Analyzing Positioning Strategies in Sponsored Search Auctions Under CTR-Based Quality Scoring

CORC > 自动化研究所 > 中国科学院自动化研究所 > 复杂系统管理与控制国家重点实验室 > 先进控制与自动化团队

	Analyzing Positioning Strategies in Sponsored Search Auctions Under CTR-Based Quality Scoring
	Yuan, Yong1,2 ; Zeng, Daniel1,3 ; Zhao, Huimin 4; Li, Linjing1
刊名	IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS MAN CYBERNETICS-SYSTEMS
	2015-04-01
卷号	45 期号:4 页码:688-701
关键词	Terms-Click-through rate (CTR) optimal control polarization quality score (QS) sponsored search
英文摘要	Quality score (QS) plays a critical role in sponsored search advertising (SSA) auctions, and in practice is closely correlated to the historical click-through rate (CTR) of an advertisement. The CTR-QS correlation may impose great influence on advertisers' positioning strategies of selecting the targeting slots in the sponsored list. In the literature, however, QS is implicitly assumed to be an independent variable and exogenously assigned by Web search engines, so that little theoretical or managerial insights can be offered to help understand the positioning dynamics in SSA auctions with CTR-QS correlation. We strive to bridge this research gap in this paper. Based on a discrete time-dependent optimal control model, which explicitly captures the relationship between the historical CTR and QS, we determine the optimal strategy for revenue-maximizing advertisers' QS-based positioning decisions through a policy-iteration-based numerical approximation method. We also investigate two practically-used heuristic strategies, namely the greedy and farsighted positioning strategies, aiming to examine and help understand advertisers' real-world positioning dynamics. Our analysis indicates that both the optimal and greedy positioning strategies lead advertisers to monotonically increase or decrease their targeting slots over time, which may cause a polarization trend emerging in SSA markets. Meanwhile, the farsighted positioning strategy can accelerate the polarization. Our simulations show that both the greedy and farsighted strategies have good revenue performance. Our findings indicate that advertisers should monotonically adjust their targeting positions to maximize their revenue in CTR-QS correlated SSA auctions. Our findings also highlight the need for Web search engine companies to set a lowered weight for historical CTRs or use position-normalized CTRs in their QS measurements, so as to suppress the polarization trend.
WOS标题词	Science & Technology ; Technology
类目[WOS]	Automation & Control Systems ; Computer Science, Cybernetics
研究领域[WOS]	Automation & Control Systems ; Computer Science
关键词[WOS]	AD AUCTIONS
收录类别	SCI ; SSCI
语种	英语
WOS记录号	WOS:000351545900012
公开日期	2015-09-22
内容类型	期刊论文
源URL	[http://ir.ia.ac.cn/handle/173211/8091]
专题	自动化研究所_复杂系统管理与控制国家重点实验室_先进控制与自动化团队
作者单位	1.Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Automat, State Key Lab Management & Control Complex Syst, Beijing 100190, Peoples R China 2.Qingdao Acad Intelligent Ind, Qingdao 266111, Peoples R China 3.Univ Arizona, Eller Coll Management, Dept Management Informat Syst, Tucson, AZ 85721 USA 4.Univ Wisconsin, Sheldon B Lubar Sch Business, Milwaukee, WI 53201 USA
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Yuan, Yong,Zeng, Daniel,Zhao, Huimin,et al. Analyzing Positioning Strategies in Sponsored Search Auctions Under CTR-Based Quality Scoring[J]. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS MAN CYBERNETICS-SYSTEMS,2015,45(4):688-701.
APA	Yuan, Yong,Zeng, Daniel,Zhao, Huimin,&Li, Linjing.(2015).Analyzing Positioning Strategies in Sponsored Search Auctions Under CTR-Based Quality Scoring.IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS MAN CYBERNETICS-SYSTEMS,45(4),688-701.
MLA	Yuan, Yong,et al."Analyzing Positioning Strategies in Sponsored Search Auctions Under CTR-Based Quality Scoring".IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS MAN CYBERNETICS-SYSTEMS 45.4(2015):688-701.