Explorers

The Explorers section hosts ATDb's specialized navigation tools. A single network graph can't serve every research question, so each explorer is built around one specific data shape and one job-to-be-done.

What's available

• Agency Holdco Map (/explorers/agencies, titled Marketing Services Holdco Map on the page) — deterministic parent-child tree of the marketing-services industry. Best for: sales reps mapping who owns what across WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, Dentsu, Havas, Stagwell, and the major consultancies and independents. Filters, an account-conflict overlay, and a recent-activity feed help with pitch prep. Compare-mode supports up to four holdcos side-by-side; time-scrubber rewinds the org structure to any year via ?as_of=YYYY. How to use it: Agency Holdco Map.
• AdTech Stack Atlas (/explorers/atlas) — tiled view of 9 canonical stack layers (Demand-Side Platforms, SSPs & Ad Exchanges, Ad Servers, Identity & Data, Attribution & Analytics, Verification & Brand Safety, Creative & DCO, Connected TV, Retail Media Networks) with the leading vendors visible at a glance. Click any layer to drill into its full vendor list, tier-grouped (S → D). Click any vendor card to open an inline detail panel with quick stats, summary, and top connections.
• M&A Timeline (/explorers/timeline) — year-by-year timeline of mergers, acquisitions, IPOs, funding rounds, rebrands, and shutdowns. Filter by event type, sort each year by deal value, and click the density strip at the top to jump to a year.
• Geographic Vendor Map (/explorers/geo) — AdTech vendor headquarters by region and country, with density bars. Pick a region, click a country to see its top vendors, and use Operating only to hide defunct companies.
• Programmatic Flow (/explorers/flow) — Sankey diagram of how an ad dollar flows from the advertiser, through the AdTech stack, to the publisher. Best for: understanding where the money goes at each layer of the supply chain.
• Ecosystem Graph (/graph) — force-directed network graph of the AdTech ecosystem's relationships, ranked by connections. Best for: open-ended exploration, finding non-obvious connections, n-hop discovery. How to use it: Using the Ecosystem Graph.

Atlas — drill-down and deep-linking

• Click any of the 9 layer cells on the Atlas grid to drill into that layer's full vendor list.
• Inside a layer, click a vendor card to open the right-side detail panel (or ?vendor=<slug> to deep-link directly).
• The panel shows: tier badge, operational status, headquarters, founded year, industry, a short summary, and the top connections (with a flag button per row — see below).
• Cmd-click (or Ctrl-click on Windows/Linux) on a vendor card opens its full company profile in a new tab without opening the panel.
• Close the panel via the X button (top-right of the panel) or press Escape. The ?vendor= URL parameter clears on close so deep-links can be shared cleanly.
• Share any Atlas state via the URL — ?layer=dsp opens the layer view, and ?layer=dsp&vendor=the-trade-desk opens the layer with The Trade Desk's detail panel already loaded.

Filters

Inside a layer, the Has CEO listed checkbox (next to the search box) filters the vendor list down to entities where ATDb knows the current CEO (via a leadership connection). Useful when you want to scope down to companies whose leadership ATDb has researched in depth. Toggling the filter syncs to the URL as ?has_ceo=1 — share-links round-trip the filter state.

When the filter is on, a counter next to the checkbox shows "X of Y matched" so you can see how much of the layer survives the filter.

Inline accuracy reporting (flag button)

Across the Explorers, individual relationship rows expose a small flag icon (faint on desktop, slightly stronger on touch). Clicking it opens a report dialog pre-filled with the connection context. Use this when you spot a wrong parent-of, competitor-of, or integrates-with connection — admins review these reports and update or reject the underlying data.

Start here — pick a question

The Explorers hub at /explorers opens with a "Start here" matrix that maps common questions directly to the right tool with the right initial state. If you know what you want to learn but not which explorer to use, scan that list first.

• "Who owns this agency?" → Holdco Map
• "What's in the AdTech stack?" → Atlas
• "When did this deal close?" → Timeline
• "Where is this vendor based?" → Geo
• "How does an ad dollar flow?" → Programmatic Flow
• "Show me how X connects to Y" → Ecosystem Graph

Picking the right explorer

Match your question to the data shape:

The Explorers hub at /explorers lists every available tool with a short description.