How to Reduce Traffic Consumption via Proxy by 40-70%: Complete Guide for Arbitrage and SMM

If you are managing dozens of accounts on Facebook Ads, Instagram, or scraping marketplaces, proxy bills can seriously impact your budget. Especially when using residential proxies with pay-per-gigabyte pricing. The good news is that proper configuration can reduce traffic consumption by 40-70% without losing functionality. In this article, we will explore specific optimization methods for various tasks.

Why Proxies Consume So Much Traffic

Before optimizing, it is important to understand where the traffic is going. Many arbitrage specialists and SMM experts are surprised when they see a bill for 50-100 GB while working with only 20-30 accounts. Let's break down the main reasons.

Autoplay of Media Content is the main traffic consumer. When you open Facebook or Instagram through a browser, the following items are automatically loaded:

• Images in the feed (each 200-500 KB)
• Videos in Stories and Reels (1-5 MB each)
• User avatars
• Ad banners and creatives
• Link previews with images

If you are simply loading the Facebook Ads Manager feed to check accounts, you can consume 10-15 MB in a single session just on images that you don’t even need for work.

Background Updates and Synchronization. Modern web applications constantly exchange data with servers even when you are not doing anything:

• Facebook checks for new notifications every 30-60 seconds
• Instagram loads new posts in the background
• TikTok preloads videos for smooth scrolling
• Ad accounts synchronize statistics in real time

Non-optimized Scraping Scripts. If you are scraping Wildberries or Ozon, a common mistake is loading full HTML pages with all product images. A single catalog page with 60 products can weigh 5-8 MB, while you only need prices and names (a few kilobytes of text).

Configuring Anti-Detect Browsers for Traffic Savings

Most arbitrage specialists and SMM experts work through anti-detect browsers: Dolphin Anty, AdsPower, Multilogin, GoLogin. All these tools have built-in settings for traffic savings — but they are disabled by default.

Dolphin Anty — Traffic Saving Configuration

Dolphin Anty is one of the most popular browsers among Facebook and TikTok Ads arbitrage specialists. Here is a step-by-step guide for optimization:

1. Open the browser profile → click on the three dots → "Edit"
2. Go to the "Advanced" tab
3. Find the "Media" section and set:
   • "Images" → "Block all" (if you are only working with text/settings)
   • Or "Show after click" (for selective loading)
   • "Autoplay videos" → "Disabled"
4. In the "JavaScript" section, you can disable unnecessary scripts, but be careful — this may break site functionality
5. Save the settings and restart the profile

After these settings, traffic consumption when working with Facebook Ads Manager decreases from 12-15 MB to 2-3 MB per session.

AdsPower — Data Saver Mode

AdsPower has a special "Data Saver" mode that automatically optimizes content loading:

1. Open profile settings → "Advanced Settings" tab
2. Enable "Data Saver Mode"
3. Configure the options:
   • "Block images" — block images
   • "Disable video autoplay" — disable video autoplay
   • "Compress pages" — page compression (does not work on all sites)

Important point: if you are working with visual content (for example, moderating posts on Instagram or checking creatives in ads) — enable the "Show images after click" mode. This way, you can manually load only the necessary images.

Multilogin and GoLogin

In Multilogin and GoLogin, the settings are similar — look for "Media Settings" or "Content Blocking" sections in the profile settings. You can also use extensions to block content (more on that below).

Blocking Media Content: Images, Videos, Autoplay

If your anti-detect browser does not have built-in traffic-saving settings, you can use extensions for Chrome. They work in most Chromium-based browsers (Dolphin, AdsPower, GoLogin).

Content Blocking Extensions

1. uBlock Origin — a powerful ad and content blocker. It allows you to:

• Block images on selected sites
• Disable video autoplay
• Block trackers and analytics (which also consume traffic)
• Create your own filtering rules

Setup: install the extension → open settings → in the "My filters" tab, add rules to block images on the desired domains.

2. Data Saver — an extension from Google that compresses web pages through Google servers. Saves up to 50% of traffic, but there is a caveat: your traffic goes through Google servers, which may be undesirable for certain tasks (for example, working with Facebook Ads via proxies).

3. Bandwidth Hero — compresses images on the fly. Images are loaded in low quality, saving 40-60% of traffic. Suitable if you need to see images, but quality is not critical.

Manual Blocking Setup in Chrome DevTools

For advanced users: you can set up blocking through Chrome DevTools (works in anti-detect browsers):

1. Open DevTools (F12)
2. Go to the "Network" tab
3. Right-click on any request → "Block request domain"
4. Add domains to block (for example, *.jpg, *.png for all images)

This method is suitable for testing — see which domains are loading the most data and block them.

Enabling Data Compression and Economical Protocols

Choosing the right proxy protocol can save 10-20% of traffic due to more efficient data transmission.

HTTP vs HTTPS vs SOCKS5 — Which is More Economical?

Conclusion: for tasks where encryption is not required (scraping marketplaces, collecting public data), use HTTP proxies. For working with Facebook, Instagram, TikTok — use HTTPS or SOCKS5.

GZIP and Brotli Compression

Most modern websites support data compression (GZIP or Brotli). This means that HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are transmitted in compressed form, saving 60-80% of traffic on text data.

The good news is that browsers automatically request compression by sending the header Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br. You don’t need to configure anything — it works "out of the box."

However, if you are writing scraping scripts, make sure your HTTP client supports compression. For example, in Python (requests library), it is enabled by default.

Optimization for Scraping Marketplaces

If you are scraping Wildberries, Ozon, Yandex.Market, or Avito for monitoring competitor prices — traffic consumption can be enormous. A single product card with images weighs 1-3 MB, while a catalog with 1000 products can weigh 500-1000 MB.

