Methods and apparatus to compensate for server-generated errors in database proprietor impression data due to misattribution and/or non-coverage

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11568431-B2
Application number	US-202017068582-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 12, 2020
Priority date	Mar 13, 2014
Publication date	Jan 31, 2023
Grant date	Jan 31, 2023

Abstract

Methods and apparatus to compensate impression data for misattribution and non-coverage are disclosed. An example method includes receiving a first request from a first type of computing device; sending a request for demographic information corresponding to requests received at a first internet domain from the first type of computing device; generating an aggregated audience distribution including a first audience distribution of a first household aggregated with a second audience distribution of a second household; normalizing the aggregated audience distribution to generate a misattribution correction matrix, the misattribution correction matrix including a probability that an impression of the media is attributable to a first demographic group when the database proprietor determines the impression corresponds to a person in a second demographic group; and compensating misattribution error in the impressions by re-assigning the impressions from the second demographic group to the first demographic group using the misattribution correction matrix.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus to compensate impressions of media for misattribution error, the apparatus comprising:
impression collector circuitry to:
receive, at an internet domain and via a first network connection, a first request from a computing device, the first request indicative of access to media at the computing device;
send, via a second network connection, a second request for demographic information corresponding to requests received at the internet domain from the computing device, the requests including the first request; and
log, in a database, an impression of the media for the computing device based on the first request and the demographic information, the demographic information including information to associate the impression of the media to a second demographic group;

aggregated distribution generator circuitry to generate an aggregated audience distribution including a first audience distribution of a first household aggregated with a second audience distribution of a second household, the first audience distribution including a distribution of first household members of the first household into demographic groups, based on a survey response of the first household, of ones of the household members who are registered with a database proprietor;
matrix normalizer circuitry to normalize the aggregated audience distribution to generate a misattribution correction matrix, the misattribution correction matrix including a probability of a server-based misattribution error, the server-based misattribution error resulting from a server of the database proprietor determining the impression of the media corresponds to the second demographic group when the impression of the media is attributable to a first demographic group different from the second demographic group; and
misattribution corrector circuitry to improve functionality of a computer by causing the computer to correct the server-based misattribution error in impressions by re-assigning the impression from the second demographic group to the first demographic group using the misattribution correction matrix, the re-assigning to generate more accurate information than logged impression information in the database.

2. The apparatus as defined in claim 1 , further including matrix corrector circuitry to generate a correction index to correct the aggregated audience distribution for at least one of oversampling or undersampling associated with a survey calibration data source, the survey calibration data source indicating accesses to the media by the household members and registration statuses of the household members with the database proprietor.

3. The apparatus as defined in claim 2 , wherein the correction index is based on a second probability that a first person in the first demographic group lives with a second person in the second demographic group.

4. The apparatus as defined in claim 3 , wherein the matrix corrector circuitry is to generate the correction index by:
determining, based on first survey calibration data, a first quantity of first pairs of people, respective ones of the first pairs of people including the first person in the first demographic group and the second person in the second demographic group living together;
determining, based on second survey calibration data, a second quantity of second pairs of people, respective ones of the second pairs of people including a third person in the first demographic group and a fourth person in the second demographic group living together, the second survey calibration data having higher accuracy than the first survey calibration data; and
determining a ratio of the first quantity and the second quantity.

5. The apparatus as defined in claim 1 , wherein the aggregated audience distribution describes a number of people in the second demographic group who are to be attributed to the first demographic group, and the matrix normalizer circuitry is to normalize the aggregated audience distribution by scaling respective numbers of people in the second demographic group such that a total of the number of people for the second demographic group is a designated value.

6. The apparatus as defined in claim 1 , further including household distribution generator circuitry to:
determine a sharing pattern for the first household, the sharing pattern indicative of ones of the household members who access a media category and other ones of the household members who do not access the media category; and
determine a probability density function of device sharing probabilities for the household members in the first household based on the sharing pattern for the media category, the probability density function indicative of respective probabilities that the household members access the media category, the first audience distribution being based on the device sharing probabilities.

7. The apparatus as defined in claim 6 , wherein the aggregated distribution generator circuitry is to aggregate the device sharing probabilities for the household members when the first household has two or more registered ones of the household members who are in a same second demographic group.

8. The apparatus as defined in claim 1 , further including household distribution generator circuitry to generate the first audience distribution by distributing fractional numbers into the demographic groups, the fractional numbers totaling a count of those ones of the household members who are registered with the database proprietor.

9. The apparatus as defined in claim 1 , wherein the misattribution corrector circuitry is to re-assign ones of the impressions by determining a product of the misattribution correction matrix and an impressions matrix, the impressions matrix indicating numbers of impressions determined by the database proprietor to correspond to respective ones of the demographic groups.

10. The apparatus as defined in claim 9 , wherein the misattribution corrector circuitry is to re-assign the ones of the impressions such that a total number of re-assigned impressions is a same total number of impressions as a total of the numbers of impressions in the impressions matrix.

11. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising computer readable instructions which, when executed, cause a processor to at least:
access, at an internet domain via a first network communication, a first request from a computing device, the first request indicative of access to media at the computing device;
send, via a second network communication, a second request for demographic information corresponding to requests received at the internet domain from the computing device, the requests including the first request;
log an impression of the media for the computing device in a database based on the first request and the demographic information, the demographic information including information to associate the impression of the media to a second demographic group;
generate an aggregated audience distribution including a first audience distribution of a first household aggregated with a second audience distribution of a second household, the first audience distribution including a distribution of household members of the first household into demographic groups, based on a survey response of the first household, of ones of the household members that are registered with a database proprietor;
normalize the aggregated audience distribution to generate a misattribution correction matrix, the misattribution correction matrix including a probability of a server-based misattribution error, the server-based misattribution error resulting from a server of the database proprietor determining the impression of the m

Assignees

• Nielsen Co Us Llc

Inventors

• Rao Kumar Nagaraja
• Luo Tianjue
• Perez Albert Ronald
• Bell Stephen S
• Zhang Mimi
• Wong David
• Haskell Jennifer

Classifications

• G06Q30/0201 Primary

  Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data · CPC title

• G06Q30/0245

  Surveys · CPC title

• G06Q30/0241

  Advertisements · CPC title

• H04W4/21

  for social networking applications · CPC title

• G06Q30/0242

  Determining effectiveness of advertisements · CPC title