Method and system for dynamic textual ad distribution via email
First Claim
1. A computerized advertisement distribution and delivery system for dynamically delivering advertisements for inclusion in an electronic document delivered to and stored at a recipient system, the computerized advertisement distribution and delivery system comprising:
- advertisement image generation means for generating an image containing a plurality of advertisements related to a specific distribution subject based on a relationship between those advertisements and storing that image in association with a network-based locator as being the up-to-date image for the specific distribution subject;
advertisement relationship determination means for intermittently determining relationships between advertisements related to a specific distribution subject and if an existing relationship between advertisements related to a specific distribution subject changes, initiating the advertisement image generation means to generate a modified up-to-date image stored in association with the network-based locator and specific distribution subject;
electronic document transmission means for creating and transmitting an electronic document containing content related to a specific distribution subject and a network-based locator associated with the image generated by the advertisement image generation means for the specific distribution subject; and
advertisement image transmission means for receiving a request for the image located at the network-based locator specified in the electronic document transmitted by the electronic document transmission means and transmitting the up-to-date image stored in association with the network-based locator at the time the request is received.
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0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for providing dynamic pay-for-placement advertisements via graphics-enabled email that generates a display of advertisements when the email newsletter is opened so the advertisements displayed are based on rankings at the time the email is opened instead of when the email was generated and transmitted. In one embodiment, a graphical-content email having one or more embedded advertisement image references is provided to one or more email recipients. The advertisement image reference, in one embodiment, may include query string parameters indicating the context of the image reference and/or portion of the image reference (i.e., identifying the image reference as being part of a particular newsletter email), a position of the image reference in the email display, and the like. A URL reference also may be included with each advertisement image reference (.e.g., one URL for each advertisement portion of the image to be retrieved by the advertising image reference).
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Citations
65 Claims
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1. A computerized advertisement distribution and delivery system for dynamically delivering advertisements for inclusion in an electronic document delivered to and stored at a recipient system, the computerized advertisement distribution and delivery system comprising:
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advertisement image generation means for generating an image containing a plurality of advertisements related to a specific distribution subject based on a relationship between those advertisements and storing that image in association with a network-based locator as being the up-to-date image for the specific distribution subject;
advertisement relationship determination means for intermittently determining relationships between advertisements related to a specific distribution subject and if an existing relationship between advertisements related to a specific distribution subject changes, initiating the advertisement image generation means to generate a modified up-to-date image stored in association with the network-based locator and specific distribution subject;
electronic document transmission means for creating and transmitting an electronic document containing content related to a specific distribution subject and a network-based locator associated with the image generated by the advertisement image generation means for the specific distribution subject; and
advertisement image transmission means for receiving a request for the image located at the network-based locator specified in the electronic document transmitted by the electronic document transmission means and transmitting the up-to-date image stored in association with the network-based locator at the time the request is received. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A computerized advertisement distribution and delivery method for dynamically delivering advertisements for inclusion in an electronic document delivered to and stored at a recipient system, the method comprising the steps of:
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receiving and storing at least one advertisement associated with a specific distribution subject and a bid representing an amount to be paid for click-throughs by end-user recipients to a target site associated with the advertisement;
generating an image containing a plurality of advertisements related to a specific distribution subject based on a relationship between those advertisements and storing that image in association with a network-based locator as being the up-to-date image for the specific distribution subject;
intermittently determining relationships between advertisements related to a specific distribution subject changes, generating a modified up-to-date image stored in association with the network-based locator and specific distribution subject;
creating and transmitting an electronic document containing content related to a specific distribution subject and a network-based locator associated with an image generated by the preferred advertisement image generation means; and
receiving a request for an image located at the network-based locator specified in the electronic document transmitted in the electronic document transmission step and transmitting the image stored in association with the network-based locator at the time the request is received. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. An electronic document provided in an interpreted language, the document comprising:
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program interpreted code for instructing a recipient program to present content related to a specific distribution topic in a page when the electronic document is opened by the recipient program;
program interpreted code for instructing the recipient program to retrieve an image from a source network-based location and present that image in the page with the content related to the specific distribution topic when the electronic document is opened by the recipient program;
program interpreted code for instructing the recipient program to request a first web page from a first target network-based locator when a first portion of the image is selected;
program interpreted code for instructing the recipient program to request a second web page from a second target network-based locator when a second portion of the image is selected; and
wherein the first and second target network-based locators direct the recipient program to a location on the network where a first and second advertiser web page location respectively are stored. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21)
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22. A computerized advertisement distribution and delivery system for dynamically delivering advertisements for inclusion in an electronic document delivered to and stored at a recipient system, the computerized advertisement distribution and delivery system comprising:
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advertisement image generation means for generating a plurality of images corresponding to a specific distribution subject, ordering those plurality of images based on a relationship between those advertisements and storing those images in association with a plurality of network-based locators as being the up-to-date image grouping for the specific distribution subject;
advertisement relationship determination means for intermittently determining relationships between advertisements related to a specific distribution subject and if an existing relationship between advertisements related to a specific distribution subject changes, initiating the advertisement image generation means to reorder the images and store the reordering information to generate a up-to-date image grouping stored in association with the plurality of network-based locators and specific distribution subject;
electronic document transmission means for creating and transmitting an electronic document containing content related to a specific distribution subject and at least two of the plurality of network-based locators associated with the up-to-date grouping of images generated by the advertisement image generation means for the specific distribution subject; and
advertisement image transmission means for receiving a request for the up-to-date images located at the at least two of the plurality of network-based locators specified in the electronic document transmitted by the electronic document transmission means and transmitting the up-to-date images associated with the plurality of network-based locators stored in association with the network-based locator at the time the request is received. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
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31. A method for facilitating serving content-relevant ads in a document, the method comprising:
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a) associating a unique identifier with the document;
b) providing code to be inserted into the document, the code including i) image map information, and ii) the unique identifier. - View Dependent Claims (32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42)
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43. Apparatus for facilitating serving content-relevant ads in a document, the apparatus comprising:
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a) means for associating a unique identifier with the document;
b) means for generating code to be inserted into the document, the code including i) image map information, and ii) the unique identifier. - View Dependent Claims (44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54)
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55. A machine readable medium including data structures for storing information comprising:
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a) a unique identifier associated with the document;
b) code, included in the document, the code including i) image map information, and ii) the unique identifier. - View Dependent Claims (56, 57, 58)
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59. A method for determining content-relevant ads once an e-mail document is rendered on a client device, the method comprising:
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a) accepting, from the client device, an ad request including a document identifier;
b) using content-relevance information associated with the document identifier and ad information to determine a set of one or more ads;
c) generating an image including the one or more ads of the determined set; and
d) forwarding the generated image and a session identifier to the client device. - View Dependent Claims (60, 61, 62)
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63. A system for determining content-relevant ads once an e-mail document is rendered on a client device, comprising:
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ad request receiving means for accepting, from the client device, an ad request including a document identifier;
ad set determination means for using content-relevance information associated with the document identifier and ad information to determine a set of one or more ads;
image generation means for generating an image including the one or more ads of the determined set; and
forwarding means for forwarding the generated image and a session identifier to the client device. - View Dependent Claims (64, 65)
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Specification