Selecting advertisements for users via a targeting database

• US 10,417,660 B2
• Filed: 11/23/2010
• Issued: 09/17/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 11/23/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thryv, Inc. (Mudrick Capital Management LP)
• Original Assignee: YellowPages.com LLC (Mudrick Capital Management LP)
• Inventors: Hicken, Wendell, Melick, Joshua
• Primary Examiner(s): Retta, Yehdega
• Application Number:
  US12/952,975
• Publication Number:
  US 20120130813A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,220 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0256 User search
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute

Abstract

A data processing system collects messages to create user profiles for users of user devices. The messages are collected from various systems and include data regarding user events on user devices. The user profiles are stored in a targeting database. In response to a request for information corresponding to a user device, a user profile is identified using data from the request and information from the profile is provided to the requester.

Claims

1. A method for providing targeted advertisements through the use of a dual architecture database system, the method comprising:

processing by a listener process processing at a targeting server system a plurality of messages received by the targeting server system, the plurality of messages including a first message, each message of the plurality of messages being sent from a respective server of a plurality of servers, and the first message including first user event data, where the listener process configures the targeting server system to queue at least two of the plurality of messages and pull the messages from the queue and store;

collecting from a user device server with the targeting server system a geolocation, detected by a location device, of a user device of the first user;

creating and updating by the listener process executing on the targeting server system a plurality of user profiles from information in the plurality of messages, the plurality of user profiles each having a user identifier and including;

a first user profile corresponding to a first user and comprising first information from the first user event data; and

a second user profile corresponding to the first user and comprising a condensed representative of the first user profile, wherein the second user profile is created based at least in part on a search request received from the user device;

storing, by a targeting server system, the plurality of user profiles in a targeting database system having a dual architecture, the storing comprising storing the first user profile in a first relational database data store of the dual architecture and storing the second user profile in a second real-time database data store of the dual architecture, wherein the second data store is a key cache for serving the second user profile in real-time;

fulfilling by an advertising platform server system an advertisement demand at least in part by;

processing the plurality of messages received by the advertising platform server system to identify a request corresponding to the user device, where the plurality of messages are received through a common application programming interface supported on the advertising platform server system, where the common application programming interface is common for a plurality of publishers;

identifying and accessing the second user profile from the second real-time database data store using data from the plurality of messages and the request; and

generating by a sort and rotate process processing at the advertising platform server system, using data from the second user profile, two or more layers of advertisements from a candidate pool of advertisements, where sorting and ranking is performed by a sort and rotate filtering algorithm based on business rules and user context, and wherein a first layer of the two or more layers corresponds to a first advertisement pricing model retrieved from a first advertisement database, and a second layer of the two of more layers corresponds to a second advertisement pricing model retrieved from a second advertisement database;

wherein the fulfilling is independent of accessing the first user profile;

ranking by a scoring algorithm processing at the advertising platform server system the two or more layers of advertisements in an order of priority, where the scoring algorithm is based on one or more of cost and historical performance;

performing by a weighted ad rotation algorithm processing at the advertising platform server system an intermediate sorting process within each of the two or more layers of advertisements, based on an assigned criteria for each of the advertisements, where the assigned criteria is based on one or more of a points score fixed sort and a relative spending weighted sort;

selecting by the advertising platform server system a final set of advertisements from the two or more layers of advertisements in accordance with the order of priority and the intermediate sorting process, the final set of advertisements comprising a first set of one or more advertisements corresponding to the first advertisement pricing model and a second set of one or more advertisements corresponding to the second advertisement pricing model, the first set and the second set of advertisements selected based at least in part on (a) the detected geolocation of the user device and (b) one or more user preferences determined from the second user profile;

performing by the advertising platform server system a final sort on the final set of advertisements according to predetermined configuration level business rules by use of a configuration mechanism;

transmitting to the user device visible content by the advertising platform server system representative of the final set of advertisements configured for display to a display device of the user device in accordance with the final sort to thereby enable the first user to interact with the final set of advertisements via the display device;

recording by a logging process processing at the adverting platform server system interaction data of the first user with the final set of advertisements and associating the interaction data with the first user profile; and

performing by a tracking process processing at the advertising platform server system one or more analytical operations on data from the first user profile and in response to performing the one or more analytical operations, updating the second user profile.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending, in response to the request, the data from the first user profile.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first user profile includes search data from a plurality of prior search requests of the first user, and the search data is obtained from at least two of the plurality of messages.

