Abstract: For a multi-party advertising exchange including advertising and publishing entities from disparate advertising networks, flexible advertising transaction accounting methods are provided for circumstances where a relatively small number of trusted participants agree to reduce onerous reporting requirements conducted at a per transaction level. Trusted participants optionally report aggregate data for transactions including aggregate fraud data measurements to determine aggregate apportioning of cost and payments associated with advertising transactions. Aggregate reporting, subject to safeguards, enables a reduction in the overhead associated with per transaction accounting, and other participants need not duplicate measurements of trusted participants who are positioned best to collect the measurements, enabling a cooperative effort to the benefit of all of the trusted participants.

Abstract: For a multi-party advertising exchange, including publishing entities and advertising entities from disparate advertising networks, which facilitates transactions for publishing inventory, a value add broker is provided to aggregate information from third parties having valuable information for input to the exchange or to perform services that are valuable to transactions in the exchange. The valuable information or services further facilitate the transactions for the publishing inventory automatically generating a benefit for the third parties providing the valuable information or services commensurate with the value added to the transactions.

Abstract: An optimization tool is provided for individual participants who participate in multiple online advertising environments wherein the tool interfaces with the multiple environments in an optimal manner on behalf of the individual participants. A participant using the tool can specify goals and/or constraints for participating in one or more of the networks, and then the tool automatically optimizes advertising expenditure for advertising transactions across the different networks. The tool also tracks the performance of the participant across the different networks and dynamically tunes the participant's advertising expenditure based on such performance as well as the changing conditions of the marketplace.

Abstract: For a multi-party advertising exchange including advertising and publishing entities from different advertising networks, the invention provides architectures for an online advertising marketplace that range from lightweight to heavyweight implementations. A lightweight client side implementation of an interface includes centralized processing and storage of federated advertising marketplace data by centralized servers or services. A heavyweight client side implementation of an interface for advertising entities includes providing a peer instance of a federated advertising exchange application or set of processes is provided to each advertising entity as an interface for advertising entities where processing and storage are performed locally to each peer instance. Distributed advertising data can be replicated or synchronized with other peer instances.

Abstract: For a multi-party advertising exchange including advertising and publishing entities, each participant can specify one or more utility functions that are invertible with respect to a common measure, such as revenue. In one non-limiting embodiment, each utility function is invertible with respect to expected revenue per standard advertising unit, e.g., expected cost per impression. The disparate utility functions of multiple participants are also normalized within the advertising exchange by converting the utility functions to the common measure enabling the comparison or translation of a first set of utility functions to a second set of utility functions in quantifiable terms. Various system refinements are provided and disclosed according to a host of optional embodiments.

Abstract: For a multi-party advertising exchange including advertising and publishing entities, each participant can specify one or more display properties as requirements or definitions for advertising transactions in the exchange. The disparate display properties of multiple participants are normalized within the advertising exchange to a common vocabulary by translating the display properties to a common set of representations within the exchange enabling the comparison of a first set of display properties to a second set of display properties. The invention also optionally records the performance of advertising as a function of display properties over time so that optimal display strategies can be determined by participants with access to the performance information. Various system refinements are provided and disclosed according to a host of optional embodiments.

Abstract: For a multi-party advertising exchange including advertising and publishing entities, automatic value sharing is provided for distributed users of the advertising exchange that provide valuable information to the exchange. Users provide information that has quantifiable value to the advertising exchange and/or its participants. In exchange for the information, predicated on any function or cost model for quantifying the value of the information, a reward or advantage, such as revenue, is given to the user by the advertising exchange and/or participants of the advertising exchange in order to incentivize users' valuable contributions. As a result, the advertising exchange becomes a more efficient marketplace, increasing predictability and the participant(s) benefit in correspondence with the value of any information received by those participant(s). Various refinements are provided and disclosed according to a host of optional embodiments.

