Brian Bulkowski, founder and CEO of Citrusleaf, will focus on the role of innovative NoSQL databases in advertising and the problem of real-time user data. The talk will feature case studies from online and mobile advertising companies who are facing data challenges of 100s of terabytes and requirements for millisecond response times. He will discuss the data problems in real-time bidding applications and present some ideas for moving beyond the last click attribution model. He will illustrate why scalability and speed are so critical and how new technology approaches are driving innovation in digital advertising.

1. Citrusleaf
“Sifting, Sorting and Scanning for Gold –
g, g g
The Real‐Time User Data Problem”
Brian Bulkowski, CEO and Founder
© 2011 Citrusleaf. All rights reserved. 1

2. NoSQL in Digital Advertising
• Display advertising – today’s state of the art
Display advertising today s state of the art
• Real‐time data in digital advertising
• C
Case study
d
– User data store & cookie mapping
• Market differentiation
• Moving beyond the last click
g y
Citrusleaf Confidential © 2011 Citrusleaf. All rights reserved. 2

3. Display Advertising
• Lie:
– Content determines the value of an impression
• Lie:
– The value of an individual user is constant
– The decision funnel
The decision funnel
• Truth:
– The right ad to the right user at the right time
The right ad, to the right user, at the right time
© 2011 Citrusleaf. All rights reserved. 3

4. Today’s state of the art
• Impression logs => user segments (warehouse)
• Third part data => user segments
• Region segments
• Real‐time per‐user factor
• Frequency caps
• Session management for cookie less users
Session management for cookie‐less users
• Mapping external partner IDs
• Build optimization tables based on log analysis
Build optimization tables based on log analysis
Simple math determines highest value ad
Simple math determines highest value ad
© 2011 Citrusleaf. All rights reserved. 4

5. Real‐time data requirements
• Scalable and
flexible
fl ibl
• 100% availability
• Billion object
support
• High performance
with low hardware
cost
• Sophisticated data
eviction policies
© 2010 Citrusleaf. All rights reserved. 5

6. Case Study
Map store User store
Key
y cookie string or
g Key internal user id
partner id Value Segment data
Value internal user id (8 bytes) Frequency caps
Other optimization data
North America North America
1B ~ 1.5B objects 500M ~ 800M objects
Write load:
Write load: Write load:
Write load:
1k ~ 2k per second 10K ~ 20K per second
Read load: Read load:
10k ~ 50k per second
p 20k ~ 100k per second
Configuration Configuration
DRAM backed by disk
DRAM backed by disk 1T 4T user storage
1T ~ 4T user storage
Lowest latency (0.4 ms) Low latency (0.8 ms)
© 2011 Citrusleaf. All rights reserved. 6

7. Market differentiation
• Control over impressions
Control over impressions
• Quality and variety of inventory
y y y
• Better insight generation & tracking
• And:
– High quality user understanding
Trend: multiple user stores
© 2011 Citrusleaf. All rights reserved. 7

8. The next challenge
Weakness: “last ad takes all”
Performance is judged externally by the last
P f i j d d t ll b th l t
advertiser before a conversion
So… game the system to place strategically
New technology allows real‐time understanding of
user behavior
But …
Will advertisers stand for it?
© 2011 Citrusleaf. All rights reserved. 8

9. Indexed user behavior storage
• Store 100B+ user
behavior objects
b h i bj t
(1B per day, 90
days)
• Index by user_id,
giving sub‐second
access to entire
behavior chain
• O ti i d f
Optimized for
rotational media
• Time‐based eviction
Time‐based eviction
© 2010 Citrusleaf. All rights reserved. 9

10. Indexed user behavior storage
• Solves the “needle in a haystack” problem
• Allows immediate behavioral triggering
All i di b h i l i i
• Removes ETL and Map/Reduce scans
• Allows sophisticated attribution models,
(and advanced optimization and reporting)
The right ad,
g ,
to the right user,
at the right time
t th i ht ti
© 2011 Citrusleaf. All rights reserved. 10

11. Citrusleaf
Making Web Scale Easy and Affordable
M ki W b S l E d Aff d bl
Contact Info: brian@citrusleaf.com
Contact Info: brian@citrusleaf com
© 2011 Citrusleaf. All rights reserved. 11