NETWORK-BASED SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DEFINING AND MANAGING MULTI-DIMENSIONAL, ADVERTISING IMPRESSION INVENTORY

摘要

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.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method for managing an inventory of advertising products comprising:
receiving an input data record from a delivery system; examining and processing the input data record, the input data record including a historical log record generated by the delivery system at a prior time; performing advertising product determination in real-time when an inquiry is received from a publisher system; identifying a plurality of identifiers associated with the input data record, the plurality of identifiers including a set of defined advertising products, advertising segments, advertisement definitions, or any combination thereof; producing a set of attribute bitmaps for each of the plurality of identifiers; and logically combining the sets of attribute bitmaps to create a product vector associated with the input data record, the product vector including a representation of overlapping sets of advertising products and non-overlapping sets of advertising products within the inventory.