In sponsored search advertising, advertisers bid to be displayed in response to a keyword search. The operational activities associated with participating in an auction — submitting the bid and the ad copy, customizing bids and ad copies based various factors (such as the geographical region...

We report the results of an experiment on two-stage contests with budget-constrained agents competing to win an exogenously determined prize. We study a class of two-stage contests where in stage 1 agents first compete within their own groups by expending resources, and in stage 2 the winners of...