System and method for serving electronic content

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method of serving electronic content items, the method comprising:

• estimating a number of impressions of a first content item to be served during a first fraction of a budget period;
• comparing the estimated number of impressions to an actual number of impressions of the first content item served during the first fraction of the budget period;
• and
• if the actual number of impressions differs from the estimated number of impressions, applying a pacing factor in a subsequent fraction of the budget period to pace the serving of impressions of the first content item.

A system for serving electronic content, the system comprising:

• a processor;
• a repository of content items for serving in response to requests for content for presentation to users;
• a data store storing past activity of multiple target audiences of the content items;
• selection logic executable by the processor to identify a subset of the content items, including a first content item, suitable for serving to a first user in response to a request for content to present to the first user;
• forecast logic executable by the processor to identify a target pattern of serving of impressions of the first content item during a budget period of the first content item;
• and
• pacing logic executable by the processor to compare, during the budget period, an actual expenditure of a budget for the budget period to a forecast expenditure of the budget.

A method of pacing the serving of electronic content, the method comprising:

• constructing a model budget period for a content item having a target audience, wherein:
• the model budget period reflects activity of the target audience during one or more past budget periods;
• and
• the model budget period has an associated model total number of impressions (MT) identifying a total number of content item impressions served to the target audience during the model budget period;
• calculating a target total number of impressions (TT) of the content item to serve during a future budget period in order to exhaust a budget of the content item for the future budget period;
• calculating a ratio (R) of the target total number of impressions TT to the model total number of impressions MT;
• for each of multiple time intervals of the future budget period, forecasting a number of impressions of the content item to be served to the target audience during the interval;
• and
• during the future budget period:
• after a plurality of the time intervals, comparing actual expenditure of the budget to a forecast expenditure of the budget;
• and
• if the actual expenditure differs from the forecast expenditure by more than a threshold, applying a pacing factor in one or more subsequent intervals to alter a frequency of serving impressions of the content item to the target audience.