Matas Baltrėnas and Justas Palekas lead the development and international expansion of IPRoyal, a proxy server provider with a marketing team based in Lithuania. Baltrėnas is the head of PPC responsible for performance marketing, while Palekas oversees product development and marketing strategies.
Proxy servers help protect sensitive data, ensure compliance with data protection laws, and manage access to corporate networks. And the demand for them is growing.
We started as a relatively small proxy server provider with an ambition to grow around the globe. To compete with larger — and more well-known — players, we realised we had to set ourselves apart by offering extra value to build awareness for our growing brand and attract new users.
Engaging people with educational content
When we started marketing efforts on IPRoyal, there was almost no information about proxy use cases, such as integrating them into programming languages. There was also a degree of skepticism surrounding the technology due to a lack of understanding and misconceptions about its use.
This is where we saw an opportunity to engage with customers during the consideration stage, when they're seeking a solution for their business but may not yet have realised the potential of proxies in helping their organisation — or how to use them.
We created a library of educational videos and uploaded them onto our YouTube channel. These videos cover topics like proxy types, usage scenarios, and step-by-step tutorials, such as making an email account more secure.
Last year alone, we produced over 50 videos, engaging both existing and potential customers, from business owners to marketers seeking to overcome geo-restrictions.
Here is an example of the video we published, which details top ways to use residential proxies:
Capturing search with AI-powered campaigns
We also created educational materials for our blog. Last year we published more than 100 unique pieces of content, featuring proxy fundamentals, technical advice from experts, and industry news.
To promote these materials, we initially focused on using popular keywords related to proxy services in our advertising campaigns. However, we soon realised that relying solely on keywords leads to expensive bidding wars with competitors, considering that there are not many unique search terms relevant to proxies.
Moreover, promoting our educational materials using just search campaigns was inefficient because people were searching for very specific words that were difficult to match with our content. We would have needed hundreds of keywords and landing pages to make a dent.
To overcome this challenge, we turned to AI-powered campaigns with Performance Max (PMax). Instead of relying primarily on keywords, PMax leverages various audience signals, such as browsing history, location, and device type. By setting conversion goals, adding creatives and audience signals, we enable AI to intelligently match our ads with users seeking the services and educational materials we offer.
And this wouldn’t just apply to Search ads either. The AI-powered technology can reach the right people with the right message on Google channels such as YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and Maps too.
For example, when a user searches for "dolphin proxy setup," PMax can choose to use our blog post on this topic as the most relevant landing page. It analyses various audience signals to best match the ad and landing page to the user's request.
This way, the user gets exactly what they are looking for. Even if they don't sign up for our solution immediately, they leave satisfied because the blog post solves their problem. Instead of directing all users to a single landing page to encourage immediate registration and purchase, we offer tailored content for different use cases. This helps us build visibility and loyalty in the long run, and often people return to our website when they are ready to make a purchase.
Later on, the PMax campaign might show a relevant visual ad to this user as they browse content on YouTube or read blogs on this topic, allowing our ads to be present across the different touchpoints during the user journey.
Our data-driven approach to global expansion
We also leveraged PMax campaigns to expand into new markets beyond our core market, the U.S. To identify promising markets, we used Google Trends to analyse search volume for terms like "best proxies" and Market Finder, a free tool to assess market potential.
For example, we noticed opportunities in Morocco and Kenya by checking auction insights in Google Ads and noticing relatively low competition and low acquisition costs for these markets. This was further supported by Google Trends data, where we saw that "iproyal" was the second most searched term in the "proxy" category in Kenya.
When we discovered this untapped opportunity, we allocated a portion of our PMax budget to these markets and monitored performance. We take a test-and-learn approach to expansion because as a proxy server provider, our international expansion costs are primarily limited to advertising. This allows us to experiment and adjust our investments based on campaign effectiveness.
For example, we saw a spike in proxy-related searches in Indonesia last summer. However, the momentum didn’t last. As a result, we temporarily suspended our advertising efforts in this market, although we still consider it a prospect for the future. On the other hand, we observed strong user interest in Brazil and proceeded with our expansion strategy in this market.
In every market, we view our users as co-creators of our products. To give our clients complete control over their proxy usage, we created a highly flexible configuration system. This enables users to choose specific parameters such as location, internet service provider (ISP), and reliability factors, which are critical for certain use cases, such as market research, data scraping, or managing multiple accounts. This customisation aligns with our goal of delivering exceptional value by adapting to our users' preferences.
We also adapted to local cultural preferences and usage patterns to further optimise our campaigns. In China, for instance, we had to adopt payment methods that are only available or mostly used there.
And in Kenya, we observed a higher demand for smaller data packages and individual user plans compared to the U.S., based on our analysis of user behaviour, including product purchases and average data usage. Notably, user acquisition costs in Kenya are nearly 5X lower than in the U.S., and the average order value is typically two to three times lower, with fewer recurring purchases.
Finally, we refined the quality of our creative assets through A/B testing. We uploaded multiple assets to our Performance Max campaigns and monitored their performance weekly. This allowed us to replace low-performing assets with stronger alternatives.
For example, we found that including discount codes generally boosts performance, so we adapted the creative of our Display ad to include an offer.
Here’s a “before” and “after” example of our ads:
Driving revenue in new markets
Our focus on educational materials combined with the power of Performance Max laid the groundwork for expanding into new markets.
We grew our revenue by nearly 3X year-over-year by leveraging untapped potential in new countries. Our user base also increased by 33% in 2024 compared to 22% year-on-year in 2023. And, excitingly, we expanded our operations to over 80 countries, up from 40+ countries in 2023. We are now planning to deepen expansion by further growing our user base in the high-potential markets, such as Brazil, India, Canada, and Germany.
In 2025 we will also focus on expanding our educational content library by producing detailed reviews of programming languages, software, and tools. We will continue to use Performance Max campaigns to promote these materials and our services globally to further grow IPRoyal — and businesses’ understanding of the value of proxy service providers — across the globe.