Patent ID: 8140382

Claim:
A computer implemented method for determining a publisher's mean conversion rate ratio and a standard deviation ratio for the mean conversion rate ratio, the method comprising: identifying a first publisher whose conversion rate ratio is to be estimated, the conversion rate ratio defined as a ratio between: i) a publisher conversion rate that a first advertiser obtains for at least one advertisement placed on a page published by the first publisher; and ii) a reference conversion rate that the first advertiser obtains on one or more reference page(s); obtaining a value for the reference conversion rate and a plurality of values for the publisher conversion rate; determining a first mean and a first standard deviation using the value for the reference conversion rate and the plurality of values for the publisher conversion rate, the first mean and the first standard deviation relating to the first publisher; identifying a plurality of second publishers that are peers of the first publisher; obtaining, for each of the plurality of second publishers, values for the reference conversion rate and pluralities of values for the publisher conversion rate; determining, for each of the plurality of second publishers, a second mean and a second standard deviation using the corresponding values for the reference conversion rate and the pluralities of values for the publisher conversion rate; determining a precision for each of the plurality of second publishers using p_i ← 1 s_i 2 wherein p_i=the precision for second publisher i among the plurality of second publishers; and s_i=the second standard deviation for the second publisher i; dividing the plurality of second publishers into a subset and a remainder based on a threshold value for the second standard deviations, the subset relating to those of the plurality of second publishers whose second standard deviations fall above the threshold value; selecting an uncertainty level as one of i) high uncertainty and ii) low uncertainty as characterizing future observations of the publisher conversion rate ratio; selecting one of the subset and the remainder as a publisher peer group based on the selected uncertainty; determining, using the publisher peer group, a peer group mean and a peer group standard deviation using: m ← ∑ x ⁢ ⁢ _ ⁢ ⁢ k ⁢ m_k * p_k ∑ x ⁢ ⁢ _ ⁢ ⁢ k ⁢ p_k wherein m=the peer group mean; x_k=all tuples of second means and second standard deviations in the publisher peer group; m_k=the second mean for publisher k; p_k=the precision for publisher k; s=the peer group standard deviation; and determining, by one or more computers, a modified first mean and a modified first standard deviation for the first publisher using m ″ ← m * p p + p ′ + m ′ * p ′ p + p ′ s ″ ← ( s 2 * s ′2 ) ( s 2 + s ′2 ) wherein m″=the modified first mean; p ← 1 s 2 ; p ′ ← 1 s ′ 2 ; s″=the modified first standard deviation; s′=the first standard deviation; and m′=the first mean.