Pacing objectives of an advertising campaign throughout a duration of the advertising campaign

• US 10,650,406 B2
• Filed: 05/01/2019
• Issued: 05/12/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 01/24/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Karande, Chinmay Deepak, Jiang, Xiaohu, Zhu, Zhengyong
• Primary Examiner(s): Schmucker, Michael W
• Application Number:
  US16/401,055
• Publication Number:
  US 20190259055A1
• Time in Patent Office: 377 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0246 Traffic
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0249 based upon budgets or funds

Abstract

An advertiser specifies an advertising campaign along with a budget, a duration and one or more objectives associated with the advertising campaign. An online system presenting advertisements from the advertising campaign determines an interval representing a portion of the duration, an interval budget, and one or more interval objectives. Historical information describing selection and presentation of advertisements by the online system is retrieved, and used to determine one or more filters limiting the number of opportunities to present an advertisement in which advertisements from the advertising campaign are included. The scaling filters may be based on the one or more interval objectives, bid amounts determined for advertisements in the advertising campaign, and bid amounts associated with advertisements previously selected for presentation form the historical data.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving information for an advertising campaign including one or more advertisements for presentation to one or more users of a social networking system, the received information for the advertising campaign including a budget, a duration, and an impression objective, the impression objective specifying a target number of presentations of the one or more advertisements to users of the social networking system on a plurality of client devices;

determining an interval impression objective specifying a first portion of the impression objective to be completed in a first interval of the advertising campaign, the first interval representing a portion of the duration of the advertising campaign;

determining a predicted number of impressions during the first interval;

determining, by a computer, a scaling filter based at least on a combination of the interval impression objective, the predicted number of impressions, and the budget, the scaling filter being usable to regulate inclusion of the one or more advertisements of the advertising campaign in advertisement auctions;

tracking, by the computer, a performance of the advertising campaign during the first interval, the performance comprising an impression count counting a number of times an advertisement from the advertising campaign was presented to users of the social networking system on a plurality of client devices during the first interval;

determining an updated interval impression objective specifying a second portion of the impression objective to be completed in a second interval of the advertising campaign based at least on the performance of the advertising campaign during the first interval;

modifying, by the computer, the scaling filter based at least on the updated interval impression objective;

receiving a request to present content to a viewing user of the social networking system;

responsive to receiving the request, applying, by the computer, the modified scaling filter to determine whether to include an advertisement of the advertising campaign in an auction for selecting content to present to the viewing user;

responsive to determining to include the advertisement of the advertising campaign in the auction, determining whether to present the advertisement of the advertising campaign to the viewing user based on an outcome of the auction; and

responsive to determining to present the advertisement of the advertising campaign to the viewing user, sending the advertisement for presentation to the viewing user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the predicted performance of the advertising campaign comprises:

retrieving information describing previously completed auctions selecting one or more advertisements for presentation to users, the retrieved information including bid amounts associated with advertisements in the previously completed auctions; and

determining a number of the previously completed auctions in which an advertisement from the advertising campaign would have been selected, based at least in part on the retrieved information and bid amounts associated with advertisements in the advertising campaign;

wherein the predicted performance is calculated based on the number of previously completed auctions in which an advertisement from the advertising campaign would have been selected.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the scaling filter is a ratio of the interval impression objective to the predicted number of impressions during the first interval.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the interval impression objective comprises:

determining a target impression objective specifying a number of impressions at a completion of the first interval;

determining a current number of impressions associated with the advertising campaign;

comparing the target impression objective to the current number of impressions; and

determining the interval impression objective based at least in part on the comparison.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

during the first interval, updating the scaling filter based on the tracked performance.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

during the first interval;

identifying a first plurality of opportunities to present advertisements to users of the social networking system,

determining whether to include one or more advertisements from the advertising campaign in auctions associated with the first plurality of identified opportunities based at least in part on the scaling filter.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the scaling filter is a percentage of auctions in which advertisements from the advertising campaign will be included.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the advertising campaign is also associated with a reach objective, the method further comprising:

determining an interval reach objective specifying a first portion of the reach objective to be completed in the first interval of the advertising campaign; and

determining, by the computer, an additional scaling filter based at least on a combination of the interval reach objective and the budget, the additional scaling filter also usable to select one or more advertisements of the advertising campaign for inclusion in advertisement auctions.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the additional scaling filter is a percentage of auctions for opportunities to present advertisements to users not previously presented with at least one advertisement from the advertising campaign in which an advertisement from the advertising campaign will be included.

