Processing Ads: Content Selection Framework
The Content Selection Framework (CSF) processes the variables that you specify for an ad: campaign goaling, exposure limit, schedule, weight, page groups, and target groups. Each time a user visits your site, it determines whether the ad is to be displayed.
The Content Selection Framework for advertising uses a formula called Need of Delivery (NOD) to initially score the advertisements based on how far behind schedule they are. This formula takes into account the total quantity of content to be delivered and the length of time over which the quantity must be delivered. Need of Delivery is calculated for each ad request by the Content Selection Framework after it has processed the ad request. Need of Delivery is applied to paid ads only; it is not applied to house ads.
If you have several ads and want to know on what basis they are being displayed, contact your site developer. Commerce Server includes a tool named TraceScores that your site developer can use to trace the selection process. Use TraceScores to see exactly how the internal content decision process works.
If you plan to run many campaigns simultaneously, using the same target group and the same priority, the Content Selection Framework selects the ad to be displayed based on the ad type. If the ads are both house ads, an ad is selected at random using the weights as relative probabilities. If the ads are paid ads, an ad is selected for display based on the Need Of Delivery calculation (which takes into account the start date, end date, number of events scheduled, and number of events served to date). One of the score modifications is History Penalty, which applies a decreasing penalty to ads recently seen by a user. When the History Penalty is enabled, ads are "rotated" over time.
See Also
Targeting Ads: Weight and Target Group
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