This document relates to publication evaluation.
The Internet has enabled access to a wide variety of publications containing content, such as text, video and/or audio files related to particular subjects. Such access to these publications has likewise enabled opportunities for targeted advertising. For example, an advertiser can associate targeting keywords with the advertisement that represent the content of the advertisement. In turn, the advertisements can be presented with publications that are identified as having content that satisfies the targeting keyword, and therefore is related to the advertisement.
In some situations, targeting criteria for an advertisement can be satisfied by content that is not closely related to the content of the advertisement. For example, if an advertiser specifies a targeting keyword such as “sports” with an advertisement, the keyword may be satisfied by content that is related to any sport. If the advertisement is promoting football memorabilia, the performance of the advertisement may be significantly different when presented with content related to football relative to content related to other sports. Due to the possible wide variation in advertisement performance due to the publication with which the advertisement is presented, an advertiser may wish to pay less money for advertisements that are presented with a publication that provides lower levels of return than publications that provide higher levels of return.