Abstract: Techniques are described herein for using an impression-trend technique to provide a display advertising supply forecast. A display advertising supply forecast is an estimate of a number of impressions, which are to occur in a future time period, that have specified attribute values. For example, the specified attribute values may be descriptive of impressions with respect to which an advertiser wishes to place ads. An impression-trend technique is a forecasting technique that uses trends regarding past impressions to forecast a number of future impressions that have specified attribute values. The past impressions include attribute values that are related to the specified attribute values.

Abstract: Techniques are described herein for using an impression-trend technique to provide a display advertising supply forecast. A display advertising supply forecast is an estimate of a number of impressions, which are to occur in a future time period, that have specified attribute values. For example, the specified attribute values may be descriptive of impressions with respect to which an advertiser wishes to place ads. An impression-trend technique is a forecasting technique that uses trends regarding past impressions to forecast a number of future impressions that have specified attribute values. The past impressions include attribute values that are related to the specified attribute values.

Abstract: An advertisement impression distribution system includes a data processing system operable to generate an allocation plan for serving advertisement impressions. The allocation plan allocates a first portion of advertisement impressions to satisfy guaranteed demand and a second portion of advertisement impressions to satisfy nonguaranteed demand. The data processing system includes an optimizer configured to establish a relationship between the first portion of advertisement impressions and the second portion of advertisement impressions. The relationship defines a range of proportions of allocation of the first portion and the second portion. The optimizer generates a solution maximizing guaranteed demand fairness, non-guaranteed demand revenue, and click value. The solution identifies a determined proportion of the first portion of advertisement impressions to serve and a determined proportion of the second portion of advertisement impressions to serve.

Abstract: An item of inventory is described as a Boolean expression, which is converted into a multi-level, alternating AND/OR impression tree representation with leaf nodes representing conjuncts. Processing the conjuncts of the tree through a contract index results in retrieving a set of candidate contracts that match at least some but not necessarily all impression tree leaf node predicates. Next, an AND/OR contract tree representation is constructed with each contract tree leaf node having a label representing a projection onto a discrete set of ordered symbols. Contracts with projections that cover the entire range of discrete set of ordered symbols are deemed to satisfy the item of inventory. Implementation of the contract index includes retrieval techniques to support multi-valued predicates as well as confidence threshold functions using a multi-level tree representation of multi-valued predicates.

Abstract: A system and method for adjusting demand parameters to produce an optimized allocation plan for delivering a plurality of impressions to a plurality of contracts for display advertising. The method commences upon receiving a first eligibility graph, the first eligibility graph comprising a plurality of impressions, a plurality of contracts and at least one first demand parameter. For reducing errors in sampling that affect the eligibility graph, demand parameters contained within the first eligibility graph are adjusted, resulting in an adjusted first eligibility graph. Once the adjusted first eligibility graph is available, a network solver is used for solving the adjusted first eligibility graph to produce an adjusted allocation plan, which adjusted allocation plan is used for displaying at least one of the plurality of impressions.

Abstract: A network based advertisement system includes a supply forecasting system configured to select, from a campaign log database, data that defines a plurality of contracts. Each contract specifies requirements that include contract target audience information and a number of impressions. For each contract, the supply forecasting system identifies one or more opportunity samples with characteristics that match contract target audience information of the contract. Each opportunity sample is associated with a weight that corresponds to a number of opportunities with similar characteristics. An optimizer associates the opportunity samples with the contract and then determines whether the opportunity samples are associated with other contracts. The optimizer then limits the number of opportunities associated with the samples that are allocatable to the contract based at least in part on a function of requirements of other contracts associated with the one or more samples.

Abstract: Methods and systems for presenting content such as articles based on utility are provided. In one embodiment, a plurality of articles are determined, each article in the plurality of articles including article content and a corresponding preview icon, the preview icon defining a link to the corresponding article content when presented. For each article in the plurality of articles, a user experience utility value is determined. And for each article in the plurality of articles, an economic utility value is also determined. A ranked order of the articles is determined based upon each article's user experience utility value and economic utility value. And a portion of the preview icons of the articles are presented on a graphical display page in a priority orientation based on the ranked order of the articles.

Abstract: A network based advertisement system includes an optimizer configured to forecast a supply of opportunities, forecast a supply of guaranteed contracts, and forecast a supply of non-guaranteed contracts. Each opportunity represents a user visiting a webpage. Each guaranteed contract guarantees the matching of an advertisement to a number of opportunities. Each non-guaranteed contract guarantees a user event associated with an advertisement. The optimizer then generates a plan for matching contracts to opportunities based on the forecasted supply of opportunities, the forecasted supply of guaranteed contracts, the forecasted supply of non-guaranteed contracts, and an objective function that balances a group of parameters that define the representativeness of contracts, a cost associated with not serving non-guaranteed contracts, and performance objectives associated with contracts.

Abstract: Techniques are provided relating to conducting bucket testing, relating to advertisement performance or advertisement campaign performance, in connection with guaranteed delivery online advertising associated with an online advertising marketplace. Techniques are provided in which advertising supply, demand, or both are partitioned into buckets. Differing allocation policies are established for each of the buckets. Following serving of advertisements in accordance with the operating policies, difference is measured, between the buckets, and the difference is used to evaluate differing advertisement performance or differing advertisement campaign performance between the buckets.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatuses for generating supply forecasts for advertisement impressions are provided. Supply forecasts for future advertisement inventory are enabled to be determined that match attribute values received from a requester in a query or “contract.” Such supply forecasts may be determined based on cumulative or non-cumulative supply forecast values, and may be determined based on time series of supply forecast values for individual impressions or for blocks of impressions.

