Abstract: In an example embodiment, a blending model is presented based on a linear programming approach. The blending model produces a slate of sponsored and non-sponsored pieces of content for display in a graphical user interface, with the ordering and placement of the sponsored and non-sponsored pieces of content selected in order to maximize an objective function. Such an approach can fine tune each piece of content using content-level parameters and holistically examine global constraints and opportunities. It establishes a robust optimization framework that can adapt to content and domain changes without requiring tuning through online experiments.