You paid for the proxy, connected it to an anti-detect browser, and launched an advertising campaign or account farming — and after a couple of hours, half of the profiles got banned. A familiar situation for arbitrage specialists and SMM professionals. The reason is almost always the same: the proxy was not checked before operational use. This checklist of 12 points will take you no more than an hour, but it will save your budget and accounts from pointless losses.
Why the first hour check is critical
Most proxy providers offer a replacement guarantee for a limited period — usually from 30 minutes to 24 hours. If you notice a problem three days into usage, when the accounts are already banned, it will be harder to get a refund or replacement, and losses have already been incurred. Therefore, the check should be conducted immediately after payment, before you link the proxies to working accounts.
There is a difference between "the proxy works" and "the proxy is suitable for the task." An IP may technically respond to requests but still be blacklisted by Facebook, have a high fraud score, or incorrect geolocation. An arbitrage specialist running Facebook Ads targeting a U.S. audience with a proxy from the Netherlands will get an instant account ban for location mismatch. An SMM specialist managing a client's Instagram profile from Moscow, using a proxy with constant connection drops, risks getting blocked for suspicious activity. All these issues can be identified within the first hour if you know what to check.
The checklist below is divided into six pairs of checks — in increasing order of complexity: from basic technical parameters to proxy behavior on a real platform.
Checks 1-2: IP and Geolocation
Check 1. Compliance with declared geolocation. Go to any IP location service (whoer.net, ipinfo.io, iplocation.net) through a browser connected to the proxy. Compare the country, city, and time zone with what the provider claims. A discrepancy even in the city is a reason for replacement: Facebook Ads and TikTok Ads anti-fraud algorithms compare the geolocation of the IP with the region specified in the account settings.
Check 2. Determine the type of IP (residential, mobile, data center). Services like ipqualityscore.com or scamalytics.com show what type the IP address belongs to. If you paid for residential proxies, but the service identifies the IP as data center — this is a signal that the provider delivered something different than promised. For tasks where traffic naturalness is critical (account registration, profile farming), only real residential proxies with real IPs of home users will suffice.
Perform this check for each IP in the package, not just the first one — especially if you bought a list of 50-100 addresses. Providers sometimes mix outdated or incorrectly labeled IPs into the pool.
Checks 3-4: Speed and Connection Stability
Check 3. Response time and bandwidth. Run a speed test through the proxy (you can use a browser extension with the configured proxy or through curl, if convenient). For scraping marketplaces and SMM automation, 5-10 Mbps is sufficient, but for uploading videos to TikTok or Instagram Reels, you need a speed of at least 15-20 Mbps; otherwise, the upload will be interrupted, and the platform will notice a pattern of failed attempts.
Check 4. Stability under prolonged load. Keep the test tab open for 15-20 minutes with periodic requests (refreshing the page every 1-2 minutes). If the connection drops more than once during this period — such a proxy is not suitable for account farming, as session drops appear suspicious to social network protection systems. For tasks with high request intensity, such as real-time price monitoring on Wildberries or Ozon, stability is more important than anything else.
Checks 5-6: IP Cleanliness and Reputation
Check 5. Check for blacklists. Use services like mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx or ipvoid.com to check if the IP is on spam lists. A proxy that was previously used for spam or bot activity may be blocked on multiple platforms even before your first request.
Check 6. Fraud Score and usage history. On ipqualityscore.com, there is a free check for Fraud Score — a number from 0 to 100 indicating the likelihood that the IP is associated with fraud or bots. For Facebook Ads and Google Ads accounts, try to work with IPs that have a Fraud Score below 30. If the score is above 70 — this almost guarantees a quick ban of the advertising account.
Tip: save screenshots of the IP cleanliness check results immediately after receiving the proxies. If the provider offers a replacement guarantee, a screenshot with the date and time will serve as proof that the problem existed from the start, not due to your actions.
Checks 7-8: Proxy Type and Protocol
Check 7. Protocol compliance with the task. Ensure that you were given the exact protocol you need — HTTP, HTTPS, or SOCKS5. For working with anti-detect browsers and mobile applications, SOCKS5 is preferable: it supports UDP traffic and works more accurately with WebRTC, which is important for hiding the real IP in Instagram and TikTok.
Check 8. Compliance with the declared type of rotation. If you purchased a static (sticky) IP for long-term account management, check that the IP indeed does not change between sessions for the declared time (usually from 10 minutes to 24 hours). For scraping tasks where frequent IP changes are needed, on the contrary — ensure that rotation occurs automatically with each new request. For scraping Wildberries, Ozon, and Avito, where speed is more important than consistency, it is often more beneficial to use data center proxies with fast rotation.