4. The method of claim 1, sending the final set of advertisements for display on the user device.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the data from the first user profile comprises user context and location data, and the two or more layers of advertisements are generated using the user context and location data.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the respective server is a search engine server, and the first user event data includes search terms submitted by a first user.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving the plurality of messages comprises receiving the plurality of messages via the listener process of the data processing system, and the method further comprising queuing at least two of the plurality of messages in a message queue.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising pulling messages from the message queue, wherein the storing the plurality of user profiles comprises storing information from the messages in the database.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein each of the plurality of messages includes an event corresponding to a user device, and each of the plurality of messages is sent from its respective server by user datagram protocol broadcasting.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the user device is a mobile device, the request includes a user identifier, and the identifying comprises using the user identifier to identify the first user profile.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the user identifier is a subscriber identifier corresponding to the mobile device.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the database comprises a relational database and a real-time database, and the storing the plurality of user profiles comprises storing the first user profile in the relational database and storing at least a portion of data from the first user profile in the real-time database.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving data from a first server, the data corresponding to user information collected by the first server; and

updating the plurality of user profiles, including the first user profile, in the database using the data from the first server; and

sending a matching user profile to a third-party from the server system based on receiving a user identifier matching a user profile.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the assigned criteria comprises one or more of a weight, point value, a yield, and/or a revenue prediction.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium for tangibly storing thereon computer-readable instructions, the instructions causing a server system to:

process by a listener process processing at a targeting server system a plurality of messages received by the targeting server system, the plurality of messages including a first message, each message of the plurality of messages being sent from a respective server of a plurality of servers, and the first message including first user event data, where the listener process configures the targeting server system to queue at least two of the plurality of messages and pull the messages from the queue and store;

collect from a user device server with the targeting server system a geolocation, detected by a location device, of a user device of the first user;

create and update by listener process instructions executing on the targeting server system a plurality of user profiles from information in the plurality of messages, the plurality of user profiles each having a user identifier and including;

a first user profile corresponding to a first user and comprising first information from the first user event data; and

a second user profile corresponding to the first user and comprising a condensed representative of the first user profile, wherein the second user profile is created based at least in part on a search request received from the user device;

store, by a targeting server system the plurality of user profiles in a targeting database system having a dual architecture, the storing comprising storing the first user profile in a first relational database data store of the dual architecture and storing the second user profile in a second real-time database data store of the dual architecture, wherein the second data store is a key cache for serving the second user profile in real-time;

fulfill by an advertising platform server system an advertisement demand at least in part by;

processing the plurality of messages received by the advertising platform server system to identify a request corresponding to the user device, where the plurality of messages are received through a common application programming interface supported on the advertising platform server system, where the common application programming interface is common for a plurality of publishers;

identifying and accessing the second user profile from the second real-time database data store using data from the plurality of messages and the request; and

generating, by a sort and rotate process processing at the advertising platform server system, using data from the second user profile, two or more layers of advertisements from a candidate pool of advertisements, where sorting and ranking is performed by a sort and rotate filtering algorithm based on business rules and user context, and wherein a first layer of the two or more layers corresponds to a first advertisement pricing model retrieved from a first advertisement database, and a second layer of the two of more layers corresponds to a second advertisement pricing model retrieved from a second advertisement database;

wherein the fulfill of the advertisement demand is independent of accessing the first user profile;

rank by a scoring algorithm processing at the advertising platform server system the two or more layers of advertisements in an order of priority, where the scoring algorithm is based on one or more of cost and historical performance;

perform by a weighted ad rotation algorithm processing at the advertising platform server system an intermediate sorting process within each of the two or more layers of advertisements, based on an assigned criteria for each of the advertisements, where the assigned criteria is based on one or more of a points score fixed sort and a relative spending weighted sort;

select by the advertising platform server system a final set of advertisements from the two or more layers of advertisements in accordance with the order of priority and the intermediate sorting process, the final set of advertisements comprising a first set of one or more advertisements corresponding to the first advertisement pricing model and a second set of one or more advertisements corresponding to the second advertisement pricing model, the first set and the second set of advertisements selected based at least in part on (a) the detected geolocation of the user device and (b) one or more user preferences determined from the second user profile;

perform by the advertising platform server system to perform a final sort on the final set of advertisements according to, predetermined configuration level, business rules by use of a configuration mechanism;

transmit to the user device visible content by the advertising platform server system representative of the final set of advertisements configured for display to a display device of the user device in accordance with the final sort to thereby enable the first user to interact with the final set of advertisements via the display device;

record by a logging process processing at the adverting platform server system interaction data of the first user with the final set of advertisements and associate the interaction data with the first user profile; and

perform by a tracking process processing at the advertising platform server system one or more analytical operations on data from the first user profile and in response to performing the one or more analytical operations, update the second user profile.

