Abstract-In this paper, we propose the Online Contextual Influence Maximization Problem (OCIMP). In OCIMP, the learner faces a series of epochs in each of which a different influence campaign is run to promote a certain product in a given social network. In each epoch, the learner first distributes a limited number of free-samples of the product among a set of seed nodes in the social network. Then, the influence spread process takes place over the network, other users get influenced and purchase the product. The goal of the learner is to maximize the expected total number of influenced users over all epochs. We depart from the prior work in two aspects: (i) the learner does not know how the influence spreads over the network, i.e., it is unaware of the influence probabilities; (ii) influence probabilities depend on the context. We develop a learning algorithm for OCIMP, called Contextual Online INfluence maximization (COIN). COIN can use any approximation algorithm that solves the offline influence maximization problem as a subroutine to obtain the set of seed nodes in each epoch. When the influence probabilities are Hölder continuous functions of the context, we prove that COIN achieves sublinear regret with respect to an approximation oracle that knows the influence probabilities for all contexts. Moreover, our regret bound holds for any sequence of contexts. We also test the performance of COIN on several social networks, and show that it performs better than other methods.

In the Online Contextual Influence Maximization Problem with Costly Observations, the learner faces a series of epochs in each of which a different influence spread process takes place over a network. At the beginning of each epoch, the learner exogenously influences (activates) a set of seed nodes in the network. Then, the influence spread process takes place over the network, through which other nodes get influenced. The learner has the option to observe the spread of influence by paying an observation cost. The goal of the learner is to maximize its cumulative reward, which is defined as the expected total number of influenced nodes over all epochs minus the observation costs. We depart from the prior work in three aspects: (i) the learner does not know how the influence spreads over the network, i.e., it is unaware of the influence probabilities; (ii) influence probabilities depend on the context; (iii) observing influence is costly. We consider two different influence observation settings: costly edge-level feedback, in which the learner freely observes the set of influenced nodes, but pays to observe the influence outcomes on the edges of the network; and costly node-level feedback, in which the learner pays to observe whether a node is influenced or not. Since the offline influence maximization problem itself is NP-hard, for these settings, we develop online learning algorithms that use an approximation algorithm as a subroutine to obtain the set of seed nodes in each epoch. When the influence probabilities are Hölder continuous functions of the context, we prove that these algorithms achieve sublinear regret (for any sequence of contexts) with respect to an approximation oracle that knows the influence probabilities for all contexts. Our numerical results on several networks illustrate that the proposed algorithms perform on par with the state-of-the-art methods even when the observations are cost-free. .tr.A preliminary version of this work has appeared in Allerton 2016 [1].

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