The present teaching relates to method, system, and medium for allocating advertisements. An advertisement associated with first criteria is received. A plurality of advertisement exposure opportunities are obtained, wherein each of the plurality of advertisement exposure opportunities is associated with second criteria and ordered audience clusters that are previously generated for the advertisement exposure opportunity. A predicted performance of each of the ordered audience clusters associated with each of the plurality of advertisement exposure opportunities is obtained, wherein the predicted performance is estimated with respect to the first criteria. At least one audience cluster is identified that is associated with one or more advertisement exposure opportunities based on the first and second criteria as well as the predicted performance associated with the ordered audience clusters of the plurality of advertisement exposure opportunities. The advertisement is allocated to the at least one audience cluster.

The present teaching relates to method, system, and medium for predicting performance of an audience cluster. First information related to a plurality of users in the audience cluster is received. A plurality of advertisements are received that are previously placed at an advertisement exposure opportunity and presented to the plurality of users, wherein each of the plurality of advertisements placed at the advertisement exposure opportunity is associated with first criteria. Second information related to events involving the plurality of users with respect to the plurality of advertisements is obtained and performance of the audience cluster associated with the advertisement exposure opportunity is predicted based on the obtained first information and second information in accordance with at least one prediction model and with respect to the first criteria. The predicted performance of the audience cluster is used for ordering a plurality of audience clusters associated with the advertisement exposure opportunity.

The present teaching relates to method, system, and medium for determining audience clusters to be assigned to an advertisement exposure opportunity. A plurality of advertisement exposure opportunities are obtained, wherein each of the plurality of advertisement exposure opportunities is to be used for placing an advertisement. For each of the plurality of advertisement exposure opportunities, a plurality of audience clusters are generated based on at least one criterion associated with the advertisement exposure opportunity. The plurality of audience clusters are ranked based on at least one ranking criterion, and ordered audience clusters are generated based on the ranking. The ordered audience clusters associated with the plurality of advertisement exposure opportunities in response to an event are updated, wherein the ordered audience clusters for each of the plurality of advertisement exposure opportunities are generated prior to receiving a request for placing the advertisement.

In one embodiment, a method includes sending a media item to a client computing device of a user; determining an interest level of the user for the media item, wherein the interest level is determined based on a duration of time for which the media item is played on the client computing device; and if the interest level of the user is greater than a threshold interest level, then sending, to the client computing device, a sponsored-content indicator indicating that a sponsored content item will be presented and causing the sponsored content item to be presented on the client computing device.

In one embodiment, a method includes providing an interface that permits a first user to broadcast a live video to one or more second users. The method also includes determining that at least one predetermined condition for taking a commercial break during the live video has been met. The method also includes, after determining that at least one of the predetermined conditions has been met, displaying a selectable option within the interface that permits the first user to begin the commercial break. The method also includes, after receiving an indication that the first user has selected the selectable option to begin the commercial break, beginning the commercial break by ceasing to display the live video to the one or more second users after a predetermined amount of time and displaying one or more commercials to the one or more second users during the commercial break.

The present disclosure includes a system, method, and article of manufacture for targeting ad impressions. A list of customer records may be transmitted to a service provider system that identifies a matched customer and installs a cookie on a web client associated with the matched customer. The system may further receive a campaign request from a merchant and transmit the campaign request to the service provider system which may add a flag to the cookie based on the campaign request as well as instruct a media buyer system to bid on an ad impression for the matched customer based on the flag. The system may further receive an expenditure associated with the matched customer who received the ad impression and compare the expenditure to an expenditure associated with a customer who did not receive targeted ad impression but fits parameters associated with the campaign request.

An ad server logs web traffic regarding web page traffic by users. The web traffic is analyzed to determine web activity indicating that a user is being paid to fake legitimate web traffic. These users are referred to as abusive users. The web traffic is also analyzed to determine web activity indicating that a web page is artificially boosting its own traffic in order to earn undeserved advertising revenue. These web pages are referred to as honeypot web pages. Scores are determined for both users and web pages, where the scores indicate the likelihood that the associated user or web page is an abusive user or a honeypot web page, respectively. The ad server uses these scores to determine an amount to bid on future impressions to those users and web pages.

Methods and systems to monitor viewable impressions of online advertisements are provided. A method includes receiving a request to provide an online advertisement for display on a user device. The method further includes providing an online advertisement viewability rules array to an online content publisher system in response to receiving the request. The online advertisement viewability rules array includes a plurality of rules, each rule of the plurality of rules including a definition of when a viewable impression of an online advertisement occurs on a user device. The method further includes receiving, through operation of the online content publisher system, data indicating a viewable impression of the online advertisement has occurred on the user device. The data is generated in response to a determination a viewable impression of the online advertisement has occurred on the user device according to at least one rule of the online advertisement viewability rules array.

According to aspects of the present disclosure, the present disclosure describes methods and systems for collecting, managing and using subscriber information. A communications technology platform can establish interfaces through which subscribers allow the subscriber information management system to retrieve subscriber information from a plurality of content sources and store the retrieved subscriber information in one or more databases. These content sources can include the subscriber's devices, one or more social networking platforms to which the subscriber belongs, mobile phone service carriers, third-party applications or websites with which the subscriber is capable of receiving subscriber information from, amongst others. The databases of the communication platform can be configured to store subscriber records that include subscriber information pertaining to each subscriber.

An online system scores campaign audiences based on historical scoring data for similar audiences. A third party system selects a target audience and a day on which the target audience should be exposed to a campaign. The online system generates an availability grid and a score grid to determine a score for the target audience. Values in the availability grid are determined based on the availability of exposure time for the target audience on the specified date. Values in the score grid are based on historical scoring data for the same audience. The online system scores the target audience by interpolating between data points in the score grid based on a selected availability from the availability grid.