Setting Allocations and Prices in Auctions with Occasional Remarketing Ads

A system comprising:

• one or more computer processors;
• and
• one or more non-transitory computer readable devices that include instructions that, when executed by the one or more computer processors, causes the processors to perform operations, the operations comprising:
• receiving a request for content for presentation in association with one or more presentation opportunities on a publisher site;
• determining one or more eligible content items based on the received request;
• determining bids associated with each eligible content item;
• determining a historical bid distribution for bids that have been identified when selecting content for presentation on the publisher site;
• determining a risk adjustment parameter that reflects a measure of confidence in the accuracy of the historical bid distribution;
• conducting an auction including scoring the determined eligible content items based on the historical bid distribution, their respective bids, and the risk adjustment parameter;
• selecting a winning content item from the eligible content items based on the auction;
• setting a price for the winning content item;
• and
• providing the winning content item in response to the request.

A method comprising:

• receiving a request for content for presentation association with one or more presentation opportunities on a publisher site;
• determining one or more eligible content items based on the received request;
• determining bids associated with each eligible content item;
• determining a cumulative distribution function corresponding to a distribution of bids that a plurality of advertisers have previously placed for a publisher site;
• determining a risk adjustment parameter that reflects a measure of confidence in the accuracy of the historical bid distribution;
• for each bid, calculating a risk-adjusted virtual valuation based on each respective bid, the cumulative distribution function, and the risk adjustment parameter;
• ranking the bids based on the calculated risk-adjusted virtual valuations and selecting a winning bid based on the ranking;
• setting a price for the winning bid;
• and
• providing the winning content item in response to the request.