How to Reduce Data Collection Costs on the Internet by 54%
Typical Data Collection Budget for Most Companies
- 78% of the data collection budget is spent on data professionals, who spend most of their time unblocking the architecture of target sites and cleaning/formatting datasets.
- The second largest expense (14%) is server maintenance, which includes server hosting and cooling systems (since they easily overheat).
- Network cybersecurity costs usually account for 5% and include setting up firewalls and separating external servers from internal ones that store sensitive information.
- The smallest expense (3%) is software licensing fees, including integration of the data collection software with on-site equipment.
Which Expenses Can Companies Cut from Their Budget?
By outsourcing this service, companies can reduce data collection costs by up to 54%. Purchasing ready-made datasets allows your company to eliminate the three highest expenses, such as:
- Salaries of data collection specialists
- Server maintenance
- Network cybersecurity
Other Benefits of Outsourcing Data Collection
- Compliance with Legal Regulations
When collecting data in-house, companies must comply with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act). This includes prohibiting the collection of Personal Identifiable Information (PII) and/or password-protected information. Otherwise, companies risk lawsuits that can severely damage their business reputation and finances.
Bottom line: Outsourcing web data collection allows your company to shift compliance responsibility to a third-party data provider. You are no longer liable for privacy issues arising from collecting the very data your business relies on for strategic decisions.
- Data Quality
Companies collecting data in-house risk getting low-quality data. Real-time data collection networks perform use case validation, comprehensive checking, and code-based abuse prevention. In addition, they use machine learning (ML) technologies to verify target data quality before collection.
Bottom line: When outsourcing, companies can be confident that datasets have passed quality assurance (QA), saving them time and avoiding other negative consequences of using poor-quality data.
- Network Security
In-house companies constantly have to worry about network security. When outsourcing to a third party, they review user activity logs, ensuring immediate suppression of any illegal or network-compromising actions.
Bottom line: Log monitoring policies of data transmission networks allow companies to be confident in the security of the networks through which they route their traffic.
- Efficiency
When an organization outsources data collection to another company, it allows them to focus on their core business, ultimately increasing operational efficiency. It should also be noted that companies/services specializing in data collection perform this work more efficiently than a typical company trying to collect data in-house.
Bottom line: Outsourcing data collection allows organizations to focus on what they do best, while data collection service providers deliver all the necessary data for making critical business decisions.
What to Expect When Working with a Data Collection Service
This is a typical workflow for businesses working with a third-party data provider:
Step 1: Identify the target website and dataset, e.g., Amazon best-selling products.
Step 2: Decide on the format (e.g., JSON, CSV) and how often (daily, weekly) the dataset needs to be updated.
Step 3: Receive a ready-to-use dataset directly in your team's mailbox or in your chosen data storage (Amazon S3-AWS, Azure).