SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETECTING CALL-THROUGH EVENTS FOR ADVERTISING IMPRESSIONS SENT TO MOBILE WIRELESS DEVICES

• US 20090325547A1
• Filed: 06/30/2008
• Published: 12/31/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Kushwaha, Rakesh, Nath, Badri
• Granted Patent: US 9,374,460 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/414.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/2757 by data transmission, e.g. downloading
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/56 Arrangements for indicating or recording the called number at the calling subscriber's set
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/60 logging of communication history, e.g. outgoing or incoming calls, missed calls, messages or URLs logging of telephone numbers H04M1/56, H04M1/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4878 Advertisement messages

Abstract

An arrangement is described for capturing and reporting call-through events in connection with phone numbers embedded in advertising impressions sent to mobile wireless devices. A call-through event is said to occur when a phone number embedded within an advertising impression is called from the mobile device. The system includes a call-through detector on the device that captures data related to a call-through event and communicates the captured data for one or more phone numbers over the network to a server. The server collects the captured data from various mobile devices and can correlate those with the advertisements sent to the mobile devices. A call detail information record sent from a device may contain detailed information about the context in which the call was made from the mobile device, including, for example, time of day or device location.

Claims

1. A method for capturing and reporting call-through events on a mobile wireless device comprising the steps of:

receiving at the device a first message specifying call event information to be collected for an advertising phone number, the call event information including at least one of a time, a device location, and an application status;

receiving at the device an advertising impression with the advertising phone number;

displaying the advertising impression with the advertising phone number;

originating a call from the device to the advertising phone number;

collecting the call event information for the call; and

sending a second message containing the call event information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first message specifies when to send the second message and the second message is sent in accordance with the first message.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first message is sent from an authorized server and the second message is sent to the authorized server.

4. The method of claim 3 comprising mutually authenticating the server and the device.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein collecting the call event information includes reading a call detail record from a memory of the device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein collecting the call event information includes reading a call detail record from a subscriber identity module of the device.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein collecting the call event information includes determining the time from at least one of a call data record stored in a device memory, a call data record stored in a subscriber identity module, and a device clock.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein collecting the call event information includes determining the device location from at least one of a cell identifier, and a source of global positioning system coordinates.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein collecting the call event information includes determining the application status, the application status including an indication of which applications were active when originating the call to the advertising phone number.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein collecting the call event information includes determining the application status, the application status including an indication of which applications were active in a time period preceding originating the call to the advertising phone number.

11. The method of claim 2, wherein the second message is sent in accordance with a policy selected from the group of policies consisting of:

periodically at a predetermined interval;

periodically at a predetermined interval, provided at least one call-through event has been detected;

after a predetermined number of call-through events have been detected; and

in response to a request.

12. A method for capturing and reporting call-through events on a mobile wireless device comprising the steps of:

sending to the device a first message specifying call event information to be collected for an advertising phone number, the call event information including at least one of a time, a device location, and an application status;

sending to the device an advertising impression with the advertising phone number for display by the device; and

receiving from the device a second message containing the call event information, wherein the call event information is collected at the device for a call originating from the device to the advertising phone number.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the first message specifies when to send the second message and the second message is sent in accordance with the first message.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the first message is sent from an authorized server and the second message is sent to the authorized server.

15. The method of claim 14 comprising mutually authenticating the server and the device.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the application status includes an indication of which applications were active when originating the call to the advertising phone number.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the application status includes an indication of which applications were active in a time period preceding originating the call to the advertising phone number.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein the second message is sent in accordance with a policy selected from the group of policies consisting of:

periodically at a predetermined interval;

periodically at a predetermined interval, provided at least one call-through event has been detected;

after a predetermined number of call-through events have been detected; and

in response to a request.

19. The method of claim 12 comprising:

processing the received call event information; and

providing the processed call event information to an advertising entity.