Improvements to the linear programming based scheduling of web advertisements

Abstract

We propose and evaluate a number of improvements to the linear programming formulation of web advertisement scheduling, which we have proposed elsewhere together with our colleagues [Langheinrich et al., 9]. In particular, we address a couple of important technical challenges having to do with the estimation of click-through rates and optimization of display probabilities (the exploration-exploitation trade-off and the issue of data sparseness and sealability). as well as practical aspects that are essential for successful deployment of this approach (the issues of multi-impressions and inventory management). We propose solutions to each of these issues, and assess their effectiveness by running large-scale simulation experiments. © 2005 Springer Science + Business Media. Inc.