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Sundar Dorai-Raj

Sundar Dorai-Raj

I received a Ph.D. in Statistics from Virginia Tech in 2001. After spending 7 years designing and analyzing experiments for the semiconductor industry, I joined Google's TV Ads team. My current focus is on video ads quality and effectiveness on YouTube.
Authored Publications
Google Publications
Other Publications
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    Empowering Online Advertisements by Empowering Viewers with the Right to Choose
    Melanie Kellar
    Dan Zigmond
    Journal of Advertising Research, vol. 52 (2012), pp. 65-71
    Preview abstract In 2010, YouTube introduced TrueView in-stream advertising—online video advertisements that allowed the user to skip directly to the desired video content after five seconds of viewing. Google sought to compare these “skippable” in-stream advertisements to the conventional (non-skippable) in-stream video advertising formats, using a new advertising effectiveness metric based on the propensity to search for terms related to advertising content. Google’s findings indicated that skippable video advertisements may be as effective on a per-impression basis as traditional video advertisements. In addition, data from randomized experiments showed a strong implied viewer preference for the skippable advertisements. Taken together, these results suggest that formats like TrueView in-stream advertisements can improve the viewing experience for users without sacrificing advertising value for advertisers or content owners. View details
    Adapting Online Advertising Techniques to Television
    Yannet Interian
    Igor Naverniouk
    Dan Zigmond
    Online Multimedia Advertising: Techniques and Technologies, Information Science Reference, Hershey PA (2011), pp. 148-165
    Preview abstract The availability of precise data on TV ad consumption fundamentally changes this advertising medium, and allows many techniques developed for analyzing online ads to be adapted for TV. This chapter looks in particular at how results from the emerging field of online ad quality analysis can now be applied to TV. View details
    Measuring the Impact of Advertising on YouTube Traffic
    The Market Research Event, The Market Research Event, Orlando FL (2011)
    Preview abstract At YouTube, balancing ad load and user happiness is a major concern. One way we measure this tradeoff is through live experiments, which we run on a small percentage of traffic. For example, by holding back certain ad formats we can build metrics around the impact of YouTube advertising on the user experience. In this talk we will discuss the benefits and challenges of running large-scale advertising experiments. View details
    Advertising and Traffic: Learning from online video data
    Dan Zigmond
    Audience Measurement 6.0, Advertising Research Foundation, New York, NY (2011)
    Preview abstract Online media portals like Google’s YouTube are generating unprecedented volumes of data on usage patterns and viewing behavior. Learn about improving online advertising by understanding how ads impact online traffic. View details
    Preview abstract For several years, Google has been analyzing television set-top box data to measure audience response to specific TV ads. This paper presents how similar techniques can be applied to online video advertising on YouTube. As more and more video programming is made available online, it will become increasingly important to understand how to engage with online viewers through video advertising. Furthermore, we find that viewing behavior is even more effected by specific video ad creatives online than it is on TV. This suggests that online viewing can become a valuable source data on viewer response to video ad creatives more generally. View details
    Preview abstract Google has developed new metrics based on set-top box data for predicting the future audience retention of TV ads. This paper examines how to use these metrics to judge the effectiveness of TV ad campaigns. More specifically, we analyze how these metrics can inform future campaign targeting and placement goals. View details
    sos: Searching Help Pages of R Packages
    Spencer Graves
    Romain Francois
    The R Journal, vol. 1/2 (2009), pp. 56-59
    Preview abstract The sos package provides a means to quickly and flexibly search the help pages of contributed packages, finding functions and datasets in seconds or minutes that could not be found in hours or days by any other means we know. Its findFn function accesses Jonathan Baron's R Site Search database and returns the matches in a data frame of class "findFn", which can be further manipulated by other sos functions to produce, for example, an Excel file that starts with a summary sheet that makes it relatively easy to prioritize alternative packages for further study. As such, it provides a very powerful way to do a literature search for functions and packages relevant to a particular topic of interest and could become virtually mandatory for authors of new packages or papers in publications such as The R Journal and the Journal of Statistical Software. View details
    Measuring Advertising Quality on Television: Deriving Meaningful Metrics from Audience Retention Data
    Dan Zigmond
    Yannet Interian
    Igor Naverniouk
    Journal of Advertising Research, vol. 49 (2009), pp. 419-428
    Preview abstract This paper introduces a measure of television ad quality based on audience retention, using logistic regression techniques to normalize such scores against expected audience behavior. By adjusting for features such as time of day, network, recent user behavior, and household demographics, we are able to isolate ad quality from these extraneous factors. We introduce the current model used in our production system, as well as two new competing models that show some improvement. We also devise metrics for calculating a model’s predictive power and variance, allowing us to determine which of our models performs best. We conclude with discussions of retention score applications for advertisers to evaluate their ad strategies, and potential as an aid in future ad pricing. View details
    Do Viewers Care? Understanding the impact of ad creatives on TV viewing behavior
    Yannet Interian
    Kaustuv
    Igor Naverniouk
    P. J. Opalinski
    Dan Zigmond
    Re:Think 2009
    Preview
    Ad Quality On TV: Predicting Television Audience Retention
    Yannet Interian
    Igor Naverniouk
    P. J. Opalinski
    Kaustuv
    Dan Zigmond
    Proceedings of ADKDD (2009)
    Preview
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