arXiv subjects

Harikesh S. Nair

Publications and source records attributed to Harikesh S. Nair.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Parallel Experimentation and Competitive Interference on Online Advertising Platforms

This paper studies the measurement of advertising effects on online platforms when parallel experimentation occurs, that is, when multiple advertisers experiment concurrently. It provides a framework that makes precise how parallel experimentation affects the experiment's value: while ignoring parallel experimentation yields an estimate of the average effect of advertising in-place, which has limited value in decision-making in an environment with variable advertising competition, accounting for parallel experimentation captures the actual uncertainty advertisers face due to competitive actions. It then implements an experimental design that enables the estimation of these effects on JD.com, a large e-commerce platform that is also a publisher of digital ads. Using traditional and kernel-based estimators, it shows that not accounting for competitive actions can result in the advertiser inaccurately estimating the advertising lift by a factor of two or higher, which can be consequential for decision-making.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2024

Online Causal Inference for Advertising in Real-Time Bidding Auctions

Real-time bidding (RTB) systems, which utilize auctions to allocate user impressions to competing advertisers, continue to enjoy success in digital advertising. Assessing the effectiveness of such advertising remains a challenge in research and practice. This paper proposes a new approach to perform causal inference on advertising bought through such mechanisms. Leveraging the economic structure of first- and second-price auctions, we first show that the effects of advertising are identified by the optimal bids. Hence, since these optimal bids are the only objects that need to be recovered, we introduce an adapted Thompson sampling (TS) algorithm to solve a multi-armed bandit problem that succeeds in recovering such bids and, consequently, the effects of advertising while minimizing the costs of experimentation. We derive a regret bound for our algorithm which is order optimal and use data from RTB auctions to show that it outperforms commonly used methods that estimate the effects of advertising.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2022

Advertising Media and Target Audience Optimization via High-dimensional Bandits

We present a data-driven algorithm that advertisers can use to automate their digital ad-campaigns at online publishers. The algorithm enables the advertiser to search across available target audiences and ad-media to find the best possible combination for its campaign via online experimentation. The problem of finding the best audience-ad combination is complicated by a number of distinctive challenges, including (a) a need for active exploration to resolve prior uncertainty and to speed the search for profitable combinations, (b) many combinations to choose from, giving rise to high-dimensional search formulations, and (c) very low success probabilities, typically just a fraction of one percent. Our algorithm (designated LRDL, an acronym for Logistic Regression with Debiased Lasso) addresses these challenges by combining four elements: a multiarmed bandit framework for active exploration; a Lasso penalty function to handle high dimensionality; an inbuilt debiasing kernel that handles the regularization bias induced by the Lasso; and a semi-parametric regression model for outcomes that promotes cross-learning across arms. The algorithm is implemented as a Thompson Sampler, and to the best of our knowledge, it is the first that can practically address all of the challenges above. Simulations with real and synthetic data show the method is effective and document its superior performance against several benchmarks from the recent high-dimensional bandit literature.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2020

Comparison Lift: Bandit-based Experimentation System for Online Advertising

Comparison Lift is an experimentation-as-a-service (EaaS) application for testing online advertising audiences and creatives at JD.com. Unlike many other EaaS tools that focus primarily on fixed sample A/B testing, Comparison Lift deploys a custom bandit-based experimentation algorithm. The advantages of the bandit-based approach are two-fold. First, it aligns the randomization induced in the test with the advertiser's goals from testing. Second, by adapting experimental design to information acquired during the test, it reduces substantially the cost of experimentation to the advertiser. Since launch in May 2019, Comparison Lift has been utilized in over 1,500 experiments. We estimate that utilization of the product has helped increase click-through rates of participating advertising campaigns by 46% on average. We estimate that the adaptive design in the product has generated 27% more clicks on average during testing compared to a fixed sample A/B design. Both suggest significant value generation and cost savings to advertisers from the product.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2019

Online Evaluation of Audiences for Targeted Advertising via Bandit Experiments

Firms implementing digital advertising campaigns face a complex problem in determining the right match between their advertising creatives and target audiences. Typical solutions to the problem have leveraged non-experimental methods, or used "split-testing" strategies that have not explicitly addressed the complexities induced by targeted audiences that can potentially overlap with one another. This paper presents an adaptive algorithm that addresses the problem via online experimentation. The algorithm is set up as a contextual bandit and addresses the overlap issue by partitioning the target audiences into disjoint, non-overlapping sub-populations. It learns an optimal creative display policy in the disjoint space, while assessing in parallel which creative has the best match in the space of possibly overlapping target audiences. Experiments show that the proposed method is more efficient compared to naive "split-testing" or non-adaptive "A/B/n" testing based methods. We also describe a testing product we built that uses the algorithm. The product is currently deployed on the advertising platform of JD.com, an eCommerce company and a publisher of digital ads in China.

cs.LG↗