IT pilot fish works at an internet ad company, and his team is always hunting for better ways to match ads from the advertising buyers — or “producers” — with the users who will look at them.

“Based on keywords and some associated information, like where the user is generally located, our system would pick several ads that it thought a user would be interested in,” says fish.

And at some point, fish’s team finds the secret sauce: The system becomes really good at picking ads that interest each user. As a result, those users are buying more often. Advertisers are happier, and so is fish’s team, which is finally beginning to provide a return on the investment in their project.

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