ECOMMERCE-ENABLED ADVERTISING

• US 20080010120A1
• Filed: 06/15/2006
• Published: 01/10/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Chung, David, Moonka, Rajas, Rajaram, Gokul
• Granted Patent: US 8,626,594 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0236 Incentive or reward received by requiring registration or ID from user
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0253 During e-commerce, i.e. online transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]

Abstract

Merchants create ecommerce-enabled ad units advertising items offered by the merchants. The ad units contain functionality enabling customers to purchase the items by interacting with the ad units. The ad units have associated bid prices that the merchants agree to pay for sales through the ad units. The merchants provide the ad units to a broker. The broker publishes the ad units on web pages provided by publishers. A customer receiving a web page interacts with the ad unit to purchase the item. During the interactions, the broker dynamically updates the ad unit to carry out the transaction. The broker collects the bid price from the merchant and shares it with the publisher that published the page on which the ad unit appeared.

Claims

1. A method of conducting electronic commerce on a network, comprising:

accessing a collection of electronic commerce-enabled ad units advertising items offered by merchants and having associated bids the merchants pay responsive to purchases of the advertised items through the ad units;

publishing ad units selected from the collection of ad units to customers via the network;

interacting with a customer through a published ad unit to enable the customer to purchase an item advertised by the ad unit; and

collecting a bid associated with the published ad unit in response to the customer'"'"'s purchase of the item.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an ad unit from a merchant via the network; and

storing the received ad unit in the collection of ad units.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein receiving the ad unit comprises:

determining an identification of the ad unit;

receiving separate data for the ad unit, the separate data referencing the ad unit using the identification; and

associating the separate data with the ad unit.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein an ad unit comprises:

advertising data for enticing the customer to interact with the ad unit; and

transaction data for enabling the customer to purchase the item advertised by the ad unit through interactions with the ad unit.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

interfacing with a plurality of publishers on the network to define an inventory of ad spaces on web pages published by the publishers in which the ad units can be displayed.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the ad units have associated targeting criteria and are published on web pages, further comprising:

selecting ad units to publish responsive to the ad units'"'"' associated targeting criteria, the ad units'"'"' associated bid prices, and characteristics of the web pages.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein an ad unit has associated contextual targeting criteria describing a context in which the ad unit should appear.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the contextual targeting criteria comprise keywords related to an item being advertised by the ad unit.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein an ad unit has associated site targeting criteria describing characteristics of web pages on which the ad unit should be published.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein interacting with a customer through a published ad unit comprises:

dynamically updating the ad unit responsive to customer interactions with the ad unit.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein dynamically updating the ad unit comprises:

updating components of the ad unit using Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX).

12. The method of claim 1, wherein interacting with a customer through a published ad unit comprises:

detecting if the customer indicates an interest in purchasing the item advertised by the ad unit;

determining an identity of the customer; and

identifying payment information for the customer.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the ad units are published on web pages of publishers, and further comprising:

sharing the collected bid with a publisher of a web page on which the ad unit was published.

14. A system for conducting electronic commerce on a network, comprising:

an ad unit serving module for selectively serving electronic commerce-enabled ad units on web pages published by publishers on the network, the ad units advertising items offered by merchants and having associated bids the merchants pay responsive to purchases of the advertised items through the ad units; and

a commerce module for interacting with a customer through a published ad unit to enable the customer to purchase an item advertised by the ad unit and for collecting a bid associated with the ad unit in response to the customer'"'"'s purchase of the item.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

an ad unit catalog module for storing a collection of ad units advertising items offered by the merchants,

wherein the ad unit serving module selectively serves ad units stored in the ad unit catalog module.

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising:

a merchant communication module for receiving an ad unit from a merchant via the network and storing the received ad unit in the ad unit catalog module.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the ad unit has an identification and the merchant communication module further receives separate data referencing the ad unit using the identification and associates the separate data with the identified ad unit.

18. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a merchant reputation module for calculating reputation scores indicating the relative qualities of the merchants.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the merchant reputation module further displays an indication of a merchant'"'"'s relative quality on an ad unit served by the ad unit serving module.

20. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a customer accounts module for storing accounts associated with customers that purchase items advertised by the ad units.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein an account associated with a customer stores a shipping address and/or payment information for the customer.

22. The system of claim 20, wherein an account associated with a customer identifies a graphical image, and wherein the ad commerce module shows the image to the customer within an ad unit served by the ad unit serving module.

