Ad Exchange – Proposal for a New Trading Agent Competition Game

Abstract

AbstractBrand advertising through web display ads, aimed at driving up brand awareness and purchase intentions, is the cornerstone of the Internet economic ecosystem. The ever increasing penetration of the Internet and recent technological advances allow for cost effective targeting and gave rise to an array of new interconnected entities - e.g., the pivotal Ad Exchange (AdX) - offering added value to publishers and advertisers.We propose a new game for the Trading Agent Competition (TAC), to be launched in 2013, reflecting the challenges faced by an Ad Network (AdN) as it bids for display ads opportunities. Those settings are new and conceptually different than those modeled by existing TAC games: the key conflict that AdNs face is to fulfill advertising contracts at minimum cost while sustaining and attracting advertisers by achieving high quality targeting. Therefore, efficient marketing effectiveness is the main concern of an agent implementing the AdN strategy.In our proposed AdX game, which significantly differs from the TAC Ad Auctions (TAC-AA) game setting, we also consider the following key elements of the AdX setting: the method in which reserve prices are set by publishers, the mechanism for discovering the value of cookie matching services, and the ways the targeting quality of ad networks effects their long term earnings prospects.KeywordsTrading AgentsAd ExchangeCompetition