1 00:00:05,190 --> 00:00:06,970 The process by which Google determines 2 00:00:06,970 --> 00:00:09,220 which ads to display for which queries 3 00:00:09,220 --> 00:00:11,870 consists of three key steps. 4 00:00:11,870 --> 00:00:16,670 First, Google runs an auction where advertisers place bids 5 00:00:16,670 --> 00:00:20,320 for different queries that they want to display their ads on. 6 00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:24,260 Next, Google uses each bid in a metric known 7 00:00:24,260 --> 00:00:27,220 as the Quality Score, which basically measures 8 00:00:27,220 --> 00:00:29,980 how well a particular ad fits a particular query 9 00:00:29,980 --> 00:00:33,060 to decide a quantity known as the price-per-click. 10 00:00:33,060 --> 00:00:36,650 Google does this for each advertiser and each query. 11 00:00:36,650 --> 00:00:41,070 Finally, and this is where optimization plays a key role, 12 00:00:41,070 --> 00:00:46,080 Google decides how often to display each ad for each query. 13 00:00:46,080 --> 00:00:48,120 This problem, as we'll see shortly, 14 00:00:48,120 --> 00:00:51,420 can be formulated as a linear optimization model. 15 00:00:51,420 --> 00:00:53,010 Let's begin by thinking about the data 16 00:00:53,010 --> 00:00:54,530 that we need for this model. 17 00:00:54,530 --> 00:00:58,090 In particular, let's think about the price-per-click. 18 00:00:58,090 --> 00:01:00,490 So as we just discussed, Google decides 19 00:01:00,490 --> 00:01:03,000 each advertiser's price-per-click. 20 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:05,470 The price-per-click is how much each advertiser 21 00:01:05,470 --> 00:01:10,800 pays Google when a user clicks on the ad for that query. 22 00:01:10,800 --> 00:01:13,860 Each advertiser also specifies a budget. 23 00:01:13,860 --> 00:01:15,340 This is the total amount of money 24 00:01:15,340 --> 00:01:17,650 that the advertiser has available to pay 25 00:01:17,650 --> 00:01:19,750 for all the clicks on their ad. 26 00:01:19,750 --> 00:01:22,320 Every time a user clicks on the advertiser's ad, 27 00:01:22,320 --> 00:01:25,410 the advertiser's budget is depleted by the price-per-click 28 00:01:25,410 --> 00:01:28,510 for that ad for that user's query. 29 00:01:28,510 --> 00:01:31,410 Let's illustrate this with a small example. 30 00:01:31,410 --> 00:01:34,700 So suppose that we are Google, and three of the major wireless 31 00:01:34,700 --> 00:01:39,700 service providers in the United States -- AT&T, T-Mobile, 32 00:01:39,700 --> 00:01:43,030 and Verizon -- come to us wanting to place ads on three 33 00:01:43,030 --> 00:01:49,190 different search queries: query 1, which is "4G LTE"; query 2, 34 00:01:49,190 --> 00:01:52,330 which is the "largest LTE"; and query 3, 35 00:01:52,330 --> 00:01:54,729 which is "best LTE network". 36 00:01:54,729 --> 00:01:56,509 If you're not familiar with these terms, 37 00:01:56,509 --> 00:01:59,900 4G and LTE basically refer to different standards 38 00:01:59,900 --> 00:02:01,700 of high speed wireless data communication. 39 00:02:05,650 --> 00:02:08,340 The table here shows the price-per-click 40 00:02:08,340 --> 00:02:10,979 of each advertiser in each query. 41 00:02:10,979 --> 00:02:13,970 So for example, this 10 here means 42 00:02:13,970 --> 00:02:18,430 that T-Mobile will pay Google $10 43 00:02:18,430 --> 00:02:21,450 every time a user searches for query 1 44 00:02:21,450 --> 00:02:24,700 and clicks on T-Mobile's advertisement. 45 00:02:24,700 --> 00:02:28,380 In this example, T-Mobile's budget is $100. 