Optimal Bidding for Mobile-Ad Campaigns

Self-service advertising platforms such as Cidewalk enable advertisers to directly launch their individual mobile advertising campaigns. These platforms contract with advertisers to provide a certain number of impressions on mobile apps in a specific geographic location (usually a town or a zip code) within a fixed time period (usually a day); this is referred to as a campaign. To meet the commitment for a campaign, the platform bids on an ad-exchange to win the required number of impressions from the desired area within the time period of the campaign. We address the platform’s problem of deciding its bidding policy to minimize the expected cost in fulfilling the campaign.