用因果优化替代预测得分,让推荐系统更精准地吸引真正会行动的用户。
From Prediction to Incrementality: Causal Optimization for Large-Scale Targeting and Recommendation

- 构建因果神经网络+贝叶斯强化探索+约束分配的端到端框架
- 在线实验显示核心指标提升7.20%,显著优于传统方法
- 适合需要精准增量效果的广告、推送等场景
大规模目标投放与推荐系统通常依赖预测得分进行启发式分配,但当业务目标是增量影响(如营销活动、激励推送)时,这种范式会错误地将资源分配给已会行动的用户。本文提出一种以决策为中心的框架,统一优化因果效应与全局约束:采用基于Transformer的因果神经网络估计个体处理效应,引入贝叶斯神经老虎机层实现不确定性感知探索,并通过基于对偶的大规模线性规划层进行受约束分配。该框架支持序列上下文和多结果、属性条件化的评分,利用Transformer编码器与结果嵌入实现。在公开的老虎机数据集上进行离线仿真,结合架构消融实验及在LinkedIn Feed营销流量上的在线A/B测试验证。最终端到端策略在主要长期价值指标上实现7.20%的统计显著提升,证明了在商业约束下实现生产级因果优化的可行性。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Large-scale targeting and recommendation systems are typically built around predictive scores fed into heuristic or local allocation. When the business goal is incremental impact, as in marketing campaigns, incentives, and notifications, this paradigm systematically misallocates resources toward users who would have acted anyway. We present a decision-centric framework that instead optimizes causal effects under global constraints, aligning three components under a single objective: a causal neural network with a Transformer backbone for individual treatment-effect estimation, a Bayesian neural-bandit layer for uncertainty-aware exploration, and a dual-based large-scale linear-programming layer for constrained allocation. The framework also supports sequential context and multi-outcome, attribute-conditioned scoring through a Transformer encoder and outcome embeddings. We evaluate it with offline simulations on a public bandit dataset, targeted architectural ablations, and an online A/B test on LinkedIn Feed marketing traffic. We also distill production lessons on causal training-data construction and cost and delivery control, which were critical to successful deployment. The end-to-end treatment policy delivered a statistically significant $+7.20\%$ lift in the primary long-term-value metric, demonstrating the feasibility of production-scale causal optimization under business constraints.
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