Abstract:
A target audience for an ad campaign is determined during an exploration period of the ad campaign by modifying the target audience based on the fulfillment of performance objectives. An initial target audience may be provided by the advertiser or determined by the social networking system based on ad campaigns having similar ad content or other similar characteristics. Advertisements associated with the ad campaign are served to users of the initial target audience. A subset of the target audience that fulfills the performance objectives of the ad campaign is identified and those users are used to generate a new targeting audience to target users that “look like” the subset of the target audience. The new targeting audience is used in place of the initial target audience to improve targeting for the advertisement. This process may be iteratively performed to refine the target audience during the exploration period.