Price determination and inventory allocation based on spot and futures markets in future site channels for online advertising

• US 8,788,343 B2
• Filed: 02/15/2007
• Issued: 07/22/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Burdick, Brian, Mehdi, Yusuf I., Najm, Tarek, Dominowska, Ewa, Biggs, Jody D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Brown, Luis A.
• Application Number:
  US11/675,343
• Publication Number:
  US 20080103895A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,714 Days
• Field of Search: 705/14, 705/14.69, 705/27, 705/14.71, 705/14.4, 705/14.43, 705/14.46
• US Class Current: 705/14.69
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement

Abstract

The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates establishing a true market value for an online advertisement. An interface component can receive data related to at least one of a spot market or a future market. A dynamic pricing component can dynamically establish an ad price for an ad unit based on the spot market and the future market, the ad price reflects a market value of the ad unit in accordance with the spot market and the future market.

Claims

1. A method for establishing a true market value for an online advertisement, comprising:

employing a processor executing computer executable instructions embodied on a computer readable storage medium to perform the following acts;

receiving data related to a guaranteed price for ad units in a future market and prices for ad units in a spot market;

identifying ad sales within the data that are similar to an ad unit that a publisher is making available to advertisers in the spot market and the future market using a machine classifier that maps attributes of the ad sales to attributes of the ad unit, wherein attributes include ad position;

establishing a starting ad price for an ad unit in the spot market based upon the data related to the guaranteed price for the ad units received from the future market by employing a probabilistic analysis that infer the starting ad price using a support vector machine that generates a computation of a probability distribution for different starting prices based on consideration of the data related to the future market; and

establishing a guaranteed ad price for the ad unit in the future market based upon the data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the ad unit in the spot market is utilized by a publisher to sell advertising, and is the smallest unit of the advertisement that can be rendered.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the starting ad price and the guaranteed ad price are for the ad unit in a specific location on at least one of a website, a webpage, a page, or a site.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein a measurement of the price for the ad unit is at least one of a percent rotation for the advertisement, a cost/price per click (CPC), a price per 1000 impressions (CPM), a price per N impression, where N is a positive integer, or a unit of measurement related to sale of a portion of the ad unit.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the starting ad price relates to at least one of an amount, a group, a bundle, an advertiser plurality, a user popularity, a vertical value, or a number of the ad unit.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the spot market relates to selling at least one of a portion or a percent impression of the ad unit in the spot market online in a non-predictable and indeterminist environment.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the spot market is at least one of an auction, a Vickrey auction, a Dutch auction, a second price auction, or a mixed goods auction.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the future market is a guaranteed market that guarantees at least one condition of sale for the certainty offered by an immediate sale of the ad unit in the future market to a customer.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the future market price is identified with at least one of a publisher set price, a price set from a market driven approach, a Vickrey auction, an auction, a Dutch auction, a second price auction, a lottery, a mixed goods auction, or a technique to ascertain a set price for the future market.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying at least one ad sale within the future market similar to the ad unit in the spot market to establish the starting ad price.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically adjusting a time period associated with renewal of an ad sale contract within the future market based upon a current market state based upon the received data related to at least one of the spot market or the future market, wherein a price of the ad sale contract is not changed with the renewal.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising purchasing a portion of the ad unit in the spot markets at the starting ad price in order to re-sell at least a fraction of the portion of the ad unit in at least one of a disparate market, the spot market, or the future market.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising dynamically implementing a change to an auction within the spot market based upon the received data related to the future market, wherein the change is at least one of an ad unit position, a contract duration, or a contract ad unit measurement.

14. A method that facilitates generating a price for a portion of an online advertisement, comprising:

employing a processor executing computer executable instructions embodied on a computer readable storage medium to perform the following acts;

evaluating at least one spot market and one future market by employing a probabilistic analysis that infers the starting ad price using a support vector machine that generates a computation of a probability distribution for different prices based on consideration of the data related to the future market and the spot market;

automatically apportioning an inventory of a plurality of ad units based upon the evaluation for a publisher, wherein a subset of the inventory is apportioned to the spot market and a subset of the inventory is apportioned to the future market; and

generating a set price for the inventory apportioned to the future market and a starting price for the inventory apportioned to the spot market based at least in part upon the evaluation.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

monitoring one or more bids for the inventory apportioned to the spot market; and

dynamically adjusting the set price for the inventory in the futures market based upon the monitored one or more bids.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising dynamically adjusting a duration of a contract for a subset of the inventory in the futures market based upon the monitored one or more bids.

17. One or more computer-storage hardware devices having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that when executed by a computing device facilitates establishing a true market value for an online advertisement, comprising:

receiving data related to at least one of a spot market or a future market;

indentifying at least one sale within the spot market for an ad unit similar to an ad unit in the future market using a machine classifier that maps attributes of the at least one sale to attributes of the ad unit;

automatically apportioning an inventory of a plurality of ad units based upon the data, wherein a subset of the inventory is apportioned to the spot market and a subset of the inventory is apportioned to the future market;

dynamically establishing a set ad price for the ad unit in the future market based upon a sale price for the identified at least one ad sale within the spot market by employing a probabilistic analysis to infer the set ad price for the ad unit in the future market using a support vector machine that generates a probability distribution for different set ad prices based on ad sales within the spot market; and

consummating transactions for the ad units in both the spot market and the future market based on the apportionment.