Leading Web Advertisers’ (LWA) interactive marketing tool is a new service on the Canadian scene that tracks and measures online advertising on a daily basis for 3,000 brands and products on more than 200 Canadian Web sites.

The service’s fundamental goal is to provide clients with a firm handle on the competition’s online creative strategies and newest campaigns, says LWA senior vice president Carole Tracey.

Launched in February, the service has already signed over 175 partnerships that include AOL.ca and MSN.ca, and CANOE.

Although Media Metrix’s Ad Relevance performs similar functions, LWA’s popularity in the US is based on its next-day turnaround. To accomplish this, the service uses a unique ‘spider’ technology that searches the Web and gathers in-depth advertising data and graphics on countless products. If a competitor posts an ad on Monday evening, clients will be able to see the promotion, find out where it appeared and how many times it came up, all by the time they turn on their computers Tuesday morning.

LWA also tracks frequency of Web-based ad viewing so that media buyers can adjust their offers based on the potential softness of Web demand.

For Debbie King, executive vice president and managing director of Optimedia Toronto, the product is most useful in that it gives advertisers ‘the ability to monitor competitor activity, and figure out where and what the creative messaging is.’

‘It’s the number one tool to get [Web-based] information quickly and act on it,’ King says, adding that it’s useful both for advertisers who want the newest ideas at their fingertips and for companies who are eager to know just how well their own product or services are performing on the Web.

The New York-based company has offices around the globe, and hopes to further integrate its services domestically and abroad by increasing both its client base and tracking reach through new sites.