Custom PHP Ad Serving System

This bid request is for a custom php/mysql adserver with advanced custom targeting capabilities. ? The site that will be using this adserver has a lot of information about its logged in users and this system will attempt to take advantage of that by displaying the most relevant ad possible. ? It will need to be able to handle ads in multiple formats (text, flash, banner, etc) and it will need to be very efficient. Please read below for more details. ## Deliverables I need a PHP advertisement serving system for an online forum. ? The system will be called from the website by a function like get_ad() and the parameters will be things like the spot it's in on the page (to be called via integer) and how many ads to return. ? The mechanism for deciding which ads to return when the number is greater than one will need to be discussed as I am not sure of the best way to do it programmatically. Each spot (say, "728x90" banner) will be assigned "campaigns" that will be built by this system. ? The campaign will be custom designed for each "spot" and the admin system for this ad manager should make it easy to switch the active campaign for each spot. ? So, for instance, I could have 10 deactive campaigns for a "spot" and one active campaign. ? At any given time, I could make one of the deactives campaigns active and the currently active one would turn deactive. ? There would be an unlimited number of spots that I could add via the admin system for this. Within each campaign, the ad manager would work like a switch. ? There would be a series of conditions based on user data that would be pulled into the ad manager via a parameter (such as user id, if it exists). ? If a user isn't logged in, less variables would be used to determine the ad being shown. ? The exact mechanism for defining variables and pulling them into the system is something we'll need to discuss during the development process. ? However, with the user variables, the system will proceed down the switch to look for a match. ? Each case in the switch will contain a theoretically unlimited number of conditions and it will need to process it like a mathematical equation. ? For example, let's say the condition is: (number of posts > 1000) & (user time zone > GMT+4) & (user time zone < GMT+8) & ((user OS = Win 7) or (user OS = Win Vista)) & (user registration date > 1/1/2008) When all of the conditionals are met, the system should serve up the ad associated with that line in the switch. ? If more than one ad is requested (ie, for spots that contain two or more areas), the system should grab the ad from that conditional and then proceed down the switch to collect additional ads. ? This should continue until the proper number of ads are gathered to be returned to the requesting script. Each ad should be tied to an advertiser. ? The backend of this ad system should make it easy to manage advertiser names/contact info/notes. ? There are two additional steps that will need to take place. ? Each line in the switch should be able to have more than one ad associated with it along with % display rate to be determined randomly. ? So if an advertiser wanted to buy up every impression for a certain line, they could put in, say, four ads to be displayed at 25% rates each. ? The second additional step is that each case should count how many impressions have been served (if there is more than one ad associated with the case, it doesn't make a difference). ? Once a certain number of impressions have been hit (to be set), the system should jump to the next case down. ? It probably makes the most sense to make "impressions" a part of the conditional statement but I am going to defer to programmer judgment on that. The variables that I am using in the statement above are ones that I'd like to see in the system but it is important to stress that I want to be able to add variables to this system over time. ? Obviously, developing the syntax for writing out conditionals for each line in the switch is going to be one of the trickier parts of this project for the programmer. ? I believe that every variable we're talking about can be boiled down to a number with the appropriate normalization (ie, a table for operating systems). ? You can assume that the person writing out the conditionals for each case in the switch will be a technically competent person -- not a random marketing manager with no technical knowledge. ? Obviously, along with each conditional, we would put in an advertisement to be displayed. ? Each campaign should be able to have an unlimited number of cases. Lastly, and this is very important. ? This system needs to be as efficient as possible. ? Every query needs to be optimized and the whole system needs to be written with speed and overall efficiency in mind. ? It should not be "dumb" in the sense that it just submits more queries over and over whenever it needs more information from the database. ? The system should minimize any lengthy queries and it should be mindful of the memory usage of result sets. ? This is going to be on a very active site (a vBulletin-based forum) and it's going to be hit multiple times per second so it needs to keep that in mind.