23. The system of claim 14, wherein the ad units have associated targeting criteria and the ad unit serving module further selects ad units to publish responsive to the ad units'"'"' associated targeting criteria, the ad units'"'"' associated bids, and characteristics of the web pages published by the publishers.

24. The system of claim 14, wherein the commerce module dynamically updates the published ad unit responsive to customer interactions with the ad unit.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the commerce module uses Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) to dynamically update components of the published ad unit.

26. The system of claim 14, wherein the commerce module shares the collected bid with a publisher of a web page on which the ad unit was published.

27. A computer program product having a computer-readable medium having computer program code tangibly embodied therein for conducting electronic commerce on a network, the computer program code comprising:

an ad unit serving module for selectively serving electronic commerce-enabled ad units on web pages published by publishers on the network, the ad units advertising items offered by merchants and having associated bids the merchants pay responsive to purchases of the advertised items through the ad units; and

a commerce module for interacting with a customer through a published ad unit to enable the customer to purchase an item advertised by the ad unit and for collecting a bid associated with the ad unit in response to the customer'"'"'s purchase of the item.

28. The computer program product of claim 27, further comprising:

an ad unit catalog module for storing a collection of ad units advertising items offered by the merchants,

wherein the ad unit serving module selectively serves ad units stored in the ad unit catalog module.

29. The computer program product of claim 28, further comprising:

a merchant communication module for receiving an ad unit from a merchant via the network and storing the received ad unit in the ad unit catalog module.

30. The computer program product of claim 28, wherein the ad unit has an identification and the merchant communication module further receives separate data referencing the ad unit using the identification and associates the separate data with the identified ad unit.

31. The computer program product of claim 27, further comprising:

a merchant reputation module for calculating reputation scores indicating the relative qualities of the merchants.

32. The computer program product of claim 31, wherein the merchant reputation module further displays an indication of a merchant'"'"'s relative quality on an ad unit served by the ad unit serving module.

33. The computer program product of claim 27, further comprising:

a customer accounts module for storing accounts associated with customers that purchase items advertised by the ad units.

34. The computer program product of claim 33, wherein an account associated with a customer stores a shipping address and/or payment information for the customer.

35. The computer program product of claim 33, wherein an account associated with a customer identifies a graphical image, and wherein the ad commerce module shows the image to the customer within an ad unit served by the ad unit serving module.

36. The computer program product of claim 27, wherein the ad units have associated targeting criteria and the ad unit serving module further selects ad units to publish responsive to the ad units'"'"' associated targeting criteria, the ad units'"'"' associated bids, and characteristics of the web pages published by the publishers.

37. The computer program product of claim 27, wherein the commerce module dynamically updates the published ad unit responsive to customer interactions with the ad unit.

38. The computer program product of claim 37, wherein the commerce module uses Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) to dynamically update components of the published ad unit.

39. The computer program product of claim 27, wherein the commerce module shares the collected bid with a publisher of a web page on which the ad unit was published.

40. A method of enabling electronic commerce on a network, comprising:

providing an electronic payment system enabling customers to purchase items via the network;

defining an ad unit advertising an item offered by a merchant, the ad unit including functionality for enabling a customer to purchase the item using the electronic payment system and having an associated bid price the merchant pays upon a sale of the advertised item;

publishing the ad unit on a plurality of web pages from a plurality of publishers; and

collecting the bid price in response to a customer utilizing the functionality in the ad unit to purchase the item from the merchant using the electronic payment system.

41. The method of claim 40, further comprising:

interacting with a customer receiving the ad unit on a web page published by a publisher to enable the customer to purchase the item.

42. The method of claim 41, further comprising:

sharing the collected bid price with the publisher of the web page.

43. The method of claim 40, further comprising:

dynamically updating components of the ad unit responsive to interactions with the customer.

44. The method of claim 40, wherein the ad unit further includes functionality for enabling the customer to purchase the item without leaving a web page on which the ad unit was published.

45. The method of claim 40, wherein the merchant has an associated reputation score and wherein publishing the ad unit comprises:

selecting the ad unit responsive to the merchant'"'"'s reputation score.

46. The method of claim 40, wherein the ad unit displays an offer code identifying the item, and further comprising:

interacting with the customer by telephone and receiving the offer code;

determining the item identified by the offer code;

determining a telephone number utilized by the customer and utilizing the telephone number to identify the customer; and

conducting an ecommerce transaction enabling the customer to purchase the item.