Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for accumulating network accessible marketplace data, determining various originating sources of the marketplace data, detecting changes in the marketplace data, and notifying users of the detected changes. The marketplace data may include advertisement data associated with advertisements on publisher web pages. The originating sources may be the publisher web pages or any of various advertising channels such as ad networks, ad services, or demand side platforms that place the advertisements on the web pages. Notifying the users may include generating a timeline and a human-readable story from the advertisement data and providing the timeline and the story to the user via a web-based interface or a notification communication such as a push notification to a device of the user.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for discovering advertisements on publisher web pages and for identifying placement pathways by which discovered advertisements have been placed on the publisher web pages. An advertisement tracking and discovery system may use multiple web crawler applications to explore multiple publisher websites. The web crawler applications may gather advertisement data that includes times associated with each request made by the web crawler application. The system may use the gathered advertisement data and the times associated with each request to determine the placement pathways by which discovered advertisements have been placed. Each placement pathway may include one or more advertising channels or combinations of advertising channels. The system may accumulate and aggregate advertising data associated with the advertisements and the placement pathways and display the aggregated advertising data to a customer.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for automatically generating and maintaining user profile cookie sets. The user profile cookie sets may be used by a web crawler when gathering data such as advertisement data associated with one or more websites. The cookie sets may be generated by choosing a user profile with a set of user traits, selecting a set of websites related to the user traits, and browsing the selected set of websites using a web crawler while allowing the website to place cookies in storage of the web crawler. The cookie sets may be maintained by selecting a website to browse, selecting a user profile associated with the selected website, loading a previously generated cookie set for the selected user profile into the storage of a web crawler, and loading the webpage while allowing the website to place, update, or replace cookies in the storage of the web crawler.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for discovering advertisements on publisher web pages and for identifying placement pathways by which discovered advertisements have been placed on the publisher web pages. An advertisement tracking and discovery system may use multiple web crawler applications to explore multiple publisher websites. The web crawler applications may gather advertisement data that includes times associated with each request made by the web crawler application. The system may use the gathered advertisement data and the times associated with each request to determine the placement pathways by which discovered advertisements have been placed. Each placement pathway may include one or more advertising channels or combinations of advertising channels. The system may accumulate and aggregate advertising data associated with the advertisements and the placement pathways and display the aggregated advertising data to a customer.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for automatically generating and maintaining user profile cookie sets. The user profile cookie sets may be used by a web crawler when gathering data such as advertisement data associated with one or more websites. The cookie sets may be generated by choosing a user profile with a set of user traits, selecting a set of websites related to the user traits, and browsing the selected set of websites using a web crawler while allowing the website to place cookies in storage of the web crawler. The cookie sets may be maintained by selecting a website to browse, selecting a user profile associated with the selected website, loading a previously generated cookie set for the selected user profile into the storage of a web crawler, and loading the webpage while allowing the website to place, update, or replace cookies in the storage of the web crawler.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for discovering advertisements on publisher web pages and for determining whether the advertisements are obscured by other content on the web pages. An advertisement tracking and discovery system may use web crawler applications to explore multiple publisher websites. The web crawler applications may gather advertisement data that includes information associated with detected advertisements, placement pathways by which the advertisements were placed on the publisher web pages, and obscuration information for the detected advertisements. Obscured advertisements that have been detected may be ignored during advertisement tracking and discovery operations or obscuration information may be stored and provided with other advertisement information for the obscured advertisements. The advertisement data may be aggregated and formatted to be provided to a user. The provided data may include advertisement screenshots and web page screenshots containing the advertisements.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for discovering advertisements on publisher web pages and for determining whether the advertisements are obscured by other content on the web pages. An advertisement tracking and discovery system may use web crawler applications to explore multiple publisher websites. The web crawler applications may gather advertisement data that includes information associated with detected advertisements, placement pathways by which the advertisements were placed on the publisher web pages, and obscuration information for the detected advertisements. Obscured advertisements that have been detected may be ignored during advertisement tracking and discovery operations or obscuration information may be stored and provided with other advertisement information for the obscured advertisements. The advertisement data may be aggregated and formatted to be provided to a user. The provided data may include advertisement screenshots and web page screenshots containing the advertisements.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for discovering advertisements on publisher web pages and for identifying placement pathways by which discovered advertisements have been placed on the publisher web pages. An advertisement tracking and discovery system may use multiple web crawler applications to explore multiple publisher websites. The web crawler applications may gather advertisement data that includes times associated with each request made by the web crawler application. The system may use the gathered advertisement data and the times associated with each request to determine the placement pathways by which discovered advertisements have been placed. Each placement pathway may include one or more advertising channels or combinations of advertising channels. The system may accumulate and aggregate advertising data associated with the advertisements and the placement pathways and display the aggregated advertising data to a customer.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for discovering advertisements on publisher web pages and for identifying placement pathways by which discovered advertisements have been placed on the publisher web pages. An advertisement tracking and discovery system may use multiple web crawler applications to explore multiple publisher websites. The web crawler applications may gather advertisement data that includes times associated with each request made by the web crawler application. The system may use the gathered advertisement data and the times associated with each request to determine the placement pathways by which discovered advertisements have been placed. Each placement pathway may include one or more advertising channels or combinations of advertising channels. The system may accumulate and aggregate advertising data associated with the advertisements and the placement pathways and display the aggregated advertising data to a customer.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for automatically generating and maintaining user profile cookie sets. The user profile cookie sets may be used by a web crawler when gathering data such as advertisement data associated with one or more websites. The cookie sets may be generated by choosing a user profile with a set of user traits, selecting a set of websites related to the user traits, and browsing the selected set of websites using a web crawler while allowing the website to place cookies in storage of the web crawler. The cookie sets may be maintained by selecting a website to browse, selecting a user profile associated with the selected website, loading a previously generated cookie set for the selected user profile into the storage of a web crawler, and loading the webpage while allowing the website to place, update, or replace cookies in the storage of the web crawler.