ANALYZING RETURN ON INVESTMENT OF ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS USING CROSS-CORRELATION OF MULTIPLE DATA SOURCES

• US 20100161492A1
• Filed: 12/07/2009
• Published: 06/24/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/14/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kantar LLC
• Original Assignee: TRA Incorporated
• Inventors: Canning, Brian P., Lieberman, Mark, Harvey, William Morris, Despain, Gerald Leo, Bochman, Pavel
• Granted Patent: US 8,000,993 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/50
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0242 Determining effectiveness of advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0246 Traffic

Abstract

In various embodiments, strategies, tools and techniques are provided for processing and analyzing data in an advertising measurement system accessible through a software-as-a-service model or a client-downloaded computer program. The system may be configured to receive and process household media exposure data, product purchase data, advertising data, program data, and demographic data, wherein the data may be obtained from various sources, including from a program delivery source (e.g., a television set-top box) located in a household of a consumer. The data may be matched and cross-correlated for calculating return on advertising investment measurements and other metrics. The data may be used to optimize media placement generally or to address advertising content to specific households. Methods for storing and accessing data in the advertising measurement system by distributing the data across multiple shards are also provided. In addition, methods for protecting privacy of communicated data are disclosed.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented system for processing data, the system comprising:

a tier of an advertising measurement system configured to receive data from one or more data sources comprising at least a program delivery source located in a household of a consumer, the received data including a first identifier associated with the household assigned to the program delivery source, wherein the advertising measurement system includes at least one electronic computer processor and at least one electronic data storage medium; and

a module configured to use a thesaurus for;

producing data from the received data without personally identifiable information,

indexing the produced data with a second identifier, wherein the thesaurus relates each first identifier of each household to the second identifier.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a list matcher configured to;

receive data communicated in parallel from the one or more data sources, the communicated data comprising at least personally identifiable information associated with the household and the first identifier associated with the household assigned by the data source;

generate the thesaurus relating each first identifier associated with the household to the second identifier; and

send the thesaurus to the module configured to use the thesaurus.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the thesaurus is configured for relating an account number identifier to at least one other account number identifier associated with the same household across multiple data sources.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a module configured for matching purchase data with program data received from the data sources at a household data level.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a module configured for matching purchase data with advertising data received from the data sources at a household data level.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the identifiers includes an encryption key.

7. A computer-implemented method for processing data, the method comprising:

electronically receiving data in an advertising measurement system from one or more data sources including at least a program delivery source associated with a household of a consumer, the received data including a first identifier associated with the household assigned by the data source, the advertising measurement system including an electronic computer processor and at least one electronic data storage medium; and

electronically using a thesaurus for;

producing data without personally identifiable information, and

indexing the produced data by a second identifier, wherein the thesaurus relates each first identifier of the household to the second identifier.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

receiving data communicated in parallel from the one or more data sources, the communicated data comprising at least personally identifiable information associated with the household and the first identifier associated with the household assigned by the data source; and

,

generating the thesaurus for relating each first identifier associated with the household to the second identifier.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising using the thesaurus for relating an account number identifier to at least one other account number identifier associated with the same household across multiple data sources.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising matching purchase data with program data received from the data sources at a household data level.

11. The method of claim 7, further comprising matching purchase data with advertising data received from the data sources at a household data level.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein at least one of the identifiers includes an encryption key.

13. A computer-implemented method for storing data in a data access tier of an advertising measurement system, the method comprising:

distributing the data access tier of the advertising measurement system into multiple shards, wherein each shard is configured to maintain the same data structure while storing different data, wherein the advertising measurement system includes at least one electronic computer processor and at least one electronic data storage medium;

confining all information pertaining to a specific household of a consumer to a single shard;

executing multiple instances of an aggregate query on each of the multiple shards; and

,

merging results obtained from the multiple queries into a single query result.

14. A system for storing data, the system comprising:

an advertising measurement system including a data access tier distributed into multiple shards, wherein each shard is configured to maintain the same data structure while storing different data, wherein the advertising measurement system includes at least one electronic computer processor and at least one electronic data storage medium;

each shard being configured to confine therein all information pertaining to a specific household of a consumer to a single shard; and

,

the data access tier being configured for;

executing multiple instances of an aggregate query on each of the multiple shards; and

,

merging results obtained from the multiple instances of the query into a single query result.