AD RANKING SYSTEM AND METHOD UTILIZING BIDS AND ADJUSTMENT FACTORS BASED ON THE CAUSAL CONTRIBUTION OF ADVERTISEMENTS ON OUTCOMES

Systems and methods of serving advertisements in a computer network environment are provided. A data processing system can receive a request for content from a client computing device. The data processing system can receive a cost-per-incremental-action (“CPIA”) bid from a content provider computing device. The data processing system can calculate a value of expected incremental actions from serving a first candidate online ad corresponding to the CPIA bid, and use it to translate the CPIA bid to an auction bid. The data processing system can select a winning online ad from among the first candidate online ad and additional candidate online ads based on their respective corresponding auction bids. The data processing system can transmit the winning online ad to the client computing device.