Methods and systems for near real-time lookalike audience expansion in ads targeting

A method comprising:

• defining, by an audience expansion engine, a lookalike audience using one or more models;
• receiving, by the audience expansion engine and from users, a stream of events;
• receiving, by the audience expansion engine and via an application program interface (API), seed list information from a user device;
• receiving, by the audience expansion engine and via the API, lookalike audience information from one or more devices associated with one or more advertisers;
• updating, by the audience expansion engine, the one or more models based upon at least one of the seed list information or the lookalike audience information;
• spawning, by the audience expansion engine and via one or more database loader threads, one or more pre-compiler threads;
• preparing data, by the audience expansion engine and via the one or more pre-compiler threads, by (i) fetching seed data, and (ii) storing the seed data in a user profile cache;
• signaling, by the audience expansion engine and via the one or more pre-compiler threads, one or more signature matrix compiler threads;
• building, by the audience expansion engine and based upon the seed data and the signaling and via the one or more signature matrix compiler threads, one or more signature matrices;
• processing, by the audience expansion engine, a first event of the stream of events based upon the one or more signature matrices, wherein the first event is associated with a first user;
• and
• determining, by the audience expansion engine, a degree of similarity between the first user and one or more members of the lookalike audience based upon the processing.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that when executed by a processor cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

• defining a lookalike audience using one or more models;
• receiving, from users, a stream of events;
• receiving, via an application program interface (API), seed list information from a user device;
• receiving, via the API, lookalike audience information from one or more devices associated with one or more advertisers;
• updating the one or more models based upon at least one of the seed list information or the lookalike audience information;
• spawning, via one or more database loader threads, one or more pre-compiler threads;
• preparing data, via the one or more pre-compiler threads, by (i) fetching seed data, and (ii) storing the seed data in a user profile cache;
• signaling, via the one or more pre-compiler threads, one or more signature matrix compiler threads;
• building, based upon the seed data and the signaling and via the one or more signature matrix compiler threads, one or more signature matrices;
• processing a first event of the stream of events based upon the one or more signature matrices, wherein the first event is associated with a first user;
• and
• determining a degree of similarity between the first user and one or more members of the lookalike audience based upon the processing.