Method 1: Using API Instead of Scraping HTML

Many marketplaces have internal APIs that return data in JSON format (without images and unnecessary HTML). For example:

• Wildberries: The catalog API returns only names, prices, ratings — the response weight is 50-100 times less than an HTML page
• Ozon: There is a public API for product search
• Yandex.Market: API for partners (requires registration)

Traffic savings: up to 95% compared to scraping full HTML pages.

Method 2: Blocking Image Loading in the Scraper

If you are using Selenium, Puppeteer, or Playwright for scraping — configure image blocking. Example for Selenium with Chrome:

from selenium import webdriver

# Setting up Chrome to block images
chrome_options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
prefs = {
    "profile.managed_default_content_settings.images": 2  # 2 = block
}
chrome_options.add_experimental_option("prefs", prefs)

# Adding proxy
chrome_options.add_argument('--proxy-server=http://your_proxy:port')

driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=chrome_options)

This setting blocks ALL images on the pages, reducing traffic consumption by 60-80%.

Method 3: Scraping Only Necessary Data (XPath/CSS Selectors)

Do not load the entire page if you only need prices. Use precise CSS selectors or XPath to extract specific elements:

# Bad — loading the entire page
page_source = driver.page_source  # 2-5 MB

# Good — extracting only the necessary elements
price = driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR, '.product-price').text
title = driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR, '.product-title').text

Method 4: Caching Data

If you are scraping the same catalog multiple times a day — cache the results locally. Do not reload pages that have not changed.

Saving Traffic While Working with Social Media

SMM specialists and agencies managing dozens of Instagram, TikTok, VK accounts often face huge traffic consumption. Especially when using mobile proxies with pay-per-gigabyte pricing.

Instagram — Disabling Autoplay for Stories and Reels

Instagram automatically loads videos in Stories and Reels, even if you do not watch them. This can consume 50-100 MB in a single session while working with an account.

Solution: use Instagram through the web version (not the mobile app) with video blocking settings in the anti-detect browser. The web version does not automatically load Stories.

Alternative: use third-party services for managing Instagram (e.g., Combin, Ingramer) that work through the API and consume minimal traffic.

TikTok — Working through Creator Studio

If you are publishing content on TikTok, use TikTok Creator Studio (web version) instead of the mobile app. The web version does not load the video feed, saving gigabytes of traffic.

Facebook Ads — Work Only with Ads Manager

Do not open the main Facebook feed — it constantly loads videos, Stories, ad creatives. Work directly through:

• business.facebook.com/adsmanager — ad account
• business.facebook.com — Business Manager

These interfaces load minimal media content and consume 5-10 times less traffic than the main feed.

Automation via API Instead of Browsers

If you only need to publish posts or retrieve statistics — use official APIs:

• Facebook Graph API — posting, retrieving statistics (a few kilobytes per request)
• Instagram Graph API — managing content without loading the feed
• TikTok for Business API — publishing videos and analytics

Working through APIs consumes 100-1000 times less traffic than browser automation.

Monitoring Consumption and Identifying Traffic Leaks

To effectively optimize consumption, you need to understand exactly where the traffic is going. Here are tools for monitoring.

Built-in Statistics from Proxy Providers

Most proxy providers (including ProxyCove) offer a personal account with detailed statistics:

• Traffic consumption by days/hours
• Breakdown by IP addresses (if you are using a pool)
• Top domains by traffic consumption

Check the statistics weekly — if you see a sharp increase in consumption, something has gone wrong (perhaps video autoplay was enabled or a new script appeared).

Chrome DevTools — Network Monitor

For detailed analysis, use the built-in network monitor in Chrome (works in anti-detect browsers):

1. Open DevTools (F12)
2. Go to the "Network" tab
3. Refresh the page and see which resources are loading
4. Sort by size (the "Size" column) — this way you will see the "heaviest" files

Usually, the top will include videos, high-resolution images, ad banners. These are the ones you need to block first.

Data Saver Diagnostics Extension

This extension shows how much traffic was saved by compressing pages. Install it to see the real savings in percentage.

Which Proxy Type to Choose for Minimal Consumption

The type of proxy directly affects traffic consumption and cost. Here is a comparison for different tasks.

Recommendations for Selection:

• For scraping large volumes of data (Wildberries, Avito, Google Search) — use data center proxies with unlimited traffic. Even if the consumption is 500 GB/month, you pay a fixed amount
• For working with social media and advertising (Facebook Ads, Instagram) — residential proxies, but make sure to configure media blocking
• For mobile applications (Instagram app, TikTok app) — mobile proxies, optimize consumption as much as possible through app settings

Conclusion

Optimizing traffic consumption through proxies is not a one-time setup, but an ongoing process. Key steps to save 40-70% of traffic:

1. Configure the anti-detect browser: enable image blocking and video autoplay disabling in Dolphin Anty, AdsPower, or GoLogin
2. Use extensions: uBlock Origin for blocking unnecessary content
3. For scraping — switch to API: instead of loading full HTML pages, use JSON responses from marketplaces
4. Work directly with the necessary interfaces: Facebook Ads Manager instead of the feed, TikTok Creator Studio instead of the mobile app
5. Monitor consumption: check the statistics from the proxy provider and Chrome DevTools to identify traffic leaks
6. Choose the right type of proxy: for large-scale scraping — data centers with unlimited traffic, for social media — residential with optimization

By applying these methods, you can reduce your proxy bills by $50-200 per month (depending on your workload) without losing functionality.

If you plan to work with Facebook Ads, Instagram, or scraping marketplaces, we recommend trying ProxyCove residential proxies — they provide a high level of anonymity and stable operation. With the right traffic-saving configuration, consumption will be minimal, making their use highly cost-effective.