Checks 9-10: Compatibility with Anti-Detect Browsers
Check 9. Correct connection in Dolphin Anty, AdsPower, or GoLogin. Create a test profile in the anti-detect browser, insert the proxy details (IP, port, username, password), and check the connection status — usually indicated by a green checkmark next to the profile. Open a WebRTC leak check service (browserleaks.com/webrtc) through this profile to ensure that the real IP is not leaking through WebRTC.
Check 10. Compliance of the digital fingerprint with the proxy region. In the settings of Dolphin Anty or AdsPower, check if the time zone, system language, and screen resolution match the geolocation of the proxy. If the proxy is from Germany, but the fingerprint shows a Moscow time zone — Facebook and TikTok anti-fraud systems will easily identify the mismatch and block the account within the first hours of operation.
Checks 11-12: Test on Real Platform
Check 11. Test login to the target platform without actions. Before linking a working account, log in through the proxy to Facebook, Instagram, or Wildberries and just observe the platform's reaction — does it ask you to confirm your phone number, does it show a captcha at every step, does it issue a warning about suspicious login? Any of these reactions indicates that the IP has already been flagged by the platform as risky.
Check 12. Test action with low risk. Perform one safe action — like, scroll through the feed, add a product to the cart on the marketplace — and wait 10-15 minutes. If the account does not receive warnings and does not request additional verification, the proxy can be considered suitable for full use. For arbitrage specialists testing ads on TikTok Ads, this step is especially important — it's better to lose 15 minutes on a test than the entire advertising budget on a banned account. For such tasks, mobile proxies are often chosen mobile proxies, as they are less likely to raise suspicion from mobile application protection systems.
Summary Table of the Checklist
| № | Check | Tool | Success Criterion |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | IP Geolocation | whoer.net, ipinfo.io | Matches the declared |
| 2 | IP Type | scamalytics.com | Residential/mobile/data center — as declared |
| 3 | Speed | speedtest through proxy | From 5 to 20 Mbps depending on the task |
| 4 | Stability | Load test 15-20 min | No more than 1 drop during the period |
| 5 | Blacklists | mxtoolbox.com, ipvoid.com | IP is not on blacklists |
| 6 | Fraud Score | ipqualityscore.com | Below 30 |
| 7 | Protocol | Connection settings | HTTP/SOCKS5 — as required |
| 8 | Rotation Type | Repeated IP requests | Static/rotating — as ordered |
| 9 | Connection in Anti-Detect | Dolphin Anty, AdsPower | Connection status is active, no WebRTC leak |
| 10 | Fingerprint vs Geolocation | Browser profile settings | Time zone and language match the IP |
| 11 | Test Login | Target platform | No captcha, no verification request |
| 12 | Test Action | Like, view, action in cart | No warnings after 15 minutes |
What to do if the check fails
If at least 2-3 points from the checklist yielded negative results — do not attempt to "fix" the proxy on your own by changing settings or restarting the connection. Contact the provider for a replacement within the warranty period, attaching screenshots of the checks as evidence. Most serious providers replace problematic IPs without unnecessary questions if the request is made within the first hours after purchase.
If the problem is systemic — for example, all IPs in the package show a high Fraud Score or are identified as data center instead of residential — this is a reason to consider changing the type of proxy for the task. For social media farming and working with advertising accounts, a systemic error in the type of IP almost always means that you need to switch to a more expensive but stable type of proxy with a real reputation among target platforms.
It is important not to waste time at this stage: it is better to spend an hour checking 10-20 IPs than a week figuring out why 15 advertising accounts got banned and how to recover the spent budget.
Conclusion
The checklist of 12 checks is not bureaucracy, but insurance against wasting time, budget, and accounts. Geolocation, IP cleanliness, speed, compatibility with the anti-detect browser, and behavior on the target platform — each of these points can single-handedly ruin your campaign if missed. By spending an hour at the beginning of your work, you save days on recovering banned profiles and explaining to clients why the advertising launch failed.
If you are engaged in account farming, traffic arbitrage through Facebook Ads and TikTok Ads, or managing multiple client profiles on Instagram, pay attention to residential proxies — they provide the highest traffic naturalness and are less likely to raise suspicion from anti-fraud systems. For tasks involving mobile applications and stricter protection, it is also worth considering mobile IPs, which pass checks in points 9-12 significantly easier than data center counterparts.