Exploring Online Ad Images Using a Deep Convolutional Neural Network Approach

TL;DR

This paper introduces deep learning-based algorithms to analyze and predict the success of online ad images, demonstrating their effectiveness on large datasets and highlighting their potential to improve online advertising strategies.

Contribution

The study presents novel deep-learning algorithms for predicting ad success from images, a new approach beyond traditional online optimization techniques.

Findings

Successfully predicted ad click rates using deep learning models

Demonstrated effectiveness on large-scale ad image datasets

Potential to enhance online ad design and targeting

Abstract

Online advertising is a huge, rapidly growing advertising market in today's world. One common form of online advertising is using image ads. A decision is made (often in real time) every time a user sees an ad, and the advertiser is eager to determine the best ad to display. Consequently, many algorithms have been developed that calculate the optimal ad to show to the current user at the present time. Typically, these algorithms focus on variations of the ad, optimizing among different properties such as background color, image size, or set of images. However, there is a more fundamental layer. Our study looks at new qualities of ads that can be determined before an ad is shown (rather than online optimization) and defines which ads are most likely to be successful. We present a set of novel algorithms that utilize deep-learning image processing, machine learning, and graph theory to investigate online advertising and to construct prediction models which can foresee an image ad's success. We evaluated our algorithms on a dataset with over 260,000 ad images, as well as a smaller dataset specifically related to the automotive industry, and we succeeded in constructing regression models for ad image click rate prediction. The obtained results emphasize the great potential of using deep-learning algorithms to effectively and efficiently analyze image ads and to create better and more innovative online ads. Moreover, the algorithms presented in this paper can help predict ad success and can be applied to analyze other large-scale image corpora.