“DataDome increases the reliability of our infrastructure and reduces the amount of time I work on analyzing bad traffic and solving problems. The scraping attacks have lessened even though their level of sophistication has increased.”

The challenge: When managing scraping bots becomes a full-time job

At AffAction, growth has led to rapid expansion, with a dozen sites, one of which has more than 6,000 domains. “We saw malicious bots generating more connections than real users,” recalls Matthew Kolb, Chief Technology Officer at AffAction. This small-scale scraping quickly intensified. Attackers evolved, relying on increasingly powerful automation and artificial intelligence.

“At times, it came close to a distributed denial-of-service attack,” Matthew explains. At first, he was able to manually block suspicious IP addresses, but the attacks escalated faster than internal defenses could keep up. Managing bots became a time-consuming part of the job: “After a while, I felt like I was reinventing the wheel. I thought ‘I don’t need to build out defenses from scratch, there’s got to be a better way’. So we started looking for other solutions,” says Matthew.

The solution: Real-time protection that learns and adapts

Around that time, the Forrester Wave report on Bot Management software introduced AffAction to DataDome, naming it a leader for its real-time detection and scalable protection. “That was pretty influential in the decision,” Matthew recalls.

He selected DataDome Bot Protect, deploying it across virtually their entire infrastructure. Even though the attackers were highly motivated and deeply persistent, the platform’s AI models adapted and learned, relieving AffActions from malicious scraping.

“The attacks lessened, and that was a big relief,” Matthew says, particularly as the team had been under pressure to maintain uptime while keeping user data safe.

The company now relies primarily on DataDome’s automated protections, using a few custom rules, mostly to allow internal systems to bypass protections when needed. They also use the dashboard to fine-tune decisions around verified bots and large language models. “We do block some LLM scrapers,” Matthew adds. “But others, like Google, are harder to avoid. Blocking them can have too much impact on traffic.”

 As automated bot tactics continue to evolve, the platform adapts in real-time, keeping AffAction ahead of new attempts.

The results: Sustained uptime & peace of mind for the tech team

With DataDome’s Cyberfraud Protection in place, AffAction saw a real difference. The constant pressure from scraping bots started to ease, and the infrastructure became noticeably more stable. “It helps avoid downtime,” says Matthew, who is relieved that he no longer has to worry about slowdowns. And the biggest win came from time regained: “DataDome reduced the amount of time I spent analyzing traffic, so the goal was achieved,” he explains.

The platform also brought new visibility into threats Matthew hadn’t fully anticipated. “There are more vulnerability scanners than I realized,” he says. “Even though we don’t run WordPress, we saw a lot of automated tools trying to find WordPress installations. It’s nice that DataDome blocks them.”

Throughout the partnership, AffAction’s CTO has also appreciated the support experience. “The team has been consistently responsive and collaborative,” he notes.

Today, DataDome protects more than 99% of AffAction’s traffic, providing the real-time adaptability needed to face a constantly evolving threat landscape.

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