Gumtree - Case study

Challenge

Ineffective existing bot management solution, blocking less than 1% of unwanted traffic.
Unauthorised data scraping of listings and user data, preventing data monetisation.
Skewed analytics leading to unreliable campaign, direct-traffic, and A/B testing decisions.
Increased infrastructure costs supporting non-genuine traffic.
Degraded user experience and reduced customer trust due to scam activity.

Solution

Deployed Peakhour's advanced bot detection, identifying sophisticated commercial scraping services and residential proxies.
Implemented a collaborative, risk-conscious progressive deployment with continuous fine-tuning.
Gained direct access to specialised expertise in CDN, bot management, and security.
Comprehensive knowledge transfer to empower Gumtree's internal teams.
Utilised usage-based pricing for scalable and predictable costs.

Results

Non-genuine requests were removed from the request path, lifting the quality of traffic reaching origin while materially improving infrastructure efficiency.
Restored analytics integrity, enabling cleaner direct-hit reporting, reliable A/B testing, and accurate campaign measurement.
Eliminated unauthorised data scraping, turning data into a new revenue-generating asset.
Dramatically improved marketplace safety score, with an 80% reduction in internal fraud score.
Enhanced customer trust and platform performance for legitimate users.

Improving Traffic Quality and Reclaiming Platform Control