Abstract: For a multi-party advertising exchange including advertising and publishing entities, each participant specifies tax rate(s), such as import tax and export tax, that apply to at least one other entity in the exchange. Since tax rate(s) can be expressed in different transactional terms by different parties, each tax rate is reduced to a common tax rate expression within the exchange for comparison. Intelligent tax rate selection and support can be provided to dynamically set tax rates that achieve utilitarian goals for the individual participants taking into account the tax rates expressed by other participants and their respective advertising goals, and dynamically adjusting tax rates over time in response to condition changes. Various refinements are provided and disclosed according to a host of optional implementations.

Abstract: For a multi-party advertising exchange including advertising and publishing entities, each participant can specify one or more utility functions that are invertible with respect to a common measure, such as revenue. In one non-limiting embodiment, each utility function is invertible with respect to expected revenue per standard advertising unit, e.g., expected cost per impression. The disparate utility functions of multiple participants are also normalized within the advertising exchange by converting the utility functions to the common measure enabling the comparison or translation of a first set of utility functions to a second set of utility functions in quantifiable terms. Various system refinements are provided and disclosed according to a host of optional embodiments.

Abstract: For a multi-party advertising exchange including advertising and publishing entities from disparate advertising networks, a framework is provided for applying insurance terms to advertising transactions in the exchange, enabling risk sensitive participants to ease their participation in a potentially volatile online advertising marketplace. Participants can use the insurance mechanism of the advertising exchange to reduce variance in expected outcome for transactions in the advertising exchange.

Abstract: For a multi-party advertising exchange including advertising entities and publishing entities from different advertising networks, automatic apportioning of advertising transactions across inventory from different advertising channels is provided. Optimal combinations or advertising bundles of different channels are generated for the participant based on an analysis of inventory across different advertising channels for a given set of participation goals/constraints. A small portion of a participant's overall advertising expenditure can be held back for exploratory purposes to determine better combinations of advertising channels based on actual performance over time.

Abstract: For a multi-party advertising exchange including advertising and publishing entities, each participant specifies tax rate(s), such as import tax and export tax, that apply to at least one other entity in the exchange. Since tax rate(s) can be expressed in different transactional terms by different parties, each tax rate is reduced to a common tax rate expression within the exchange for comparison. Intelligent tax rate selection and support can be provided to dynamically set tax rates that achieve utilitarian goals for the individual participants taking into account the tax rates expressed by other participants and their respective advertising goals, and dynamically adjusting tax rates over time in response to condition changes. Various refinements are provided and disclosed according to a host of optional implementations.

Abstract: For a multi-party advertising exchange including advertising and publishing entities, each publishing entity can expose user attribute space(s) for its publishing inventory to the exchange, which are normalized to a common vocabulary within the exchange. Similarly, each advertising entity can specify one or more preferences for user attributes as requirements or definitions for advertising transactions in the exchange which are also normalized to the common vocabulary. The common vocabulary enables the comparison of a first set of user attributes to a second set of user attributes within the exchange. Supplemental user attribute data may also be received from audience data brokers, and the performance of advertising as a function of sets and subsets of user attributes over time may be recorded so that optimal display strategies can be determined.

Abstract: For a multi-party online advertising exchange including advertising and publishing entities and one or more third party participants, the disclosed systems and methods enable third party participation in arbitrage opportunities in online advertising transactions. A plurality of underlying transaction details are abstracted and provided to the third party participants without loss of generalization and while preserving relationships in the transaction data, to enable a third party share risk in advertising transactions. Various system refinements are provided and disclosed according to a host of optional embodiments.

Abstract: The subject disclosure pertains to systems and methods for facilitating generation of item recommendations based at least in part upon pair-wise lift. Pair-wise lift is a measure of correlation between a pair of items and is generally calculated based upon past usage data. If usage data is insufficient or unavailable, pair-wise lift for a pair of items can be estimated based upon metadata associated with the items. In other aspects, pair-wise lift can be used to generate an explanation for recommended items. An explanation for an item recommendation can be based upon common metadata features associated with the item pair. The relative impact each metadata feature has on predicted pair-wise lift can be evaluated to determine the common feature(s) most likely to have caused the item to be recommended.