SPECIFYING AND NORMALIZING UTILITY FUNCTIONS OF PARTICIPANTS IN AN ADVERTISING EXCHANGE

• US 20080103952A1
• Filed: 04/16/2007
• Published: 05/01/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Biggs, Jody D., Flake, Gary W., Meek, Christopher A., Brewer, Brett D., Burdick, Brian, Dominowska, Ewa, Chickering, David Max
• Application Number:
  US11/735,742
• Publication Number:
  US 20080103952A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/37
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/102 Bill distribution or payments
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

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.

Claims

1. A method for facilitating transactions for advertisement space in an advertising exchange including a publisher broker to represent at least one publisher and an advertiser broker to represent at least one advertiser, comprising:

receiving a first expression of a first utility function based on a first utility model from a first participant in the advertising exchange that defines at least one preference of the first participant pertaining to conducting transactions in the advertising exchange, wherein the first expression is invertible with respect to a common measure;

receiving a second expression of a second utility function based on a second utility model, different from the first utility model, from a second participant in the advertising exchange that defines at least one preference of the second participant pertaining to conducting transactions in the advertising exchange, wherein the second expression is invertible with respect to the common measure, and wherein the first participant and the second participant are advertising entities of disparate advertising networks; and

normalizing the first and second expressions to the common measure enabling a quantifiable comparison of the first utility function and the second utility function.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the normalizing includes inverting the first and second expressions to a common measure of expected revenue from advertising transactions.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the normalizing includes inverting the first and second expressions to a common measure of expected cost per impression for advertising.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

translating the first and second expressions to effective tax rates as between the first and second participants for advertising transactions in the advertising exchange.

5. The method of claim 4, displaying the effective tax rates to the first and second participants for transactions between the first and second participants.

6. A computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions for carrying out the method of claim 1.

7. A system to facilitate trading of advertising, comprising:

a publisher broker to represent at least one publisher, wherein the publisher broker determines at least one ask for an advertisement space of the at least one publisher;

an advertiser broker to represent at least one advertiser, wherein the advertiser broker manages at least one bid for the advertisement space by the at least one advertiser; and

an exchange to facilitate a transaction for the advertisement space between the publisher broker and the advertiser broker, wherein the publisher broker and the advertiser broker are advertising entities of disparate advertising networks,

wherein a first utility function is received by the exchange that defines at least one objective of the publisher broker or at least one objective of the advertiser broker, wherein a second utility function, different from the first utility function, is received by the exchange that defines at least one objective of the publisher broker or at least one objective of the advertiser broker, and wherein the exchange normalizes the first and second utility functions to a standard utility function representation enabling a direct comparison of the first and second utility functions.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the first and second utility functions are compared according to the standard utility function representation for a transaction between the publisher broker and advertiser broker.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein at least one difference between the first and second utility functions is determined by the exchange based on the standard utility function representation.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the first and second utility functions are defined as at least one function that is invertible to expected revenue from advertising transactions.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the first and second utility functions are defined as at least one function that is invertible to expected cost per impression for advertising in the advertising exchange.

12. A method for facilitating transactions for advertisement space in an advertising exchange among a plurality of participants including a first participant and a second participant that are advertising entities of disparate advertising networks, comprising:

receiving from the first participant a first set of local objectives defined according to a first format, the first set of local objectives representing at least one objective for conducting transactions in the advertising exchange;

receiving from the second participant a second set of local objectives according to a second format, the second set of local objectives representing at least one objective for conducting transactions in the advertising exchange;

if the first and second sets of local objectives are defined in disparate formats, translating the first and second sets of local objectives to a standardized format that defines a common measure of value of objectives across the plurality of participants from disparate advertising networks in the advertising exchange.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

for a transaction between the first and second participant, comparing the first and second sets of local objectives according to the standardized format.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

exposing differences between the first and second set of local objectives in terms of the standardized format.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

translating the differences to the first format for the first participant and to the second format for the second participant.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the first and second sets of local objectives are defined as at least one function that is invertible to the common measure of value.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the first and second sets of local objectives are defined as at least one function that is invertible to expected revenue from advertising transactions in the advertising exchange.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the first and second sets of local objectives are defined as at least one function that is invertible to expected cost per impression for advertising in the advertising exchange.

19. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

translating the first and second sets of local objectives to effective tax rates as between the first and second participants for advertising transactions in the advertising exchange.

20. A computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions for carrying out the method of claim 12.