46 00:02:28,380 --> 00:02:31,100 If T-Mobile begins advertising and by some point 47 00:02:31,100 --> 00:02:32,810 five people have clicked on T-Mobile's ad 48 00:02:32,810 --> 00:02:37,280 when they search for "4G LTE", then T-Mobile 49 00:02:37,280 --> 00:02:45,290 will need to pay five times $10, or a total of $50. 50 00:02:45,290 --> 00:02:48,150 If T-Mobile's budget is $100, this 51 00:02:48,150 --> 00:02:54,660 means that T-Mobile is left with $100 minus $50, 52 00:02:54,660 --> 00:02:56,040 for a remaining budget of $50. 53 00:02:58,790 --> 00:03:02,320 Now, while the price-per-click is important to know, 54 00:03:02,320 --> 00:03:04,820 we must remember that the price-per-click is exactly 55 00:03:04,820 --> 00:03:07,440 that, the price that the advertiser pays 56 00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:12,380 to Google for a single click of a given ad, on a given query. 57 00:03:12,380 --> 00:03:17,840 This price is paid only if the user clicks on the ad. 58 00:03:17,840 --> 00:03:20,880 But typically, the people who use Google search engine, who 59 00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:23,110 are you and me, will not click on every ad 60 00:03:23,110 --> 00:03:24,610 that is shown to them. 61 00:03:24,610 --> 00:03:26,329 Therefore, we need a way to capture 62 00:03:26,329 --> 00:03:29,030 how often users click on ads. 63 00:03:29,030 --> 00:03:31,260 This is where the idea of click-through-rate 64 00:03:31,260 --> 00:03:32,790 becomes useful. 65 00:03:32,790 --> 00:03:34,610 The click-through-rate is the probability 66 00:03:34,610 --> 00:03:37,010 that a user clicks on an advertiser's ad for a given 67 00:03:37,010 --> 00:03:38,010 query. 68 00:03:38,010 --> 00:03:41,160 You can also think of this as the average number of clicks 69 00:03:41,160 --> 00:03:43,520 that we expect per user. 70 00:03:43,520 --> 00:03:45,900 And this quantity is defined, as we said, 71 00:03:45,900 --> 00:03:49,160 per advertiser and per query. 72 00:03:49,160 --> 00:03:53,040 So to illustrate this, for the example that we just introduced 73 00:03:53,040 --> 00:03:55,680 a few slides ago, suppose that we 74 00:03:55,680 --> 00:03:58,230 have the following click-through-rates. 75 00:03:58,230 --> 00:04:02,580 The number 0.08 here means that there is an 8% chance 76 00:04:02,580 --> 00:04:06,310 that a user who searches for best LTE network 77 00:04:06,310 --> 00:04:10,140 will click on AT&T's ad if it is shown to them. 78 00:04:10,140 --> 00:04:12,910 In terms of the number of users who click on an ad for a given 79 00:04:12,910 --> 00:04:18,410 query, this means that for 50 users, 80 00:04:18,410 --> 00:04:21,829 if the click-through-rate is 0.08, 81 00:04:21,829 --> 00:04:27,580 we expect to see 4 users clicking on the ad. 82 00:04:27,580 --> 00:04:31,060 Similarly, if there are a hundred users who 83 00:04:31,060 --> 00:04:37,340 view the ad and 8% of them click on the ad, 84 00:04:37,340 --> 00:04:40,040 we expect to see eight users clicking 85 00:04:40,040 --> 00:04:42,360 on AT&T's ad for query 3. 86 00:04:44,900 --> 00:04:47,360 In the next video, we'll define additional data 87 00:04:47,360 --> 00:04:49,450 that we'll need to formulate the problem. 88 00:04:49,450 --> 00:04:52,400 In particular, we will see how the click-through-rate 89 00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:54,880 and the price-per-click can be combined together 90 00:04:54,880 --> 00:04:58,880 to obtain a new quantity called the average price per display. 91 00:04:58,880 --> 00:05:01,390 This derived quantity will form a crucial part 92 00:05:01,390 --> 00:05:04,200 of our linear optimization model.