HALO: Hindsight-Augmented Learning for Online Auto-Bidding

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03267v2
• Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2025 12:13:21 GMT
• Title: HALO: Hindsight-Augmented Learning for Online Auto-Bidding
• Authors: Pusen Dong, Chenglong Cao, Xinyu Zhou, Jirong You, Linhe Xu, Feifan Xu, Shuo Yuan,
• Abstract summary: Digital advertising platforms operate millisecond-level auctions through Real-Time Bidding (RTB) systems.<n>This dynamic mechanism enables precise audience targeting but introduces profound operational complexity.<n>We propose HALO: Hindsight-Augmented Learning for Online Auto-Bidding.
• Score: 2.9058410231275014
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: Digital advertising platforms operate millisecond-level auctions through Real-Time Bidding (RTB) systems, where advertisers compete for ad impressions through algorithmic bids. This dynamic mechanism enables precise audience targeting but introduces profound operational complexity due to advertiser heterogeneity: budgets and ROI targets span orders of magnitude across advertisers, from individual merchants to multinational brands. This diversity creates a demanding adaptation landscape for Multi-Constraint Bidding (MCB). Traditional auto-bidding solutions fail in this environment due to two critical flaws: 1) severe sample inefficiency, where failed explorations under specific constraints yield no transferable knowledge for new budget-ROI combinations, and 2) limited generalization under constraint shifts, as they ignore physical relationships between constraints and bidding coefficients. To address this, we propose HALO: Hindsight-Augmented Learning for Online Auto-Bidding. HALO introduces a theoretically grounded hindsight mechanism that repurposes all explorations into training data for arbitrary constraint configuration via trajectory reorientation. Further, it employs B-spline functional representation, enabling continuous, derivative-aware bid mapping across constraint spaces. HALO ensures robust adaptation even when budget/ROI requirements differ drastically from training scenarios. Industrial dataset evaluations demonstrate the superiority of HALO in handling multi-scale constraints, reducing constraint violations while improving GMV.

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