NETWORK-BASED SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DEFINING AND MANAGING MULTI-DIMENSIONAL, ADVERTISING IMPRESSION INVENTORY
A method for representing and managing an inventory of overlapping multi-dimensional items such as advertising or ad impressions. The method uses an inventory management module to generate unique segment identifiers for sets of inventory items by processing descriptions of the sets of impressions including defining criteria. The method includes processing the unique segment identifiers to create a representation of the inventory as a plurality of inventory regions, which may include non-overlapping regions that correspond to inventory items in a single set of the inventory and also include overlapping regions that correspond to inventory items in two or more of the sets (e.g., items that match two or more sets of defining criteria or attributes). Availability and selection of inventory is determined using the information on inventory regions to control effects of cannibalization, such as by implementing logically necessary allocation to only cannibalize a region on a limited or forced basis.
1 . A computer-implemented method for generating an aggregated summary of advertisement impression records and click-through records comprising:
generating an aggregate count of the advertisement display records and the click-through records grouped by product buy, advertising products against which said product buy was delivered, or both for a plurality of historical dates and a plurality of forecast dates; and
displaying each product buy's delivery across the advertising products against which said product buy was delivered, the advertising products comprising overlapping advertising products and non-overlapping advertising products.
2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining an allocation of each of the advertising products across one or more product buys.
3 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining a cost to a publisher per generated click by comparing an average historical cost per advertising impression and a cost per click price associated with a specified advertising product with a quantity of inventory allocated to the specified advertising product on a product buy and divided by a count of click-throughs generated.
4 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
populating cost per click summary data for each of the advertising products associated with the product buy using information that is identified within sales contract information, a click-through summary, a daily summary of advertising product information, or a combination thereof.
5 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the cost per click summary data is used to optimize inventory utilization to find one or more lowest cost inventory segments required to achieve a click goal.
6 . A system for generating an aggregated summary of advertisement impression records and click-through records comprising:
a data processing module configured to:
generate an aggregate count of the advertisement display records and the click-through records grouped by product buy, advertising products against which said product buy was delivered, or both for a plurality of historical dates and a plurality of forecast dates; and
display each product buy's delivery across the advertising products against which said product buy was delivered, the advertising products comprising overlapping advertising products and non-overlapping advertising products; and
an inventory database configured to store the advertisement display records and the click-through records.
7 . The system of claim 6 , wherein the data processing module is further configured to:
determine an allocation of each of the advertising products across one or more product buys.
8 . The system of claim 6 , wherein the data processing module is further configured to:
determine a cost to a publisher per generated click by comparing an average historical cost per advertising impression and a cost per click price associated with a specified advertising product with a quantity of inventory allocated to the specified advertising product on a product buy and divided by a count of click-throughs generated.
9 . The system of claim 6 , further comprising:
an inventory management module configured to populate cost per click summary data for each of the advertising products associated with the product buy using information that is identified within sales contract information, a click-through summary, a daily summary of advertising product information, or a combination thereof.
10 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the cost per click summary data is used by the data processing module to optimize inventory utilization to find one or more lowest cost inventory segments required to achieve a click goal.