15. The storage medium of claim 14, wherein the user device is a mobile device, the request includes a user identifier, the identifying comprises using the user identifier to identify the first user profile, and wherein the instructions further causing the server system to:

display the final set of advertisements on the user device.

16. The storage medium of claim 15, wherein the first user profile includes search data from a plurality of prior search requests of a first user, and the search data is obtained from at least two of the plurality of messages.

17. A data processing system comprising:

a server system comprising memory, a database system storing a plurality of user profiles, and at least one processor coupled to access the memory, the server system configured to;

process by a listener process processing at a targeting server system a plurality of messages received by the targeting server system, the plurality of messages including a first message, each message of the plurality of messages being sent from a respective server of a plurality of servers, and the first message including first user event data, where the listener process configures the targeting server system to queue at least two of the plurality of messages and pull the messages from the queue and store;

collect from a user device server with the targeting server system a geolocation, detected by a location device, of a user device of the first user;

create and update by listener process executing on the targeting server system instructions a plurality of user profiles from information in the plurality of messages, the plurality of user profiles each having a user identifier and including;

a first user profile corresponding to a first user and comprising first information from the first user event data; and

a second user profile corresponding to the first user and comprising a condensed representative of the first user profile, wherein the second user profile is created based at least in part on a search request received from the user device;

store, by a targeting server system, the plurality of user profiles in the targeting database system, the database system having a dual architecture, the storing comprising storing the first user profile in a first relational database data store of the dual architecture and storing the second user profile in a second real-time database data store of the dual architecture, wherein the second data store is a key cache for serving the second user profile in real-time;

fulfill by an advertising platform server system an advertisement demand at least in part by;

processing the plurality of messages received by the advertising platform server system to identify a request corresponding to the user device, where the plurality of messages are received through a common application programming interface supported on the advertising platform server system, where the common application programming interface is common for a plurality of publishers;

identifying and accessing the second user profile from the second real-time database data store using data from the request; and

generating by a sort and rotate process processing at the advertising platform server system, using data from the second user profile, two or more layers of advertisements from a candidate pool of advertisements, where sorting and ranking is performed by a sort and rotate filtering algorithm based on business rules and user context, and wherein a first layer of the two or more layers corresponds to a first advertisement pricing model retrieved from a first advertisement database, and a second layer of the two of more layers corresponds to a second advertisement pricing model retrieved from a second advertisement database;

wherein the fulfill of the advertisement demand is independent of accessing the first user profile;

rank by a scoring algorithm processing at the advertising platform server system the two or more layers of advertisements in an order of priority, where the scoring algorithm is based on one or more of cost and historical performance;

perform by a weighted ad rotation algorithm processing at the advertising platform server system an intermediate sorting process within each of the two or more layers of advertisements, based on an assigned criteria for each of the advertisements, where the assigned criteria is based on one or more of a points score fixed sort and a relative spending weighted sort;

select by the advertising platform server system a final set of advertisements from the two or more layers of advertisements in accordance with the order of priority and the intermediate sorting process, the final set of advertisements comprising a first set of one or more advertisements corresponding to the first advertisement pricing model and a second set of one or more advertisements corresponding to the second advertisement pricing model, the first set and the second set of advertisements selected based at least in part on (a) the detected geolocation of the user device and (b) one or more user preferences determined from the second user profile;

perform by the advertising platform server system to perform a final sort on the final set of advertisements according to predetermined configuration level, business rules by use of a configuration mechanism;

transmit to the user device visible content by the advertising platform server system representative of the final set of advertisements configured for display to a display device of the user device in accordance with the final sort to thereby enable the first user to interact with the final set of advertisements via the display device;

record by a logging process processing at the adverting platform server system interaction data of the first user with the final set of advertisements and associate the interaction data with the first user profile; and

perform by a tracking process processing at the advertising platform server system one or more analytical operations on data from the first user profile and in response to performing the one or more analytical operations, update the second user profile.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the receiving the plurality of messages comprises receiving the plurality of messages via the listener process, and the server system is further configured to:

queue at least two of the plurality of messages in a message queue.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein each of the plurality of messages includes an event corresponding to a user device, each of the plurality of messages is sent from its respective server by user datagram protocol broadcasting, and the server system is further configured to:

pull messages from the message queue in order to store information obtained from the messages in the database.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the first user profile includes search data from a plurality of prior search requests of a first user, and the search data is obtained from at least two of the plurality of messages.