Automatic flight management in an online marketplace

• US 20060190328A1
• Filed: 12/23/2005
• Published: 08/24/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/28/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Davis, Darren J., Singh, Narinder Pal
• Granted Patent: US 7,499,874 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.46
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0247 Calculate past, present or future revenues
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0249 based upon budgets or funds
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0256 User search
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0257 User requested
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0264 based upon schedule
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions

Abstract

A database search system includes a database of search terms, each search term associated with a bid amount payable by an advertiser of a plurality of advertisers and a search engine responsive to search queries from searchers for searching the database. A flight management agent is responsive to advertiser-specified parameters for adjusting bid amounts of search listings to manage expenditures over a time interval.

Claims

1. An advertising campaign initiation method for an online marketplace system in which advertisers sponsor advertisements to be communicated over a network as advertisement data for display to searchers in response to search queries received as search query data communicated over the network at the online marketplace system from the searchers, the system including an account management server and a database storing data about the advertisements, the method comprising:

receiving at the account management server, from an advertiser operating an advertiser computer, data specifying campaign basic information for an advertising campaign;

receiving at the account management server, from the advertiser, data specifying one or more advertisements for the advertising campaign;

receiving at the account management server, from the advertiser, data specifying a budget for the advertising campaign; and

providing over the network from the account management server to the advertiser at the advertiser computer, a web page presenting at least some of the received data for review by the advertiser.

2. The advertising campaign initiation method of claim 1 wherein receiving data specifying campaign basic information comprises receiving data specifying a campaign name, a schedule start date and a schedule end dates.

3. A database search system comprising:

a data storage component storing data including advertisements associated with respective advertisers, at least some advertisements characterized by a bid amount payable by the associated advertiser from a budget set by the associated advertiser for a time period;

a processing system; and

computer readable code stored on the data storage component and operable in conjunction with the processing system to determine how much to bid on respective advertisements;

determine how to allocate the budget across the advertisements; and

determine how to spend the budget over the time period.

4. A database search system comprising:

a data storage component storing data including advertisements associated with respective advertisers, at least some advertisements characterized by a bid amount payable by the associated advertiser from a budget set by the associated advertiser for a time period;

a processing system; and

computer readable code stored on the data storage component and operable in conjunction with the processing system to implement

an advertiser interaction tool configured for interaction with a user who inputs a target budget for a campaign period; and

a scheduling tool which allows a user to set a beginning date and an end date for the campaign period.

5. A method for managing an advertising flight in an online marketplace among one or advertisers and one or more searchers, the method comprising:

maintaining a computer network-accessible database of advertiser search listings,

each search listing including a bid amount, a search term and a network location identifier of an advertiser associated with the search listing,

the bid amount corresponding to economic value given by the associated advertiser to an operator of the online marketplace when network locations of the associated advertiser are referred to a searcher in response to a database query from the searcher,

search results produced from the database in response to the database query being displayable to the searcher in a rank according to the bid amounts of the search listings of the search results;

receiving advertising flight parameters from an advertiser the advertising flight parameters defining one or more advertiser search terms to be monitored, a flight duration and a budget to be spent during the flight duration;

from time to time, reviewing bid amounts for specified advertiser search listings in the online marketplace; and

automatically adjusting bid amounts of the specified advertiser search listings to achieve specified advertiser goals of the advertising flight parameters, the advertiser goals including at least one of spending the budget evenly during the flight duration, spending the budget exactly during the flight duration, ensure that an average bid for the one or more advertiser search terms to be monitored is less than the maximum average cost per click (CPC) for the online marketplace or ensuring that the advertiser profit is substantially maximized.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein receiving advertising flight parameters further comprises:

receiving one or more of

the maximum average cost per click over the received one or more advertiser search terms,

a conversion rate for the advertiser; and

an average profit per action for the advertiser.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein adjusting bid amounts of the specified advertiser search listings to achieve specified advertiser goals comprises:

maximizing searcher contacts with a web site of the advertiser.

8. The method of claim 5 wherein adjusting bid amounts of the specified advertiser search listings to achieve specified advertiser goals comprises:

maximizing searcher clicks to web sites of the advertiser.

9. The method of claim 5 wherein adjusting bid amounts comprises

maximizing searcher clicks to web sites of the advertiser subject to a maximum cost per click.

10. The method of claim 5 wherein adjusting bid amounts comprises:

varying bid amounts to maximize advertiser profit.

11. The method of claim 5 further comprising periodically recomputing bid amounts in accordance with the flight parameters.

12. The method of claim 5 wherein search listings of the online marketplace each have an associated bid amount, the method further comprising:

receiving an advertiser specified maximum bid amount for one or more search listings;

adjusting the associated bid amount for the one or more search listings in accordance with the maximum bid amount.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein adjusting the bid amount comprises:

reducing an associated bid amount for a search listing to a level that just exceeds a next-lowest bid amount for the search listing.

14. A database search system comprising:

a database of search listings, each search listing including a search term, each search term associated with a bid amount payable by an advertiser of a plurality of advertisers when the search listing including the search term is referred to a searcher in response to a database query from the searcher, the search listing being displayable with other search listings in a rank according to the associated bid amounts of the search listing and the other search listings;

a search engine responsive to search queries received over a computer network from searchers for searching the database; and

a flight management agent responsive to advertiser-specified parameters for adjusting bid amounts of search listings to manage advertiser expenditures over a time interval specified by the advertiser, including spending an advertiser-specified budget substantially evenly and substantially exactly over the time interval.

15. The database search system of claim 14 wherein the flight management agent is configured to receive information about one or more search terms of an advertiser, the budget, and the time interval.

16. The database search system of claim 15 wherein the flight management agent is configured to receive information about one or more of a maximum average cost per click for the one or more search terms, a conversion rate and an average profit per action.