Calculating flight plans for reservation-based ad serving

摘要

The disclosure provides various embodiments of systems, methods, and software for supporting server-side product catalogs. Software for managing ad serving may comprise computer readable instructions embodied on media and be operable to identify a logically local directed graph representing a logically remote network property associated with a publisher. The network property is associated with at least one product catalog representing a package of network ad slots. The software may then generate an ad service flight plan for serving various ones of a plurality of ads associated with a first of the network ad slots using an iterative solution on the directed graph.

主权项

1. A computer-readable hardware storage device encoded with a computer program product for managing network ad availability, the computer program product comprising computer readable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of an ad server, cause the one or more processors to:
generate, by the ad server, a directed graph representing a network property associated with a publisher, the network property associated with at least one product catalog representing a package of network ad slots, the directed graph including nodes representing sub-placements corresponding to various characteristic constraints of the network property and nodes representing sub-slots for network ad slots included in the sub-placements; determine, by the ad server, a flow through the directed graph, with the flow being determined in accordance with one or more of (i) the characteristic constraints, (ii) a reservation impression constraint that specifies a number of impressions requested by an advertiser, (iii) a forecasted impression constraint that restricts a number of forecasted impressions assigned to the sub-slots, or (iv) an objective for the sub-slots; wherein the flow is associated with a particular period of time in which ads are assigned to a plurality of forecasted impressions for a first of the network ad slots; assign, by the ad server based on the determined flow, the ads to the plurality of forecasted impressions for the particular period of time; generate, by the ad server based on assignment of the ads to the plurality of forecasted impressions, an ad service plan for serving various ones of the ads associated with the first of the network ad slots, wherein the ad service plan is a plan that specifies which ads will be served in each of the plurality of forecasted impressions for the first of the network ad slots during the particular period of time; and cache the ad service plan prior to receipt of an ad request from the publisher for delivery of at least one of the ads associated with the first of the network ad slots.