Optimizing the coalition gain in Online Auctions with Greedy Structured Bandits
Résumé
Motivated by online display advertising, this work considers repeated second-price auctions, where agents sample their value from an unknown distribution with cumulative distribution function F . In each auction t, a decision-maker bound by limited observations selects n t agents from a coalition of N to compete for a prize with p other agents, aiming to maximize the cumulative reward of the coalition across all auctions. The problem is framed as an N -armed structured bandit, each number of player sent being an arm n, with expected reward r(n) fully characterized by F and p + n. We present two algorithms, Local-Greedy (LG) and Greedy-Grid (GG), both achieving constant problem-dependent regret. This relies on three key ingredients: 1. an estimator of r(n) from feedback collected from any arm k, 2. concentration bounds of these estimates for k within an estimation neighborhood of n and 3. the unimodality property of r under standard assumptions on F . Additionally, GG exhibits problem-independent guarantees on top of best problem-dependent guarantees. However, by avoiding to rely on confidence intervals, LG practically outperforms GG, as well as standard unimodal bandit algorithms such as OSUB or multi-armed bandit algorithms.
Domaines
Statistiques [stat]Origine | Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s) |
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