ORCHESTRATION AND/OR EXPLORATION OF DIFFERENT ADVERTISING CHANNELS IN A FEDERATED ADVERTISING NETWORK

• US 20080103902A1
• Filed: 06/13/2007
• Published: 05/01/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Biggs, Jody D., Flake, Gary W., Meek, Christopher A., Brewer, Brett D., Burdick, Brian, Dominowska, Ewa, Chickering, David Max
• Application Number:
  US11/762,632
• Publication Number:
  US 20080103902A1
• 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 30/0244 Optimization
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0247 Calculate past, present or future revenues
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement

Abstract

For a multi-party advertising exchange including advertising entities and publishing entities from different advertising networks, automatic apportioning of advertising transactions across inventory from different advertising channels is provided. Optimal combinations or advertising bundles of different channels are generated for the participant based on an analysis of inventory across different advertising channels for a given set of participation goals/constraints. A small portion of a participant'"'"'s overall advertising expenditure can be held back for exploratory purposes to determine better combinations of advertising channels based on actual performance over time.

Claims

1. A method for facilitating transactions for advertisement space from different advertising channels in a federated advertising exchange, comprising:

receiving at least one participation objective from an advertising entity participating in the federated advertising exchange; and

based on the at least one participation objective, automatically optimizing advertising expenditure of the advertising entity for a set of prospective transactions in the federated advertising exchange across advertisement space from different advertising channels available in the federated advertising exchange.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving includes receiving at least one participation constraint that limits the at least one participation objective.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

normalizing pricing models associated with the different advertising channels to a common pricing model based on expected revenue.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

reserving a portion of the advertising expenditure to conduct additional transactions for advertisement space from different combinations of the advertising channels; and

analyzing the performance of the additional transactions to improve said optimizing.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

generating derivative advertisements that are same as or similar to a template advertisement for the different combinations of the advertising channels enabling performance of the additional transactions to be substantially independent of advertising content.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

recording the performance of past transactions conducted in the federated advertising exchange across all of the different advertising channels, and wherein the optimizing includes automatically optimizing, based on the at least one participation objective and the performance of past transactions conducted in the federated advertising exchange, the advertising expenditure of the advertising entity for the set of prospective transactions across advertisement space from different advertising channels.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the optimizing includes automatically optimizing, based on the at least one participation objective, advertising expenditure of the advertising entity for the set of prospective transactions in the federated advertising exchange across advertisement space from different advertising channels and sub-channels available in the federated advertising exchange.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the optimizing includes automatically optimizing, based on the at least one participation objective, advertising expenditure of the advertising entity for the set of prospective transactions in the federated advertising exchange across advertisement space from at least two of radio, TV program, billboard, web site, web search or print advertising channels.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the optimizing includes automatically optimizing, based on the at least one participation objective, advertising expenditure of the advertising entity for the set of prospective transactions in the federated advertising exchange across advertisement space from at least two of video, images, audio and text advertising channels.

10. A computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions for performing the method of claim 1.

11. A method for facilitating transactions for advertisement space from different advertising channels in a federated advertising exchange, comprising:

with at least a portion of advertising expenditure specified by an advertising entity, conducting a set of transactions in the federated advertising exchange across different combinations of disparate advertising channels represented by publishing inventory made available in the federated advertising exchange;

analyzing the performance of the set of transactions; and

based on the performance of the set of transactions across different combinations of disparate advertising channels, optimally apportioning another portion of advertising expenditure of the advertising entity across the disparate advertising channels for additional transactions conducted in the federated advertising exchange.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the apportioning includes optimizing at least one participation goal of the advertising entity in view of at least one participation constraint that limits the at least one participation goal.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

normalizing pricing models associated with the disparate advertising channels to a common pricing model.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving a template advertisement; and

automatically generating advertisements for the set of transactions that are same as or similar to the template advertisement enabling performance of the additional transactions to be substantially independent of differences in advertising content across the different transactions of the set of transactions.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the apportioning includes automatically apportioning another portion of advertising expenditure of the advertising entity across at least two of radio, TV program, billboard, web site, web search or print advertising channels.

16. A computing device comprising means for performing the method of claim 11.

17. A system to facilitate trading of advertising, comprising:

at least one publisher broker to represent at least one publisher, wherein the at least one publisher broker determines at least one ask for publishing inventory of the at least one publisher from different advertising channels;

at least one advertiser broker to represent at least one advertiser, wherein the at least one advertiser broker manages at least one bid for the publishing inventory by the at least one advertiser;

an exchange to facilitate transactions for the publishing inventory between the at least one publisher broker and the at least one advertiser broker, and

at least one tool that receives from a publisher broker or an advertiser broker a definition of at least one utility function applying to participation in the exchange, wherein the at least one tool automatically orchestrates the transactions for the publishing inventory across the different advertising channels by automatically apportioning the transactions across publishing inventory of different advertising channels to optimize the at least one utility function of the publisher broker or the advertiser broker.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the exchange normalizes the publishing inventory of the at least one publisher from different advertising channels to a common revenue model within the exchange for comparison of publishing inventory from the different advertising channels.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the advertiser broker or publisher broker is the advertiser broker and wherein the at least one tool enters into, on behalf of the advertiser broker, additional transactions including differing combinations of publishing inventory from different advertising channels and the at least one tool analyzes the performance of the additional transactions to improve the apportioning of transactions across publishing inventory.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the at least one tool automatically optimizes, based on at least one participation objective, the transactions in the federated advertising exchange across publishing inventory from at least two of radio, TV program, billboard, web site, web search or print advertising channels or subchannels.