Determining an efficient bid amount for each impression opportunity for a content item to be presented to a viewing user of an online system

A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having instructions encoded thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

• receive, at an online system, a plurality of values associated with potential impressions of a content item being presented to a viewing user of the online system, each of the plurality of values comprising a value that an advertiser is willing to pay for a number of the potential impressions of the content item;
• determine an advertiser value curve for the content item based at least in part on the plurality of values, the advertiser value curve comprising a decreasing function of the advertiser value curve for a value of a potential impression of the content item to the advertiser as the number of the potential impressions of the content item increases;
• retrieve a plurality of stored values associated with one or more content items previously presented to the viewing user, each of the plurality of stored values comprising a cost incurred by one or more advertisers for a number of impressions of the one or more content items previously presented to the viewing user;
• determine a user cost curve for the content item associated with the viewing user based at least in part on the plurality of stored values, the user cost curve comprising an increasing function of the user cost curve for a cost of an impression of the one or more content items incurred by the one or more advertisers as the number of the impressions of the one or more content items previously presented to the viewing user increases;
• and
• determine an efficient bid amount for a number of impressions of the content item being presented to the viewing user based at least in part on an intersection of the advertiser value curve and the user cost curve.

A method comprising:

• determining, at an online system, a plurality of values associated with potential impressions of a content item being presented to a viewing user of the online system, each of the plurality of values based at least in part on a predicted affinity of the viewing user for the content item for each of a number of the potential impressions of the content item;
• determining a content value curve for the content item based at least in part on the plurality of values, the content value curve comprising a decreasing function of the content value curve for a value of a potential impression of the content item as the number of the potential impressions of the content item increases;
• retrieving a plurality of stored values associated with one or more content items previously presented to the viewing user, each of the plurality of stored values based at least in part on predicted affinities of the viewing user for the one or more content items for a number of impressions of the one or more content items;
• determining a user value curve for the content item associated with the viewing user based at least in part on the plurality of stored values, the user value curve comprising an increasing function of the user value curve for a value of an impression of the one or more content items as the number of the impressions of the one or more content items previously presented to the viewing user increases;
• and
• determining an efficient value for a number of impressions of the content item being presented to the viewing user based at least in part on an intersection of the content value curve and the user value curve.