Digital Component Configuration Scoring with Offset Factor
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current digital component selection systems are prone to exploitation, where providers offer artificially high distribution amounts to exclude other content from being presented, leading to unfair competition and inefficient use of display space, as they determine distribution amounts based on next-highest bids without considering the negative impact on other providers.
Innovation Solution
A system that calculates a configuration score for multiple digital component configurations, applies an offset factor to account for the negative impact on other components, and optimizes distribution amounts based on interaction rates and eligibility values to ensure fair competition and efficient use of display space by only incentivizing providers to offer higher amounts if the additional value is worth the incremental interactions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If providers offer artificially high distribution amounts to exclude other content, then their own content presentation is improved, but fair competition and system efficiency deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary anti-action by introducing an offset factor that preemptively counteracts the harmful effect of high distribution amounts. Before finalizing the distribution amount, the system calculates the negative impact on other providers and subtracts this offset, thereby preventing exploitation before it can occur. This resolves the contradiction by allowing providers to compete on value rather than artificially inflating distribution amounts to exclude competitors.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent converts the harmful effect of high distribution amounts into a beneficial outcome by using the offset factor mechanism. The harm (artificially high distribution amounts excluding other content) is transformed into a benefit (fairer competition and improved system efficiency). The offset factor takes the negative impact and converts it into a corrective adjustment, ensuring that only genuinely valuable content receives higher distribution amounts, thus resolving the contradiction between productivity improvement and preventing harmful exploitation.
2Ease of operation
If distribution amounts are determined based on next-highest bids, then allocation simplicity is improved, but negative impact on other providers is worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies feedback by introducing an offset factor that provides corrective information about the impact of distribution amount decisions. The system calculates how much other providers are harmed by a given distribution amount and uses this feedback to adjust the final amount. This maintains the simplicity of bid-based allocation while adding a corrective layer that prevents harmful exclusion, thus resolving the contradiction between ease of operation and prevention of harmful effects.
Solution Approach 2:
The offset factor acts as an intermediary between the simple bid-based allocation mechanism and the harmful effects it produces. Rather than completely overhauling the allocation system, the offset factor mediates by adjusting the distribution amount to account for negative impacts on other providers. This preserves the ease of operation of bid-based systems while eliminating the harmful exclusion effect, resolving the contradiction between simplicity and fairness.
3Productivity
If providers are incentivized to offer higher distribution amounts, then value maximization is improved, but system exploitation is worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary anti-action by preemptively counteracting the tendency toward exploitation through the offset factor. Before providers can exploit the system by offering artificially high distribution amounts, the offset factor calculates and subtracts the negative impact on other providers. This resolves the contradiction by maintaining the incentive structure for value maximization while preventing exploitation through preliminary corrective action.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter of distribution amount determination by introducing the offset factor adjustment. Instead of using raw bid amounts or next-highest bids directly, the system modifies this parameter by subtracting the calculated negative impact. This parameter change resolves the contradiction by allowing value maximization through competitive bidding while preventing exploitation through the modified determination formula that accounts for harmful effects on other providers.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium. In some implementations, methods include determining multiple different configurations of multiple digital components eligible to be presented within a single digital component slot in a given electronic document being presented at a client device, selecting a particular configuration that has a highest configuration score and includes a given digital component, determining an offset factor that quantifies a negative impact of the given digital component on other digital components, optimizing a distribution amount applied to the given digital component based on the offset factor and a baseline distribution amount applied to each digital component in each of the multiple different configurations, and transmitting the given digital component to the client device based on the distribution amount for the given digital component, including causing the given digital component to be presented at the client device in the particular configuration.