Continuous value-per-click estimation for low-volume terms

A computer program product comprising:

• a computer-readable storage medium containing computer program instructions comprising:
• instructions for accessing statistics for a set of terms relevant to advertisements, the statistics obtained from a plurality of advertising publisher computer systems over a computer network via application programming interfaces (APIs) of the plurality of advertising publisher computer systems, the statistics comprising numbers of conversion events associated with the terms based on actions of a plurality of users in response to display of advertisements associated with the terms on client devices of the users;
• instructions for receiving a budget amount over the computer network from a computer system of an advertiser for given terms, the budget amount representing what the advertiser is willing to pay for the given terms;
• instructions for determining numbers of term conversion events for a plurality of conversion rates, using the accessed statistics;
• instructions for generating first data representing a distribution of the term conversion events over the plurality of conversion rates;
• instructions for generating second data representing probabilities of given numbers of conversion events occurring;
• instructions for computing an estimated conversion rate for a first one of the given terms using the first data representing the distribution of the term conversion events over the plurality of conversion rates and the second data representing probabilities of given numbers of conversion rates occurring;
• instructions for computing, using the computed estimated conversion rate and the budget amount provided by the advertiser computer system, a bid price for an advertiser to submit to the advertising publisher computer systems over the computer network for an advertisement relevant to the first given term;
• and
• instructions for automatically providing the bid price to the computer system of the advertiser over the computer network for submission to one or more of the advertising publisher computer systems.

A computer system comprising:

• a term statistics database storing statistics for a set of terms relevant to advertisements, the statistics obtained from a plurality of advertising publisher computer systems over a computer network via application programming interfaces (APIs) of the plurality of advertising publisher computer systems, the statistics comprising numbers of conversion events associated with the terms based on actions of a plurality of users in response to display of advertisements associated with the terms on client devices of the users;
• and
• an information analysis module executed by a computer processor and configured to:
• receive a budget amount over the computer network from a computer system of an advertiser for given terms, the budget amount representing what the advertiser is willing to pay for the given terms;
• determine numbers of term conversion events for a plurality of conversion rates, using the accessed statistics;
• generate first data representing a distribution of the term conversion events over the plurality of conversion rates;
• generate second data representing probabilities of given numbers of conversion events occurring;
• and
• compute an estimated conversion rate for a first one of the given terms using the first data representing the distribution of the term conversion events over the plurality of conversion rates and the second data representing probabilities of given numbers of conversion rates occurring;
• compute, using the computed estimated conversion rate and the budget amount provided by the advertiser computer system, a bid price for an advertiser to submit to the advertising publisher computer systems over the computer network for an advertisement relevant to the first given term;
• and
• automatically provide the bid price to the computer system of the advertiser over the computer network for submission to one or more of the advertising publisher computer systems.