Synthetic user profiles and monitoring online advertisements
Disclosed are systems and methods for monitoring and policing online advertisements. Content of a website is evaluated and assigned a score. The content evaluated may be either first-party content or third-party content or both. If the score fails predetermined criteria, a report is generated. Synthetic user profiles can be generated using a browser (or other software) to visit a number of predetermined or pseudo-random sites and accumulate user-specific data as it visits each of the sites. The browser stores off the accumulated user-specific data in conjunction with a synthetic user profile.
1. A method for evaluating online advertisements, the method comprising:
generating a first synthetic user profile by:
configuring a browser in accordance with first attributes;
visiting a first plurality of online resources via the configured browser, at least one of the first plurality of resources being associated with a first target demographic;
accumulating first user-specific data received from the first plurality of resources visited via the browser;
generating a second synthetic user profile by:
configuring a browser in accordance with second attributes different from the first attributes;
visiting a second plurality of online resources via the configured browser, the second plurality of resources differing at least in part from the first plurality of resources associated with the first synthetic user profile, at least one of the second plurality of resources being associated with a second target demographic different from the first target demographic;
accumulating second user-specific data received from the second plurality of resources visited via the browser;
retrieving, in a first instance, a target webpage via a browser configured in accordance with the first synthetic user profile, the target webpage comprising internal content and dynamic promotional content;
retrieving, in a second instance, the target webpage via a browser configured in accordance with the second synthetic user profile; and
evaluating first dynamic promotional content retrieved via the first instance and second dynamic promotional content retrieved via the second instance to assign a first score to the first dynamic promotional content and a second score to the second dynamic promotional content.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, based at least in part on the evaluation of the dynamic promotional content:
identifying an advertising affiliate associated with the first dynamic promotional content; and
automatically requesting further dynamic promotional content associated with the advertising affiliate be prevented from being served in conjunction with the target webpage.
3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
automatically generating a report comprising;
a record of the first dynamic promotional content;
the first score assigned to the first dynamic promotional content;
a record of the second dynamic promotional content; and
the second score assigned to the second dynamic promotional content; and
automatically providing the report to the publisher of the target webpage.
4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising providing the report to an advertising affiliate associated with the dynamic promotional content.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the dynamic promotional content in the first instance is a first advertisement, and wherein the dynamic promotional content in the second instance is a second advertisement different from the first.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first attributes comprise one or more of: a browser type, a browser version, an operating system, or a geographical location.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein accumulating user-specific data comprises accumulating and storing one or more of: cookies, web beacons, flash cookies, user-agent stringers, or referrer headers.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein evaluating the dynamic promotional content comprises assessing one or more of:
time to load the dynamic promotional content;
data used to load the dynamic promotional content;
animation load associated with the dynamic promotional content;
number of trackers associated with the dynamic promotional content;
rich media content associated with the dynamic promotional content;
secured resource requests associated with the dynamic promotional content; or
malicious code associated with the dynamic promotional content.
9. A tangible, non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform functions comprising:
generating a first synthetic user profile by:
configuring a browser in accordance with first attributes;
visiting a first plurality of online resources via the configured browser, at least one of the first plurality of resources being associated with a first target demographic;
accumulating first user-specific data received from the first plurality of resources visited via the browser;
generating a second synthetic user profile by:
configuring a browser in accordance with second attributes different from the first attributes;
visiting a second plurality of online resources via the configured browser, the second plurality of resources differing at least in part from the first plurality of resources associated with the first synthetic user profile, at least one of the second plurality of resources being associated with a second target demographic different from the first target demographic;
accumulating second user-specific data received from the second plurality of resources visited via the browser;
retrieving, in a first instance, a target webpage via a browser configured in accordance with the first synthetic user profile, the target webpage comprising internal content and dynamic promotional content;
retrieving, in a second instance, the target webpage via a browser configured in accordance with the second synthetic user profile; and
evaluating the first dynamic promotional content retrieved via the first instance and the second dynamic promotional content retrieved via the second instance to assign a first score to the first dynamic promotional content and a second score to the second dynamic promotional content.
10. A system comprising:
one or more processors; and
the computer-readable medium of claim 9 .
11. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 , wherein the functions further comprise, based at least in part on the evaluation of the dynamic promotional content:
identifying an advertising affiliate associated with the dynamic promotional content; and
automatically requesting further dynamic promotional content associated with the advertising affiliate be prevented from being served in conjunction with the target webpage.
12. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 , wherein the functions further comprise:
automatically generating a report comprising;
a record of the first dynamic promotional content;
the first score assigned to the first dynamic promotional content;
a record of the second dynamic promotional content; and
the second score assigned to the second dynamic promotional content; and
automatically providing the report to a publisher of the target webpage.
13. The computer-readable medium of claim 12 , wherein the functions further comprise providing the report to advertising affiliate associated with the dynamic promotional content.
14. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 , wherein the dynamic promotional content in the first instance is a first advertisement, and wherein the dynamic promotional content in the second instance is a second advertisement different from the first.
15. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 , wherein the first attributes comprise one or more of: a browser type, a browser version, an operating system, or a geographical location.
16. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 , wherein accumulating user-specific data comprises accumulating and storing one or more of: cookies, web beacons, flash cookies, user-agent stringers, or referrer headers.
17. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 , wherein evaluating the dynamic promotional content comprises assessing one or more of:
time to load the dynamic promotional content;
data used to load the dynamic promotional content;
animation load associated with the dynamic promotional content;
number of trackers associated with the dynamic promotional content;
rich media content associated with the dynamic promotional content;
secured resource requests associated with the dynamic promotional content; or
malicious code associated with the dynamic promotional content.