Techniques for displaying impressions in documents delivered over a computer network

• US 20060294226A1
• Filed: 10/31/2005
• Published: 12/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Gula Consulting Limited Liability Company (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Carhamm Limited LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Shevach, Matthew A., Goulden, David L., Bennett, Dominic
• Granted Patent: US 8,086,697 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

In one embodiment, an impression to be displayed in a placement of a web page is selected from candidate impressions that may be displayed in the placement. The candidate impression may be chosen based on behavioral data and a placement identifier particularly identifying the placement. The behavioral data may include categories of websites visited by an end-user on the client computer. The candidate impressions may be in learning modes, and the impression displayed in the placement may be selected based on its learning mode and revenue generation capability.

Claims

1. A method of displaying an impression in a web page, the method comprising:

receiving a request for an impression to be displayed in a placement of a web page, the request being provided by a client computer as a result of receiving the web page;

receiving a placement identifier particularly identifying placement, the placement identifier being embedded in the web page;

receiving behavioral data from the client computer, the behavioral data being indicative of websites previously visited by an end-user on the client computer and indicative of impressions previously received in the client computer;

determining a plurality of candidate impressions that may be displayed in the placement based on the behavioral data;

determining a learning mode of each impression in the plurality of candidate impressions, the learning mode being indicative of a number of times each impression in the plurality of candidate impressions has been served to client computers on the Internet;

selecting a selected impression from the plurality of candidate impressions based on the learning mode of each of the impressions; and

displaying the selected impression in the web page.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the plurality of candidate impressions that may be displayed in the placement based on the behavioral data comprises:

using the behavioral data and the placement identifier to determine a first set of impressions that may be displayed in the web page;

generating a second set of impressions from the first set of impressions by applying business rules to the first set of impressions, the business rules being designed to increase a likelihood that the end-user will be interested in impressions in the second set of impressions.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the business rules include a rule that impressions previously displayed in the client computer are not included in the second set of impressions.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the placement identifier comprises a hypertext markup language (HTML) tag.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein selecting the selected impression from the plurality of candidate impressions comprises:

if all impressions in the plurality of candidate impressions are in a non-scaled learning mode, then randomly selecting the selected impression from the plurality of candidate impressions;

If all impressions in the plurality of candidate impressions are in a globally scaled learning mode, then selecting a highest revenue generating impression in the plurality of candidate impressions as the selected impression;

if all of the impressions in the plurality of candidate impressions are in a fully scaled mode learning mode, then selecting a highest revenue generating impression in the plurality of candidate impressions as the selected impression;

if impressions in the plurality of candidate impressions are in different learning modes, then selecting impressions in the plurality of candidate impressions that are either in the non-scaled learning mode, the globally scaled learning mode, or the fully scaled learning mode to be in a final set of candidate impressions, and selecting the selected impression from the final set of candidate impressions.

wherein impressions in the non-scaled mode comprise impressions that have been served less than a predetermined threshold number of times X, wherein impressions in the globally scaled mode comprise impressions that have been served a second predetermined threshold number of times Y in any web page, where Y>

X, and wherein impressions in the fully scaled mode comprise impressions that have been served a third predetermined threshold number of times Z in a particular web page, where Z>

Y.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein each impression in the plurality of candidate impressions comprises a message and an associated creative, the creative being a design of how the message is to be presented to the end-user.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the plurality of candidate impressions comprise:

a first message with an associated first creative;

the first message with an associated second creative; and

the first message with an associated third creative;

wherein the first, second, and third creatives are different from each other.

8. A system for serving an impression to a web page, the system comprising:

an impressions server computer configured to select a selected impression from a set of impressions that may be displayed in a placement of a web page in a client computer, the impressions server computer being configured to select the selected impression using behavioral data received from the client computer and a placement identifier embedded in the web page and particularly identifying the placement, the behavioral data containing information indicative of websites previously visited by an end-user of the client computer and impressions previously displayed in the client computer.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the behavioral data are stored in a cookie received by the impressions server computer from the client computer.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the client computer comprises:

a behavior monitor comprising computer-readable program code for monitoring online-activities of the end-user, the behavior monitor being configured to facilitate storage in the cookie categories of websites visited by the end-user.

11. A method of displaying an impression in a web page, the method comprising:

receiving a request for an impression to be displayed in a placement of a web page in a client computer;

receiving a cookie from the client computer, the cookie containing behavioral data indicative of categories of websites previously visited by an end-user on the client computer; and

using the behavioral data to select a selected impression from a plurality of candidate impressions that may be displayed in the placement of the web page, the selected impression being a highest revenue generating impression among impressions in the plurality of candidate impressions.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

receiving a placement identifier particularly identifying the placement.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein the plurality of candidate impressions comprise:

a first message with an associated first creative;

the first message with an associated second creative; and

the first message with an associated third creative;

wherein the first, second, and third creatives being different from each other.