal server couldn't handle the number of requests, and Cely risked getting blocks on their IP addresses.
"We use comparative analysis to uncover why some posts perform better than others by looking at how they fare across different content creators' accounts," says M. Rezende. "While providing high-quality analysis is the core of our business, the timeliness of the data is also crucial in helping our clients make informed decisions and drive success." To ensure unstoppable data collection flow, the professional proxy service was inevitable, and Cely started looking for a trustworthy partner.
The solution
Cely's management knew that choosing a reliable residential proxy service was key to their long-term success. The startup specifically required residential IPs since they needed a city-level targeting option and a wide pool of Brazilian IPs.
“We were testing four well-known proxy providers to evaluate their capabilities,” says the CTO of Cely. “We had specific criteria for choosing the provider: first, the proxy solution had to be easy to integrate to our infrastructure and work well; second, we needed proper 24/7 support in case of emergencies; and third, the price had to be reasonable. After testing all four providers, we found that Smartproxy had the best balance of these criteria."
Cely performed stress tests to see how the service would perform under heavy data collection. Now, the company uses Smartproxy's residential proxies to gather data, which is then stored in a raw data inbox and processed through a data pipeline. The collected data is used to create reports and insights for Cely's customers.
Residential proxies’ benefits that helped Cely improve data gathering
- Fast response time. Cely speeds up its data collection process thanks to the broader IP distribution enabled by a large pool of fast proxies.
- High success rate. Reliable proxy service almost eliminated proxy errors.
- City-level targeting. Cely can easily select the IP address location by targeting specific Brazilian cities.
- Easy-to-use dashboard. Cely has no trouble monitoring proxy usage and avoiding abuse due to the user-friendly dashboard.
On a final note
If you’re looking for a proxy provider for your business, here are M. Rezende suggestions how on to find the perfect one:
- Understand the integration scope. Before starting your proxy journey, you add a new layer to your architecture. It can take time, especially if you are new to using proxies.
- Perform stress tests. Stress testing can help prevent issues, especially if you are in the pre-launch stage or planning to scale. Testing the proxy provider's performance under increasing loads is an excellent way to ensure that it can handle the demands of your business.
- Test and log the performance metrics. We recorded metrics such as proxy connection speed, uptime, and errors during the test period. It helped us make informed decisions.
- Check the used proxy information. With Smartproxy, you can easily access the metadata for the IP address you are using. In case of errors, you can check if they are related to specific proxy attributes and prevent future issues by identifying patterns.
- Contact support. During our tests, we encountered an issue on the weekend. We contacted the Smartproxy support team, and they quickly resolved the problem. So, good support can be critical.
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