Abstract: Techniques are provided to facilitate bucket testing in connection with guaranteed delivery online advertising associated with an online advertising marketplace. Operating policies are established for each of the buckets, in which the operating policies for each of the buckets differ. Bucket controller programming logic is used in implementation of the operating policies. Allocation and serving of advertisements is facilitated in accordance with the operating policies.

Abstract: Techniques are provided relating to conducting bucket testing in connection with guaranteed delivery online advertising associated with an online advertising marketplace. Techniques are provided in which advertising supply, demand, or both are partitioned into buckets. Operating policies are established for each of the buckets, in which the operating policies for each of the buckets differ. Following serving of advertisements in accordance with the operating policies, difference is measured in at least one outcome, between buckets.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method and display advertising server network for serving impression opportunities to a frequency-capped guaranteed delivery contract in a system for delivery of display advertising to a user. The method includes steps for receiving, from a computer, an event predicate and a user ID corresponding to the user, retrieving, from an index engine, a set of eligible frequency-capped contracts, wherein an eligible contract comprises at least one target predicate matching at least a portion of the event predicate, and probabilistically selecting for serving, in a computer, the booked contract having a frequency cap specification, only when the selected frequency-capped contract can be served to the user without violating the frequency cap specification.

Abstract: A method for pricing a contract for serving advertisements in an online display advertising environment comprising receiving a subject contract, the subject contract having at a target predicate for matching to a user visit, then forecasting, using a computer-based forecasting module, a set of user visits eligible to be served to the subject contract, wherein eligibility is based on matching the target predicate to a user visit (which user visit may be associated with an event predicate). Having a set of forecasted (matching) user visits, the method proceeds to select a set of eligible historical contracts that would be eligible to be served to the forecasted user visits. Finally, having a set of eligible historical contracts that would be eligible to be served to the target predicate, a curve fitting technique yields a price for the subject contract that minimizes the error in the price relative to expected user visits.

Abstract: A computer-implemented Internet advertising method for serving impression opportunities in a system for delivery of display advertising. The likelihood that a booked contract could be served by a future forecasted user visit is calculated as a probability mass, and associated with the booked contract. The relative sizes of the probability masses of a plurality of eligible contracts is used as a selector in conjunction with a selected pseudo-random number. In exemplary embodiments, a server is configured for receiving an event predicate as a result of a user visit to a web site. Based on the received event predicate, a set of eligible contracts is assembled. Each eligible contract is assigned to exactly one interval selected from a range, the size of the interval corresponding to the probability mass of the eligible contract. The generated pseudo-random number is used for selecting an interval, which operation selects an eligible advertisement for display.

Abstract: Techniques are described herein for using an impression-trend technique to provide a display advertising supply forecast. A display advertising supply forecast is an estimate of a number of impressions, which are to occur in a future time period, that have specified attribute values. For example, the specified attribute values may be descriptive of impressions with respect to which an advertiser wishes to place ads. An impression-trend technique is a forecasting technique that uses trends regarding past impressions to forecast a number of future impressions that have specified attribute values. The past impressions include attribute values that are related to the specified attribute values.

Abstract: An improved system and method for efficiently evaluating complex Boolean expressions is provided. Leaf nodes of Boolean expression trees for objects represented by Boolean expressions of attribute-value pairs may be assigned a positional identifier that indicates the position of a node in the Boolean expression tree. The positional identifiers of each object may be indexed by attribute-value pairs of the leaf nodes of the Boolean expression trees in an inverted index. Given an input set of attribute-value pairs, a list of positional identifiers for leaf nodes of virtual Boolean expression trees may be found in the index matching the attribute-value pairs of the input set. The list of positional identifiers of leaf nodes may be sorted in order by positional identifier for each contract. An expression evaluator may then verify whether a virtual Boolean expression tree for each contract is satisfied by the list of positional identifiers.

Abstract: A method for automatic matching of contracts to inventory using a fixed-length complex predicate representation. An item of inventory is described as a Boolean expression, which is converted into a multi-level, alternating AND/OR impression tree representation with leaf nodes representing conjuncts. Processing the conjuncts of the tree through a contract index results in retrieving a set of candidate contracts that match the at least some but not necessarily all impression tree leaf node predicates. Next, an AND/OR contract tree representation is constructed with each contract tree leaf node having a label representing a projection onto a discrete set of ordered symbols. Contracts with projections that cover the entire range of discrete set of ordered symbols are deemed to satisfy the item of inventory.

Abstract: A method for automatic matching of contracts to inventory using a fixed-length complex predicate representation. An item of inventory is described as a Boolean expression, which is converted into a multi-level, alternating AND/OR impression tree representation with leaf nodes representing conjuncts. Processing the conjuncts of the tree through a contract index results in retrieving a set of candidate contracts that match the at least some but not necessarily all impression tree leaf node predicates. Next, an AND/OR contract tree representation is constructed with each contract tree leaf node having a label representing a projection onto a discrete set of ordered symbols. Contracts with projections that cover the entire range of discrete set of ordered symbols are deemed to satisfy the item of inventory.

Abstract: A method for automatic matching of contracts to inventory using a fixed-length complex predicate representation. An item of inventory is described as a Boolean expression, which is converted into a multi-level, alternating AND/OR impression tree representation with leaf nodes representing conjuncts. Processing the conjuncts of the tree through a contract index results in retrieving a set of candidate contracts that match the at least some but not necessarily all impression tree leaf node predicates. Next, an AND/OR contract tree representation is constructed with each contract tree leaf node having a label representing a projection onto a discrete set of ordered symbols. Contracts with projections that cover the entire range of discrete set of ordered symbols are deemed to satisfy the item of inventory.