Fair Demographic Ratio Pacing

Abstract

Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, receiving information defining an attribute of interest for the impression, wherein the attribute of interest comprises a plurality of categories of values, and receiving information defining a respective probability for each respective value of the plurality of categories of values for the impression. Further, information about current values of the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest may be received and a pacing value may be determined based on the respective probability for each respective value of the plurality of categories of values, along with the information about current values the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest. A respective bid value of a bid may be adjusted using the pacing value and the adjusted bid value may be used in an auction to fill the impression. This permits automatic detection and correction of an inadvertent skew introduced when serving ads and other content. Other embodiments are disclosed.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A device, comprising:
 a processing system including a processor; and   a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:   receiving a message from a web server requesting publication of one or more web pages, wherein the message corresponds to an ad call;   generating a current bid request for bids to respond to the ad call;   receiving one or more bids to provide an advertisement in response to the current bid request, wherein each respective bid of the one or more bids is associated with a respective advertising campaign and wherein each respective bid of the one or more bids comprises a respective bid value;   receiving information defining an attribute of interest for the ad call, wherein the attribute of interest comprises a plurality of categories of values, and wherein the receiving the information defining the attribute of interest comprises receiving information defining a respective probability for each respective value of the plurality of categories of values;   receiving information about current values of the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest for each respective advertising campaign;   determining a pacing value, wherein the determining is based on the respective probability for each respective value of the plurality of categories of values and the information about current values the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest;   adjusting a respective bid value of a bid of the one or more bids to produce an adjusted bid value, wherein the adjusting comprises varying the respective bid value of the bid according to the pacing value;   conducting an auction using the one or more bids and the adjusted bid value, to select a bid to provide the advertisement in response to the current bid request; and   communicating a message to the web server, wherein communicating the message comprises communicating an advertisement corresponding to the selected bid.   
     
     
         2 . The device of  claim 1 , wherein the receiving the information defining the attribute of interest comprises receiving information defining a gender of a user. 
     
     
         3 . The device of  claim 2 , wherein the receiving the information defining a respective probability for each respective value of the plurality of categories of values comprising receiving information defining a probability the gender of the user is male or receiving information defining the probability the gender of the user is female, or both. 
     
     
         4 . The device of  claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 comparing the information about the current values of the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest for each respective advertising campaign with a target delivery value for the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest for one respective advertising campaign; and   based on the comparing, identifying a skew in delivery of advertisements for the one respective advertising campaign.   
     
     
         5 . The device of  claim 4 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 determining a value for the pacing value to reduce the skew in delivery of the advertisements for the one respective advertising campaign.   
     
     
         6 . The device of  claim 5 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 multiplying the value for the pacing value to reduce the skew by the respective bid value to produce the adjusted bid value.   
     
     
         7 . The device of  claim 1 , wherein the adjusting the respective bid value of the bid to produce an adjusted bid value comprises, varying a probability that the bid will win the auction to provide the advertisement in response to the current bid request. 
     
     
         8 . The device of  claim 7 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 identifying a skew in delivery of advertisements for a respective advertising campaign; and   reducing the skew in delivery of the advertisements, wherein the reducing the skew comprises varying the probability that the bid will win the auction to provide the advertisement to reduce the skew.   
     
     
         9 . The device of  claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 receiving subsequently updated information defining the attribute of interest for a subsequent ad call, wherein the receiving the updated information defining the attribute of interest comprises receiving information defining an updated respective probability for each respective value of the plurality of categories of values;   receiving updated information about current values of the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest;   determining an updated pacing value, wherein the determining is based on the updated respective probability for the each respective value of the plurality of categories of values and the updated information about current values the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest; and   adjusting a new respective bid value of a new bid of one or more new bids to produce a new adjusted bid value, wherein the adjusting comprises varying the new respective bid value of the new bid according to the updated pacing value.   
     
