Papers for

online ad allocation teams

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

Efficient online algorithm achieves constant ratio for complex item allocations

Efficient Algorithms for Online Subadditive Combinatorial Allocations

Abstract: For the online combinatorial allocation problem with subadditive valuations, Correa and Cristi (STOC 2023) proved the existence of a $6$-competitive online algorithm, improving on the previous best $O(\log\!\log m)$-competitive online algorithm due to Dütting, Kesselheim, and Lucier (FOCS 2020), where $m$ is the number of items. However, Correa and Cristi's result is existential, and it was left open whether a constant competitive ratio is attainable via an efficient online algorithm that uses a polynomial number of demand oracle queries. In this work, we answer this affirmatively, giving an expected-polynomial-time $(6 + ε)$-competitive online algorithm for any constant $ε> 0$. Our techniques also recover, in the offline setting, the $(2 + ε)$-approximation result of Feige (STOC, 2006). Finally, when the buyers' valuations are drawn from identical distributions, we exploit symmetry to obtain an improved $(60/11+ε)$-competitive algorithm. Starting with the natural configuration LP relaxation for the problem, our main technical contribution is a recursive Bundle Score Generator (BSG) that resolves item conflicts by assigning correlated scores to the items requested by each buyer. Unlike the Random Score Generator whose existence is shown by Correa and Cristi, our BSG is efficiently computable in expected polynomial time. Moreover, it satisfies a stochastic dominance property that is sufficient to recover both Feige's offline result and Correa and Cristi's online result.

Tue 6 OctData Structures and Algorithms
The gist
The paper deals with the problem of allocating items to buyers who value combinations of items in complicated ways. Previously, it was known that a good constant-level solution existed, but it was not clear how to find it quickly. The authors design a new algorithm that can efficiently produce almost as good results using a reasonable amount of computation. They also extend their approach to improve known solutions when buyers have similar preferences.
Open → 2610.09050v1