10. A method comprising:

receiving information for an advertising campaign including one or more advertisements for presentation to one or more users of a social networking system, the received information for the advertising campaign including a budget, a duration, and a reach objective, the reach objective specifying a target number of different users of the social networking system presented with an advertisement from the one or more advertisements;

determining an interval reach objective specifying a first portion of the reach objective to be completed in a first interval of the advertising campaign, the first interval representing a portion of the duration of the advertising campaign;

determining a predicted number of impressions during the first interval;

determining, by a computer, a scaling filter based at least on a combination of the interval reach objective, the predicted number of reach, and the budget, the scaling filter being usable to regulate inclusion of the one or more advertisements of the advertising campaign in advertisement auctions;

tracking, by the computer, a performance of the advertising campaign during the first interval, the performance comprising a reach count counting a number of times an advertisement from the advertising campaign was presented to users of the social networking system on a plurality of client devices during the first interval;

determining an updated interval reach objective specifying a second portion of the reach objective to be completed in a second interval of the advertising campaign based at least on the performance of the advertising campaign during the first interval;

modifying, by the computer, the scaling filter based at least on the updated interval reach objective;

receiving a request to present content to a viewing user of the social networking system;

responsive to receiving the request, applying, by the computer, the modified scaling filter to determine whether to include an advertisement of the advertising campaign in an auction for selecting content to present to the viewing user;

responsive to determining to include the advertisement of the advertising campaign in the auction, determining whether to present the advertisement of the advertising campaign to the viewing user based on an outcome of the auction; and

responsive to determining to present the advertisement of the advertising campaign to the viewing user, sending the advertisement for presentation to the viewing user.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein determining the predicted performance of the advertising campaign comprises:

retrieving information describing previously completed auctions selecting one or more advertisements for presentation to users, the retrieved information including bid amounts associated with advertisements in the previously completed auctions; and

determining a number of the previously completed auctions in which an advertisement from the advertising campaign would have been selected, based at least in part on the retrieved information and bid amounts associated with advertisements in the advertising campaign;

wherein the predicted performance is calculated based on the number of previously completed auctions in which an advertisement from the advertising campaign would have been selected.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the scaling filter is a ratio of the interval impression objective to the predicted number of impressions during the first interval.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein determining the interval impression objective comprises:

determining a target impression objective specifying a number of impressions at a completion of the first interval;

determining a current number of impressions associated with the advertising campaign;

comparing the target impression objective to the current number of impressions; and

determining the interval impression objective based at least in part on the comparison.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

during the first interval, updating the scaling filter based on the tracked performance.

15. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

during the first interval;

identifying a first plurality of opportunities to present advertisements to users of the social networking system not previously presented with at least one advertisement from the advertising campaign,

determining whether to include one or more advertisements from the advertising campaign in auctions associated with the first plurality of identified opportunities based at least in part on the scaling filter.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the scaling filter is a percentage of auctions in which advertisements from the advertising campaign will be included.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the process to perform steps comprising:

receiving information for an advertising campaign including one or more advertisements for presentation to one or more users of a social networking system, the received information for the advertising campaign including a budget, a duration, and an impression objective, the impression objective specifying a target number of presentations of the one or more advertisements to users of the social networking system on a plurality of client devices;

determining an interval impression objective specifying a first portion of the impression objective to be completed in a first interval of the advertising campaign, the first interval representing a portion of the duration of the advertising campaign;

determining a predicted number of impressions during the first interval;

determining, by a computer, a scaling filter based at least on a combination of the interval impression objective, the predicted number of impressions, and the budget, the scaling filter being usable to regulate inclusion of the one or more advertisements of the advertising campaign in advertisement auctions;

tracking, by the computer, a performance of the advertising campaign during the first interval, the performance comprising an impression count counting a number of times an advertisement from the advertising campaign was presented to users of the social networking system on a plurality of client devices during the first interval;

determining an updated interval impression objective specifying a second portion of the impression objective to be completed in a second interval of the advertising campaign based at least on the performance of the advertising campaign during the first interval;

modifying, by the computer, the scaling filter based at least on the updated interval impression objective;

receiving a request to present content to a viewing user of the social networking system;

responsive to receiving the request, applying, by the computer, the modified scaling filter to determine whether to include an advertisement of the advertising campaign in an auction for selecting content to present to the viewing user;

responsive to determining to include the advertisement of the advertising campaign in the auction, determining whether to present the advertisement of the advertising campaign to the viewing user based on an outcome of the auction; and

responsive to determining to present the advertisement of the advertising campaign to the viewing user, sending the advertisement for presentation to the viewing user.

18. The storage medium of claim 17, wherein determining the predicted performance of the advertising campaign comprises:

retrieving information describing previously completed auctions selecting one or more advertisements for presentation to users, the retrieved information including bid amounts associated with advertisements in the previously completed auctions; and

determining a number of the previously completed auctions in which an advertisement from the advertising campaign would have been selected, based at least in part on the retrieved information and bid amounts associated with advertisements in the advertising campaign;

wherein the predicted performance is calculated based on the number of previously completed auctions in which an advertisement from the advertising campaign would have been selected.

19. The storage medium of claim 17, wherein the scaling filter is a ratio of the interval impression objective to the predicted number of impressions during the first interval.

20. The storage medium of claim 17, wherein determining the interval impression objective comprises:

determining a target impression objective specifying a number of impressions at a completion of the first interval;

determining a current number of impressions associated with the advertising campaign;

comparing the target impression objective to the current number of impressions; and

determining the interval impression objective based at least in part on the comparison.