Disclosed are various embodiments for defining subcategories of items to be used in merchandising. The subcategories may be defined on the basis of item data and/or sales data for the items. Based on a distribution of the items in accordance with one or more of the item and/or sales data, implicit groups or subcategories can be identified and selected for merchandising purposes.

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for related search suggestions for products. In one aspect, a method includes receiving a query for searching documents wherein the query specifies a first product. A number of occurrences of the first product in a plurality of prior queries of the documents submitted by users is determined. A product category for the first product is determined based on one or more attributes associated with the first product, the category having a predetermined plurality of category attributes. A suggested product is selected wherein the suggested product is associated with attributes that satisfy the category attributes.

When a content item is initially served to a client device, the content item may result in an impression effect. As time elapses, the initial impression may fade. Such a decay of the impression effect may be predicted through the use of a predictive model. In some implementations, one or more impression effect parameters may be accessed and used with the predictive model to determine a decay factor or predicted value that incorporates the impression effect decay for a content item. A value, such as a score, may be determined based on the decay factor or the predicted value and a bid associated with a content item. A content item may be selected based on the determined value and data to effect presentation of the content item may be provided.

A method can include sending a request to a media content provider requesting media content and receiving the media content and instructions from the media provider. The instructions can be utilized by the media provider to broadcast the media content. The media provider can store the received media content in a database process the instructions then distribute the media content and the instructions to distributed media outlets. The media content provider can receive information indicating that the media content was broadcast by the distributed media outlets according to the instructions.

An Internet based system and method for accurate marketing based on sharing of data, free advertising gifts and logistics includes a cross-web software application that runs in a network of computers. The application supports a marketing platform website with an interface for marketers to define and initiate a marketing project of delivering one or more types of free advertising gift to a targeted group of consumers. The application is communicatively coupled to a number of business-to-consumer websites that enable consumers to complete purchase transactions online. A consumer who is browsing or purchasing in one of the business-to-consumer websites is prompted whether or not he/she desires to accept a free gift. The consumer, if he/she responds positively, is directed to a page for registration and gift selection. The consumer will receive his/her selected gift through a delivery channel designated by the marketing website. By the multi-layer sharing mechanism, this system integrates data sharing, advertising sharing, and logistics sharing to reduce advertising cost, reduce gifts production and distribution costs, improve precision in consumer targeting, and improve brand recognition, and thus leads to lower impact on the environment.

Among other things, a server controls access to private information about attributes of a unique item, during one or more stages of an online transaction for the unique item between a first online party and a second online party. The controlling of the access to the private information includes the server digitally storing (a) the private information, (b) a listing of the unique item for the online transaction received from the first online party, the listing including one or more constraints on access to the private information by the second online party at one or more stages of the online transaction, and (c) an indicator of a current stage of the one or more stages of the online sale transaction. The server allows or prevents access to the private information at one of the stages of the online transaction through a browser or an app installed on a device of the second online party and based on the current stage of the online transaction.

A service provider may receive item price information and/or point of sale (POS) transaction information from a plurality of merchant devices associated with a plurality of merchants. The service provider may categorize the plurality of merchants according to the types of items offered by the respective merchants, and may further categorize the merchants according to the locations at which they conduct business. The service provider may subsequently determine a price recommendation or other pricing information for a particular item offered by a particular merchant. A merchant device of the particular merchant may present the pricing information in a user interface that enables the merchant to view projected sales at various different price points. Further, the merchant may be able to specify one or more factors used for determining the recommend price, such as a desired business model, a desired clientele, a desired profit margin, or the like.

Systems and methods for implementing point of advertising purchasing include using mass media publications configured for or containing service, product or vendor transmittable signals, such as from radio frequency identification tags. In a preferred arrangement, a consumer perceiving an advertisement of the mass media publication may activate a reader in a portable communications device, such as a smart mobile or cellular phone, to receive information from the radio frequency signal associated with the advertisement to identify a vendor, product or service associated with the radio frequency identification. The smart mobile phone or communications device of the consumer may communicate with a system of a vendor or vendors by way of a commerce data organization system across a network to order a product or product information from a system of the vendor over the network by using the information from the radio frequency identification.

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for accurately estimating causal effects for related events are disclosed. A plurality of estimates of causal effects of events are determined. The estimates are determined independently. A subset of the estimates are determined not to satisfy a relationship among the causal effects. A set of accurate estimates are generated based at least in part on the subset of the estimates. The accurate estimates are generated using a smoothing process, and the accurate estimates satisfy the relationship.

Some embodiments provide a non-transitory machine-readable medium that stores a program. The program retrieves a plurality of transaction data from a storage. Each transaction data in the plurality of transaction data includes an item and an amount associated with the item. Based on the plurality of transaction data, the program further determines a set of range of amounts. Based on the set of range of amounts and a set of data objects, the program also determining a set of categories. Each data object in the set of data objects belongs to a category in the set of categories.