Digital ads are ubiquitous across websites, apps, connected TVs — even some chatbots. They're how brands, individuals, and organizations acquire customers, sell products, and gain awareness and influence.
They’re also the engine of a vast and murky roughly trillion-dollar industry that presents opportunities for OSINT and digital investigations. I’ve been obsessed with investigating digital ads for a decade and want to train more people to dig into them.
This guide is the latest in a series to help you integrate digital ads into your investigative workflow. Previous articles include:
The Indicator guide to connecting websites together using OSINT tools and methods also includes information about how to use advertising IDs embedded in websites to identify networks.
This guide builds on the advertising ID technique and helps you move beyond ad libraries to dig into ad supply chains and to understand more about where ads have been served. I spoke to two of the world’s best ad investigators — Zach Edwards of Infoblox and the recently launched DecryptAds, and Krzysztof Franaszek of Adalytics — to walk through two tools they use, each of which has a free tier.
But before we dig into the tools, let’s learn some essential background about digital ads so you can understand how to apply the tools and techniques.
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