Click Value Determination With Incentive Schemes For Website Visitors And Advertisers

• US 20080082655A1
• Filed: 09/29/2006
• Published: 04/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Goswami, Bhavesh
• Granted Patent: US 8,819,214 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0226 Incentive systems for frequent usage, e.g. frequent flyer miles programs or point systems

Abstract

Tools and techniques are described herein for determining click values, along with incentive schemes for website visitors and advertisers. These tools may provide a click value system that includes a click value determination unit and an incentive administration unit. The click value determination unit may compute respective click values for different visitors to a website. These click values may indicate a likelihood that the visitors may transact for particular goods or services offered through the website. The incentive administration unit manages visitor incentives provided to the visitors, and also manages advertiser incentives provided to the advertisers.

Claims

1. A click value system comprising:

a click value determination unit for computing respective click values associated with visitors to at least one website, wherein the click values indicate respective perceived business values associated with the visitors.

2. The click value system of claim 1, further comprising an incentive administration unit for managing visitor incentives provided to the visitors and for managing advertiser incentives provided to advertisers who present advertisements via the website.

3. The click value system of claim 2, wherein the incentive administration unit includes a visitor incentive management module for administering the visitor incentives.

4. The click value system of claim 3, wherein the visitor incentive management module is for receiving an indication of a visitor access to the website.

5. The click value system of claim 3, wherein the visitor incentive management module is for receiving an indication that at least one of the visitors has logged in to the website.

6. The click value system of claim 3, wherein the visitor incentive management module is for tracking the visitor using at least one cookie.

7. The click value system of claim 4, wherein the visitor incentive management module is responsive to the indication to begin tracking how much advertisement revenue accrues to the website as a result of the visitor'"'"'s activity on the website.

8. The click value system of claim 3, wherein the visitor incentive management module is for receiving a notification that at least one of the visitors has responded to at least one of the advertisements.

9. The click value system of claim 8, wherein the visitor incentive management module is responsive to the notification to aggregate the amounts of any revenue attributable to the visitor'"'"'s response to the advertisements.

10. The click value system of claim 8, wherein the visitor incentive management module is responsive to the notification to compute the visitor incentive as a portion of revenue attributable to the visitor'"'"'s response to the advertisements.

11. The click value system of claim 3, wherein the click value determination unit is for receiving a click notification that at least one of the visitors has responded to at least one of the advertisements.

12. The click value system of claim 8, wherein the click value determination unit is responsive to the notification to decrease a click value associated with the visitor.

13. The click value system of claim 2, wherein the website is adapted to detect a response from at least one of the visitors on at least one of the advertisements.

14. The click value system of claim 13, wherein the website is responsive to the response to generate a request for feedback to an advertiser who provided the advertisement to which the visitor responded, to associate the request uniquely with the detected response, and to send the request to the advertiser.

15. The click value system of claim 14, wherein the request for feedback is a request for the advertiser to indicate whether the response from the visitor resulted in a consummated transaction with the advertiser.

16. The click value system of claim 14, wherein the website is for receiving a reply to the request for feedback, and in response to this reply, for providing a feedback notification to the advertiser incentive management module.

17. The click value system of claim 16, wherein the incentive administration unit includes an advertiser incentive management module for administering the advertiser incentives, and wherein the website is for providing the feedback notification to the advertiser incentive management module.

18. The click value system of claim 16, wherein the advertiser incentive management module is for providing the advertiser incentive in response to receiving the feedback notification.

19. The click value system of claim 16, wherein the reply indicates that the visitor consummated at least one transaction with the advertiser.

20. The click value system of claim 16, wherein the website is for, in response to receiving the reply, providing a purchase notification to the click value determination unit.

21. The click value system of claim 20, wherein the click value determination is for increasing a click value of the visitor in response to the purchase notification.

22. The click value system of claim 16, wherein the advertiser incentive management module is for reducing the advertiser incentive in response to receiving the feedback notification.

23. The click value system of claim 2, wherein the incentive administration unit includes an advertiser incentive management module for administering the advertiser incentives.

24. The click value system of claim 1, wherein the click values further indicate a likelihood that the visitors may transact for particular goods or services offered through the website.

25. The click value system of claim 24, wherein the likelihood that the visitors may transact for particular goods or services is calculated based on transaction history associated with the visitors.

26. The click value system of claim 24, wherein the likelihood that the visitors may transact for particular goods or services is calculated based on browsing history associated with the visitors.

27. A method comprising:

receiving a notification indicating that at least one visitor has responded to at least one advertisement presented to the visitor while the visitor is interacting with at least one website; and

providing a visitor incentive to the visitor in exchange for the visitor'"'"'s response to the advertisement.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein receiving a notification includes receiving a notification that the visitor has clicked on the advertisement.

29. The method of claim 27, wherein receiving a notification includes receiving a notification that the visitor has provided a voice response to the advertisement.

30. The method of claim 27, further comprising receiving a notification indicating that the visitor has accessed the website.

31. The method of claim 27, further comprising tracking how much advertisement revenue accrues to the website as a result of the visitor'"'"'s activity, in response to the notification.

32. The method of claim 27, further comprising altering a click value associated with the visitor in response to receiving the notification.

33. The method of claim 27, further comprising reducing a click value associated with the visitor in response to receiving the notification.

34. The method of claim 27, further comprising receiving a purchase notification indicating that the visitor has consummated at least one transaction with an advertiser who provided the advertisement.

35. The method of claim 34, further comprising increasing a click value associated with the visitor in response to receiving the purchase notification.

36. A method comprising:

receiving an indication of a visitor response to an advertisement presented to a visitor who is interacting with a website, wherein the advertisement is presented by an advertiser;

receiving feedback from the advertiser; and

providing an advertiser incentive to the advertiser in response to the feedback.

37. The method of claim 36, further comprising generating a request for the advertiser to provide feedback regarding whether the response resulted in a consummated transaction involving the visitor.

38. The method of claim 36, further comprising receiving a feedback notification indicating that the website received the feedback, and further comprising reducing the advertiser incentive in response to receiving the feedback notification.

39. The method of claim 36, further comprising receiving at least a second response to an advertisement presented by the advertiser.

40. The method of claim 38, further comprising generating at least a second request for the advertiser to provide feedback regarding whether the second response resulted in at least a second consummated transaction.

41. The method of claim 39, further comprising receiving at least second feedback from the advertiser in response to the second request, wherein the second feedback indicates that the second response resulted in at least a second consummated transaction.

42. The method of claim 40, further comprising reducing the advertiser incentive in response to receiving the second feedback from the advertiser.

43. The method of claim 36, further comprising determining the advertiser'"'"'s incentive by comparing a number of visitors that are directed to ads placed by the advertiser with the number of consummated transactions reported by the advertiser.