Execution Engine for Generating Reports for Measuring Effectiveness of Advertising Campaigns

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016078470-A1
Application number	US-201414488577-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Sep 17, 2014
Priority date	Sep 17, 2014
Publication date	Mar 17, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A report execution engine processes reports for evaluating advertising campaigns. The report execution engine maintains a plurality of generators, each generator including instructions to generate execution plans for one or more columns of a report. The report execution engine uses different generators for generating sub-plans for processing columns of the report. A generator generates a sub-plan for processing a column of the report and invokes other generators for generating sub-plans for remaining columns of the report. The generator receives a sub-plan for the remaining columns of the report from another generator and generates a combined execution plan based on the sub-plans. An execution plan comprises a hierarchical structure of nodes, each node representing a portion of computation of the report. The report execution engine generates the report based on the execution plan and sends the results for presentation.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A computer-implemented method comprising:
maintaining a plurality of generators, each generator configured to generate a sub-plan including instructions to generate execution plans for one or more columns of reports comprising information of an advertising campaign; receiving, by a report execution engine, a report definition specifying one or more columns that include one or more metrics for evaluating the advertising campaign; sending the report definition to a first generator of the plurality of generators, the first generator configured to generate execution plan for at least a column of the report definition; generating, by the first generator, a first sub-plan for processing at least a first column of the report definition by the generator, the first generator incapable of processing a set of remaining columns of the report definition; sending information describing the remaining columns of the report definition to a second generator for processing; receiving a second sub-plan from the second generator, the second sub-plan for processing the remaining columns of the report definition; generating a combined execution plan comprising the first sub-plan and the second sub-plan and an operator combining the first sub-plan and the second sub-plan; executing the combined execution plan to generate results based on the report definition; and sending the generated results for presentation.

2 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
identifying the first generator, the identifying comprising, sending the report definition to each of a series of generators from the plurality of generators until a generator returns information indicating the generator includes instructions to generate execution plan for at least a column of the report definition; and using the generator as the first generator.

3 . The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , further comprising:
providing information identifying the remaining columns of the report definition to one or more of the remaining generators from the plurality of generators for identifying the second generator.

4 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein processing the remaining columns of the report definition by the second generator comprises:
generating, by the second generator, a sub-plan for a second column of the report definition; and providing the remaining columns other than the first and the second column to a third generator for generating a third sub-plan.

5 . The computer-implemented method of claim 4 , further comprising:
receiving, from the third generator, a third sub-plan for processing the columns of the report definition other than the first column and the second column; and generating the second sub-plan by combining the sub-plan for processing the second column with the third sub-plan.

6 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the operator for combining the first sub-plan and the second sub-plan is one of: a concatenate operator, a join operator, a cross product operator, or a union operator.

7 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
selecting the operator for combining the first sub-plan with the second sub-plan based on the results returned by the first sub-plan and the second sub-plan, the results comprising a first result set generated by the first sub-plan and a second result set generated by the second sub-plan.

8 . The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , further comprising:
responsive to determining that the first result set is distinct from the second result set, selecting a concatenate operator for combining the first sub-plan and the second sub-plan.

9 . The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , further comprising:
responsive to determining that the first result set and the second result set comprise partial rows, selecting a join operator for combining the first sub-plan and the second sub-plan.

10 . The computer-implemented method of claim 9 , further comprising:
responsive to determining that the report requires empty values of columns from one of the result sets, selecting an outer join operator for combining the first sub-plan and the second sub-plan.

11 . The computer-implemented method of claim 9 , further comprising:
responsive to determining that the report requires full data for columns from both the result sets, selecting an inner join operator for combining the first sub-plan and the second sub-plan.

12 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a new report definition using a first metric defined by the new generator and a second metric defined by an existing generator; and generating an execution plan for the new report definition based on a sub-plan generated by the new generator and a sub-plan generated by the existing generator.

13 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the metrics associated with the advertising campaign comprise one or more of: information describing impressions of advertisements shown to users and information describing conversions.

14 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the report definition specifies a column comprising information identifying advertising campaigns.

15 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
introducing in the first sub-plan and the second sub-plan, additional columns not specified by the report definition; and using the additional columns to combine intermediate results generated by first sub-plan with intermediate results generated by the second sub-plan.

16 . A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing instructions for:
maintaining a plurality of generators, each generator configured to generate execution plans for one or more columns of reports comprising information of an advertising campaign; receiving, by a report execution engine, a report definition specifying one or more columns that include one or more metrics for evaluating the advertising campaign; sending the report definition to a first generator of the plurality of generators, the first generator configured to generate execution plan for at least a column of the report definition; generating, by the first generator, a first sub-plan for processing at least a first column of the report definition by the generator, the first generator incapable of processing a set of remaining columns of the report definition; sending information describing the remaining columns of the report definition to a second generator for processing; receiving a second sub-plan from the second generator, the second sub-plan for processing the remaining columns of the report definition; generating a combined execution plan comprising the first sub-plan and the second sub-plan and an operator combining the first sub-plan and the second sub-plan; executing the combined execution plan to generate results based on the report definition; and sending the generated results for presentation.

17 . The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16 , further comprising:
identifying the first generator, the identifying comprising, sending the report definition to each of series of generators from the plurality of generators until a generator returns information indicating the generator includes instructions to generate execution plan for at least a column of the report definition; and using the generator as the first generator.

18 . The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of

Assignees

• Facebook Inc

Inventors

• Mchugh Jason George
• Snyder Sean Michael

Classifications

• G06Q30/0242 Primary

  Determining effectiveness of advertisements · CPC title