Targeting Advertisements in a Social Network
First Claim
1. A method for selecting an advertisement to present by a social networking website, the method comprising:
- receiving multiple advertisements for the social networking website, each advertisement associated with a set of targeting criteria that specify one or more interactions between a user and an object in the social networking website;
selecting one or more candidate advertisements for a user of the social networking website, wherein the user has performed the interactions specified by the targeting criteria of each of the selected candidate advertisements;
computing an affinity score between the user and each of the candidate advertisements;
receiving a bid amount associated with the advertisements;
selecting one or more of the candidate advertisements based on the affinity scores and the bid amounts associated with the candidate advertisements; and
presenting the selected advertisements on a web page delivered to the user.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A social networking website logs information about actions taken by members of the website. For a particular member of the website, the website presents targeted ads based on actions by the member and one or more characteristics of the member. The social networking website maintains a profile associated with the member which describes characteristics of the member, such as age, geographic location, employment, educational history and interests. The social networking website compares the member profile to targeting criteria for a plurality of advertising requests and determines the advertising requests that match the member profile and generate the most revenue for the social networking website. When presenting a member with an ad, the website may optimize advertising revenue by selecting an ad from the received ads that will maximize the expected value of the ad.
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Citations
15 Claims
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1. A method for selecting an advertisement to present by a social networking website, the method comprising:
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receiving multiple advertisements for the social networking website, each advertisement associated with a set of targeting criteria that specify one or more interactions between a user and an object in the social networking website; selecting one or more candidate advertisements for a user of the social networking website, wherein the user has performed the interactions specified by the targeting criteria of each of the selected candidate advertisements; computing an affinity score between the user and each of the candidate advertisements; receiving a bid amount associated with the advertisements; selecting one or more of the candidate advertisements based on the affinity scores and the bid amounts associated with the candidate advertisements; and presenting the selected advertisements on a web page delivered to the user. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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Specification