Management of dynamic email content

• US 10,027,610 B2
• Filed: 10/17/2017
• Issued: 07/17/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 11/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Movable, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Movable, Inc.
• Inventors: Nutt, Michael, Sharma, Vivek
• Primary Examiner(s): Chan, Wing F
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ng, Billy H
• Application Number:
  US15/786,348
• Publication Number:
  US 20180041454A1
• Time in Patent Office: 273 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/046 Interoperability with other network applications or services

Abstract

Systems and methods to manage dynamic content in email via an image server. The image server being configured to communicate and receive requests from an email client regarding dynamic content. The image server is also configured to load data regarding the email client from an asset database, and to communicate with a decision engine. Further, the image server is configured to communicate with a content acquisition server, to communicate an analytics database, and to cause display of dynamic content in an email.

Claims

1. A system to manage dynamic content in email comprising:

at least one image server with a processor, a capture server and a redirect server,

wherein the at least one image server is configured to,

communicate with at least one email client;

receive a request from the at least one email client for dynamic content, wherein the dynamic content is dynamic web content, and wherein the request is sent when an email is opened or refreshed by a user of the at least one email client;

load first data regarding the at least one email client, wherein the first data regarding the at least one email client includes one or more of geo-location data and a type of a device used by the user to access the email;

load second data regarding the requested dynamic content from at least one asset database, wherein the second data regarding the requested dynamic content includes a location of content sources;

decide, using at least one decision engine, a content source of the requested dynamic content, the content source comprising at least a portion of a web page;

communicate with the capture server to acquire the requested dynamic content;

store the links and positions of the links received from the capture server; and

provide the requested dynamic content to the at least one email client to thereby enable the email client to display the requested dynamic content in the email as an image, wherein when the user clicks on the displayed image, the user is sent to the redirect server;

wherein the capture server is configured to capture the at least a portion of the web page, to render the at least a portion of the web page into an image, to deliver the rendered image to the image server, to locate and identify links in the at least a portion of the web page, including identifying a position of each link within the at least a portion of the web page and to provide the position of each link to the image server;

wherein the redirect server is configured to load the links and the positions of the links and redirect the user to the link corresponding to coordinates of the click on the displayed image;

wherein the image server is configured to use the links and positions received from the capture server to update the stored links and positions to allow the redirect server to redirect the user to the most updated link corresponding to the coordinates of the click on the displayed image.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the image server is configured to update

the dynamic content displayed in the email when the dynamic content at the content source changes, via a connection held open between the image server and the at least one email client.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one asset database is

configured to receive, store and transmit data regarding images for use in the dynamic emails.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the decision engine is configured to determine and send to the image server information about the content source

based on at least one of:

asset settings, location, time, creative optimization objects, geo-location applications, third party data, device type inferences, and custom business rules.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the image server is further configured to,

communicate with at least one of a static server and an overlay server.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least a portion of a web page comprises streaming content.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the capture server is further configured to modify at least one image and return the modified image to the image server, wherein modify includes at least one of:

crop image, distort image, and tag image.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the image server is further configured to communicate with at least one analytics database, wherein the at least one analytics database is configured to receive, store, and transmit data associated with email actions including at least one of, email opening, email closing, time of email viewing, time of email viewing, email clicking, email forwarding, email printing, location of user at time of email viewing, social cues, fast-moving inventory, and custom business rules.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the dynamic content of the email includes a subsection adapted to cause display of modifications of the dynamic content including at least one of cropping, resizing, deleting, partitioning and adjust the image.

10. A method of managing dynamic content in email comprising:

via at least one image server with a processor,

communicating with at least one email client;

receiving a request from the at least one email client for dynamic content,

wherein the dynamic content is dynamic web content, and

wherein the request is sent when an email is opened or refreshed by a user of the at least one email client;

loading first data regarding the at least one email client, wherein the first data regarding the at least one email client includes one or more of geo-location data and a type of a device used by the user to access the email;

loading second data regarding the requested dynamic content from at least one asset database, wherein the second data regarding the requested dynamic content includes a location of content sources;

deciding, using at least one decision engine, a content source of the requested dynamic content, the content source comprising at least a portion of a web page;

communicating with a capture server to acquire the dynamic content;

storing the links and positions of the links received from the capture server; and

providing the requested dynamic content to the at least one email client to thereby enable the email client to display the requested dynamic content in the email as an image,

wherein when the user clicks on the displayed image, the user is sent to a redirect server;

wherein the capture server is configured to capture the at least a portion of a web page, to render the at least a portion of the web page into an image, to deliver the rendered image to the image server, to locate and identify links in the at least a portion of the web page, including identifying a position of each link within the at least a portion of the web page and to provide the position of each link to the image server;

wherein the redirect server is configured to load the links and the positions of the links and redirect the user to the link corresponding to coordinates of the click on the displayed image;

wherein the image server is configured to use the links and positions received from the capture server to update the stored links and positions to allow the redirect server to redirect the user to the most updated link corresponding to the coordinates of the click on the displayed image.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the image server is configured to update the dynamic content displayed in the email when the dynamic content at the content source changes, via a connection held open between the image server and the at least one email client.

12. The method of claim 10 further comprising, via the image server, communicating with at least one of a static server and an overlay server.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the at least a portion of a web page comprises streaming content.

14. The method of claim 10 wherein the capture server is further configured to modify at least one image and return the modified image to the image server, wherein modify includes at least one of:

crop image, distort image, and tag image.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein cropping an image includes at least loading the content source, crop the image, identify html tags, crop the html tags, locate coordinates and dimensions of links within the content source.

16. The method of claim 10 further comprising, via the image server, receiving information regarding the device used to open an email;

and allowing viewing of the dynamic content.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising, via the image server, receiving information regarding a device used to open an email including information regarding whether the device is a mobile device.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising, via the image server,

adapting the dynamic content to a mobile device format.

19. The method of claim 10 further comprising, via the image server,

calculating inventory;

causing display of a comparable product/service in an email, if inventory of a particular item is low; and

re-directing access attempts to the comparable product/service.