     
         10 . A non-transitory, machine-readable medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system including a processor, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:
 determining an advertising attribute and a target delivery value for one or more advertisements to be provided for an advertising campaign in a transaction management computing system;   receiving a message from a web server requesting publication of one or more web pages, wherein the message corresponds to an ad call;   delivering advertisements to the one or more web pages in response to the ad call, wherein the delivering the advertisements comprises receiving a current bid request to provide a bid, determining one or more bids to provide an advertisement in response to the current bid request and selecting a winning bid from the one or more bids;   monitoring the delivering the advertisements, wherein the monitoring comprises monitoring a delivered value for the advertising attribute;   determining the delivering the advertisements includes an advertising skew, wherein the determining the delivering the advertisements includes an advertising skew comprises comparing the delivered value for the advertising attribute and the target delivery value for the one or more advertisements; and   adjusting future advertisement delivery, wherein the adjusting is responsive to the determining the delivering advertisements includes an advertising skew, and wherein the adjusting the future advertisement delivery comprises automatically adjusting future bid values to be provided in response to future bid requests to compensate for the advertising skew.   
     
     
         11 . The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of  claim 10 , wherein the adjusting comprises:
 adjusting a probability that an advertisement associated with an adjusted bid value to reduce the advertising skew.   
     
     
         12 . The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of  claim 10 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 determining a current ratio status for the advertising campaign, wherein the determining the current ratio status comprises determining a ratio of attribute category values for an attribute of interest for the advertising campaign;   based on the current ratio status, determining a pacing value; and   adjusting a bid value to be served in response to a future bid request according to the pacing value.   
     
     
         13 . The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of  claim 12 , wherein adjusting the bid value comprises multiplying the value by the pacing value to produce an adjusted bid value. 
     
     
         14 . The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of  claim 13 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 conducting an auction using the one or more bids to provide an advertisement in response to the current bid request and the adjusted bid value; and   selecting the winning bid by comparing the one or more bids and the adjusted bid value.   
     
     
         15 . The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of  claim 12 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 determining respective probabilities for respective attribute category values for the attribute of interest, wherein the determining the respective probabilities includes determining historical probability values for the respective attribute categories and determining a historical number of impressions to which advertisements have been served; and   determining the current ratio status as a ratio of a sum of historical probability values for the respective attribute categories to the historical number of impressions.   
     
     
         16 . The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of  claim 10 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 periodically, re-adjusting future advertisement delivery, wherein the re-adjusting is responsive to identifying a new advertising skew, and wherein the re-adjusting future advertisement delivery comprises automatically adjusting one or more bid values to compensate for the new advertising skew.   
     
     
         17 . A method, comprising:
 receiving, by a processing system including a processor, a message from a web server requesting publication of one or more web pages, wherein the message includes an impression to be filled with an advertisement;   receiving, by the processing system, information defining an attribute of interest for the impression, wherein the attribute of interest comprises a plurality of categories of values, and wherein the receiving the information defining the attribute of interest comprises receiving information defining a respective probability for each respective value of the plurality of categories of values for the impression;   receiving, by the processing system, information about current values of the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest for an ad campaign;   determining, by the processing system, a pacing value, wherein the determining is based on the respective probability for each respective value of the plurality of categories of values and the information about current values the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest;   adjusting, by the processing system, a respective bid value of a bid to produce an adjusted bid value, wherein the adjusting comprises varying the respective bid value of the bid according to the pacing value;   conducting an auction, by the processing system, using one or more bids and the adjusted bid value, to select a bid to provide the advertisement in response to the impression; and   communicating a message, by the processing system, to the web server, wherein communicating the message comprises communicating an advertisement corresponding to the selected bid.   
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein the receiving, by the processing system, the information defining the attribute of interest comprises receiving, by the processing system, information defining a gender of a user. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein the receiving the information defining a respective probability for each respective value of the plurality of categories of values comprises:
 receiving, by the processing system, information defining a probability the gender of the user is male or receiving information defining the probability the gender of the user is female, or both.   
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 17 , further comprising:
 comparing, by the processing system, the information about the current values of the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest for each respective advertising campaign with a target delivery value for the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest for one respective advertising campaign; and   based on the comparing, identifying, by the processing system, a skew in delivery of advertisements for the one respective advertising campaign.