Patent ID: 9639890
Date: 2017-05-02
CPC Classifications: G06Q

Claim:
1. A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving request data representative of a request for placement of an advertisement with published content provided by a publisher; identifying a set of candidate bids for the advertisement placement, wherein the candidate bids include one or more candidate static bids and a network proxy bid provided by an advertiser that is a placeholder for an actual bid, wherein the network proxy bid indicates that the advertiser has registered a call back with an advertising exchange; determining a threshold value by selecting a highest bid from the one or more candidate static bids in the set of candidate bids for the advertisement placement; receiving, at an application engine and from the advertising exchange, one or more criteria associated with the advertisement placement, receiving, at the application engine and from the advertising network, program code from the advertising network associated with the proxy bid and for calculating the maximum bid, and executing, with the application engine, the program code received from the advertising network using the one or more criteria received from the advertising exchange to determine a value of the maximum bid for the advertising network; determining whether the maximum bid associated with the network proxy bid is a weak bid, comprising determining whether the maximum bid associated with the network proxy bid is greater than the threshold value; in response to determining that the maximum bid associated with the network proxy is not a weak bid: sending the call back to the advertiser, the call back including information relating to the advertisement placement; receiving, in response to the call back, actual bid data representative of an actual bid from the advertiser, the actual bid being determined based on the information; replacing the network proxy bid with the actual bid so that the candidate bid data includes the actual bid data; and using the actual bid in an auction for the advertisement placement responsive to the received request; and in response to determining that the maximum bid associated with the network proxy is a weak bid: excluding the advertiser that provided the maximum bid associated with the network proxy from receiving a call back.