How Displays2go Increased Conversions & Reduced Costs with DataDome

The Challenge: Persistent Scraping Bots & Inflated Operation Costs

Noah Hoag, Displays2go’s Ecommerce Manager, first noticed bad bot activity on the website through Google Analytics. Over the years, their website has experienced temporary flare-ups of bot traffic. The situation escalated in November 2023, when the Ecommerce team observed unusually high traffic visiting their shopping cart and product detail pages primarily during off-business hours—indicating that bots were targeting their website and continuously scraping their product information.

Despite numerous attempts to segment and filter this traffic, the team spent significant time reporting on and mitigating the effects of the bots. These efforts proved futile: “The traffic was too high to be stopped, and not only was it distorting our analytics data, but it was also interfering with our vendor agreements, as we were facing increased usage charges and potentially higher contract costs,” he recalls.

Eric Cruz, Web Development Manager at Displays2go, adds: “We suspected that some of the scraping was due to malicious competitors or black hat SEO tactics, which can significantly impact us in this market. It was time for us to find an external solution to this growing problem.”

The Solution: Trusted Bot Protection With Automated, Effortless Integration

When searching for a solution, several criteria were key for Noah and Eric: reputation, ease of integration, and the ability to customize defenses to meet their specific needs.

“My team and I have probably spent 75 to 100 hours over the past year and a half dealing with bot traffic, including reports, segmentation, discussions with suppliers, and internal meetings…,” says Noah. “So, we were looking for a partner who could handle sophisticated attacks without us getting involved.”

DataDome turned out to be their first choice because of our reputation. Because Displays2go’s team was already busy managing multiple aspects of the website’s operations, they needed a solution that could be deployed quickly and with minimal disruption to the existing infrastructure.

DataDome is designed for seamless integration and requires minimal time to set up. Eric Cruz appreciated the immediate, effortless integration with AWS: “DataDome’s system integrated with our CloudFront. We launched a Lambda@Edge solution as well as a client-side JavaScript tag via Google Tag Manager. In just a few lines of code, it was done.”

The Results: Increased Conversion Rates, Streamlined Operations, and No More Annoying Bots

With DataDome, Displays2go was able to identify all bot traffic threatening their website. And there were a few surprises… “Scraping bots were the most prevalent, as we predicted, followed by vulnerability scanning. But we also found cases of credential stuffing and minor fraud problems that we hadn’t anticipated,” recalls the Web Development Manager.

DataDome completely eradicates bot traffic, resulting in cleaner and more reliable analytics data. Reducing bad bot activity also led to more accurate reporting, lower operational costs, and an overall increase in conversion rates, as Noah is pleased to say: “Our conversion rate has improved, particularly in our direct channel grouping, which gives us confidence that our traffic is now human.”

The ease of use and the ability to quickly adjust custom rules saved the team time and considerable resources, which could be redirected to more strategic initiatives, supporting the company’s growth and operational efficiency.

To celebrate their victory over the bad bots, Noah’s team even brought in a robot piñata for Displays2go’s 50th anniversary party—and needless to say, they smashed it to bits!