TY - JOUR
T1 - Budget planning for coupled campaigns in sponsored search auctions
AU - Yang, Yanwu
AU - Qin, Rui
AU - Jansen, Bernard J.
AU - Zhang, Jie
AU - Zeng, Daniel
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank anonymous reviewers who provided valuable suggestions that led to considerable improvement in the organization and presentation of this paper. This work was partially supported by NSFC (National Natural Science Foundation of China) grants (71071152, 71272236, 71332001, 71202169, 71025001) and the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (4132072).
PY - 2014/4/1
Y1 - 2014/4/1
N2 - Budget-related decisions in sponsored search auctions are recognized as a structured decision problem rather than a simple constraint. Budget planning over several coupled campaigns (e.g., substitution and complementarity) remains a challenging but important task for advertisers. In this paper, we propose a dynamic multicampaign budget planning approach using optimal control techniques, with consideration of the substitution relationship between advertising campaigns. A three-dimensional measure of substitution relationships between campaigns is presented, namely, the overlapping degree in terms of campaign contents, promotional periods, and target regions. We also study some desirable properties and possible solutions to our budget model. Computational simulations and experiments are conducted to evaluate our model using real-world data from practical campaigns in sponsored search auctions. Experimental results show that (1) our approach outperforms the baseline strategy that is commonly used in practice; (2) coupled campaigns with a higher overlapping degree in between reduce the optimal total budget level, then reduce the optimal payoff, and reach the budgeting cap earlier than those with a less overlapping degree; and (3) the advertising effort can be seriously weakened by ignoring the degree of overlapping between campaigns.
AB - Budget-related decisions in sponsored search auctions are recognized as a structured decision problem rather than a simple constraint. Budget planning over several coupled campaigns (e.g., substitution and complementarity) remains a challenging but important task for advertisers. In this paper, we propose a dynamic multicampaign budget planning approach using optimal control techniques, with consideration of the substitution relationship between advertising campaigns. A three-dimensional measure of substitution relationships between campaigns is presented, namely, the overlapping degree in terms of campaign contents, promotional periods, and target regions. We also study some desirable properties and possible solutions to our budget model. Computational simulations and experiments are conducted to evaluate our model using real-world data from practical campaigns in sponsored search auctions. Experimental results show that (1) our approach outperforms the baseline strategy that is commonly used in practice; (2) coupled campaigns with a higher overlapping degree in between reduce the optimal total budget level, then reduce the optimal payoff, and reach the budgeting cap earlier than those with a less overlapping degree; and (3) the advertising effort can be seriously weakened by ignoring the degree of overlapping between campaigns.
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U2 - 10.2753/JEC1086-4415180302
DO - 10.2753/JEC1086-4415180302
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84896919989
SN - 1086-4415
VL - 18
SP - 39
EP - 66
JO - International Journal of Electronic Commerce
JF - International Journal of Electronic Commerce
IS - 3
ER -