Yield management system and method for advertising inventory

Abstract

A computer program product automates and optimizes placement of advertising message campaigns on available publisher inventory to maximize an objective function while respecting predetermined contract requirements and constraints. The product comprises an allocation program code adapted to formulate performance data, inventory information and contract information as an optimization problem, and to solve the optimization problem; testing program code adapted to measure performance of advertising message campaigns and that, based on measurement results, associates the advertising message campaigns with available publisher inventory according to a placement scheme; and an inventory forecasting program code adapted to use past advertising message campaign performance data, expected future advertising message behavior, and one or more additional factors to forecast a number of impressions available on one or more publisher channels, the additional factors being one of: seasonal variation, day of a week, time of day, holiday, forecast of future demand, and combinations thereof.

1 . An article comprising a tangible machine readable medium that stores a program, the program being executable by a machine to automate and optimize placement of advertising message campaigns on available publisher inventory to maximize an objective function while respecting predetermined contract requirements and constraints, comprising:
 allocation program code adapted to formulate performance data, inventory information and contract information as an optimization problem, and to solve the optimization problem;   testing program code adapted to measure performance of advertising message campaigns and that, based on measurement results, associates the advertising message campaigns with available publisher inventory according to a placement scheme; and   inventory forecasting program code adapted to use past advertising message campaign performance data, expected future advertising message behavior, and one or more additional factors to forecast a number of impressions available on one or more publisher channels, the one or more additional factors being one of: a seasonal variation, a day of a week, a time of day, a holiday, a forecast of future demand, and combinations thereof.   
     
     
         2 . The article as described in  claim 1  wherein the inventory forecasting code uses information stored or received from an external source. 
     
     
         3 . The article as described in  claim 1 , wherein the allocation program code automates and optimizes placement of advertising for a third party advertising network. 
     
     
         4 . The article as described in  claim 1 , further include data warehouse program code to manage storage of the performance data, the inventory information and the contract information. 
     
     
         5 . The article as described in  claim 1 , wherein the objective function facilitates optimization of advertisements for different products offered for sale by a vendor while respecting inventory requirements and constraints, the constraints including inventory availability of the different products.