Design Ad Frequency and Order Tracking
This problem requires designing two distinct but related components for an advertising platform.
Part A: Frequency Capping Service
Design a service responsible for enforcing frequency caps during ad decisioning. This service must prevent a user from seeing a specific ad entity too many times. Frequency caps can be applied at various granularities, including:
- Creative level
- Line item level
- Campaign level
- Advertiser level
- Global level
An example cap might be "at most N impressions for a user within a fixed or rolling time window."
The service must meet the following requirements:
- Support low-latency eligibility checks for ad serving.
- Accurately record exposures after an impression is served.
- Handle high write volume for exposure recording.
- Gracefully manage duplicate event handling.
- Allow for dynamic cap configuration changes.
- Utilize privacy-safe user identifiers.
Part B: Direct-Sold Demand-Side Order Tracking Model
Design the data model and tracking flow for a demand-side advertising platform specifically for direct-sold orders. This design should encompass the management and reporting of these orders.
The model and flow must include:
- Order management
- Line items
- Creatives
- Budgets
- Pacing mechanisms
- Targeting configurations
- Integration with frequency caps (from Part A or similar concept)
- Inventory or placement configuration
- Delivery events
- Reporting aggregates
Crucially, focus on the direct-sold demand workflow and explicitly exclude open auction bidding as the core mechanism.
AI interview prep
Core dilemma
Balancing extreme real-time read/write performance and consistency for ad frequency capping with the need for a flexible, scalable, and accurate data model for complex direct-sold ad campaign management and reporting.
3 tradeoffs and 3 stress tests locked
Interview prep
Unlock the interviewer X-Ray rubric, tradeoff matrix, stress tests, clarifying questions, and key concepts.
Design Ad Frequency and Order Tracking
This problem requires designing two distinct but related components for an advertising platform.
Part A: Frequency Capping Service
Design a service responsible for enforcing frequency caps during ad decisioning. This service must prevent a user from seeing a specific ad entity too many times. Frequency caps can be applied at various granularities, including:
- Creative level
- Line item level
- Campaign level
- Advertiser level
- Global level
An example cap might be "at most N impressions for a user within a fixed or rolling time window."
The service must meet the following requirements:
- Support low-latency eligibility checks for ad serving.
- Accurately record exposures after an impression is served.
- Handle high write volume for exposure recording.
- Gracefully manage duplicate event handling.
- Allow for dynamic cap configuration changes.
- Utilize privacy-safe user identifiers.
Part B: Direct-Sold Demand-Side Order Tracking Model
Design the data model and tracking flow for a demand-side advertising platform specifically for direct-sold orders. This design should encompass the management and reporting of these orders.
The model and flow must include:
- Order management
- Line items
- Creatives
- Budgets
- Pacing mechanisms
- Targeting configurations
- Integration with frequency caps (from Part A or similar concept)
- Inventory or placement configuration
- Delivery events
- Reporting aggregates
Crucially, focus on the direct-sold demand workflow and explicitly exclude open auction bidding as the core mechanism.