GENERATION OF IMPRESSION PLANS FOR PRESENTING AND SEQUENCING ADVERTISEMENT AND SALES OPPORTUNITIES ALONG POTENTIAL ROUTES

• US 20100332315A1
• Filed: 06/26/2009
• Published: 12/30/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Kamar, Semiha Ece, Lombardi, Stephen, Meek, Christopher A., Horvitz, Eric
• Application Number:
  US12/492,861
• Publication Number:
  US 20100332315A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.46
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0247 Calculate past, present or future revenues
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location

Abstract

A mobile device may present advertisements to users. However, advertisements may be ineffective or dangerous if presented when the attention of the user is unavailable (e.g., while operating a vehicle at a busy intersection.) It may also be desirable to select a sequence of advertisements that interrelate, or that relate the route of the user to an advertised product or service. Therefore, potential routes may be identified (e.g., based on user history or nearby locations of interest), and for potential routes, advertisement opportunities may be identified where the user may have an at least partial attention availability (e.g., traffic signals and fuel stops.) Advertisements may be selected for presentation at the advertisement opportunities of respective potential routes. Additionally, advertisement opportunities may be offered to advertisers in an auction model, and advertisers may specify conditions of advertisements (e.g., competitive placement exclusive of competitors'"'"' advertisements, or combinatorial placement of several advertisements.)

Claims

1. A method of generating an advertisement plan for a user of a computer having a processor and having access to an advertisement set comprising advertisements provided by respective advertisers, the method comprising:

executing upon the processor instructions configured to;

identify at least one potential route of the user;

for respective potential routes, identify along the potential route at least one advertisement opportunity where the user may have at least partial attention availability; and

for respective advertisement opportunities, select at least one advertisement from the advertisement set to be presented at the advertisement opportunity.

2. The method of claim 1:

the instructions configured to;

monitor the user to determine a completed route, and

for respective completed routes, store a route record in a user profile, the route record specifying the completed route; and

identifying the at least one potential route of the user comprising;

selecting at least one completed route specified in at least one route record in the user profile.

3. The method of claim 1, identifying the at least one potential route of the user comprising:

detecting at least one route determinant, and

identifying at least one potential route that are correlated with the at least one route determinant.

4. The method of claim 3:

the position along the potential route associated with an attention type of the user, and

selecting the at least one advertisement to be presented at the advertisement opportunity comprising;

selecting at least one advertisement that is compatible with the attention type of the user associated with the position along the potential route.

5. The method of claim 1, selecting the at least one advertisement to be presented at the advertisement opportunity comprising:

selecting, to be presented at the advertisement opportunity, a first advertisement that relates to a second advertisement to be presented at an advertisement opportunity.

6. The method of claim 1, selecting the at least one advertisement to be presented at the advertisement opportunity comprising:

identifying at least one trait of the user, and

selecting advertisements targeted to the user based on the at least one trait.

7. The method of claim 1, selecting the at least one advertisement to be presented at the advertisement opportunity comprising:

detecting at least one advertisement opportunity factor relating the advertisement opportunity to at least one advertisement; and

selecting at least one advertisement that is related to the advertisement opportunity by the advertisement opportunity factor.

8. The method of claim 1, the computer utilizing a predictive function trained to predict at least one predictive user aspect selected from a set of predictive user aspects comprising:

potential routes selected by the user,

an attention availability of the user at an advertisement opportunity along a potential route, and

a user responsiveness to an advertisement presented at an advertisement opportunity.

9. The method of claim 1:

respective advertisements in the advertisement set having an advertisement action that is associated with an advertisement payment, and

selecting the at least one advertisement to be presented at the advertisement opportunity comprising;

selecting advertisements that, for respective potential routes, maximize the advertisement payments associated with the advertisement actions of the advertisements.

10. The method of claim 9:

respective advertisements having an advertisement bid, and

selecting advertisements that, for respective potential routes, maximize the advertisement payments comprising;

for respective advertisement opportunities;

offering the advertisement opportunity to the advertisements;

receiving an advertisement bid from respective advertisements for the advertisement opportunity; and

selecting for the advertisement opportunity the advertisement offering a high advertisement bid.

11. The method of claim 10, the advertisement bid for at least one advertisement based on at least one advertising condition selected from a set of advertising aspects comprising:

an identified trait of the user;

a user relevance of the user correlated with the advertisement;

an attention type of the user at the advertisement opportunity;

an advertisement opportunity factor relating the advertisement to the advertisement opportunity;

a competitive advertising condition relating to selections of other advertisements for other advertising opportunities in the advertisement plan; and

a combinatorial advertising condition relating to selection of advertisements for at least two advertisement opportunities in the advertisement plan.

12. The method of claim 9, selecting for the advertisement opportunity the advertisement offering the high advertisement bid comprising:

maximizing the mathematical formula;

V*(s)=max<sub>a∈

A(s)</sub>R(s,a)+Σ

_s′

T(s′

,s,a)×

V*(s′

)

wherein;

s represents a state in a potential route corresponding to at least one of an advertisement opportunity and a location;

S represents a state set comprising the states s in the potential route;

V*(s) represents an expected cumulative value of state s, comprising expected advertisement revenue for the advertisement opportunity and future opportunities following state s;

A(s) represents a set of advertising actions for respective advertisements at a state s;

R(s,a) represents revenue for displaying a advertisement a at state s;

s′

represents a second state in a potential route that is accessible from a state s;

V*(s′

) represents an expected cumulative value of state s′

; and

T(s′

,s,a) represents a transition probability of transitioning from a state s to a state s′

upon performing an advertising action a.

13. The method of claim 1, the instructions configured to:

monitor the user to determine;

a selected route among the potential routes, and

an arrival at an advertisement opportunity along the selected route; and

upon detecting the arrival at an advertisement opportunity along the selected route, present to the user the at least one advertisement selected to be presented at the advertisement opportunity.

14. The method of claim 13:

selecting the at least one advertisement to be presented at the advertisement opportunity based on at least one trait of the user, the at least one trait stored in a user profile; and

monitoring the user comprising;

detecting an advertisement action by the user associated with an advertisement; and

the instructions configured, upon detecting the advertisement action, to;

identify at least one trait of the user based on the advertisement action, and

store the at least one trait in the user profile.

15. The method of claim 13:

respective advertisements associated with an advertisement payment, and

the instructions configured to, upon presenting an advertisement, compute the advertisement payment associated with the advertisement.

16. The method of claim 15:

the advertisement payments of respective advertisements associated with an advertisement action;

the instructions configured to, upon presenting the advertisement, monitor the user to detect the advertisement action associated with the advertisement; and

computing the advertisement payment comprising;

upon detecting the advertisement action associated with the advertisement, compute the advertisement payment associated with the advertisement and the advertisement action.

17. The method of claim 16, computing the advertisement payment collected from advertiser i at state s according to the mathematical formula:

18. The method of claim 15, the instructions configured to, upon detecting the at least one advertisement action of the user, charge the advertiser the advertisement payment computed with respect to the advertisement and the advertisement action.

19. A system configured to generate an advertisement plan for a user of a computer having access to an advertisement set, the system comprising:

a potential route identifying component configured to identify at least one potential route of the user;

an advertisement opportunity identifying component configured to, for respective potential routes, identify along the potential route at least one advertisement opportunity where the user may have at least partial attention availability; and

an advertisement selecting component configured to, for respective advertisement opportunities, select at least one advertisement from the advertisement set to be presented at the advertisement opportunity.

20. A computer-readable medium comprising processor-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor of a computer having access to an advertisement set comprising advertisements provided by respective advertisers and to a predictive function trained to correlate advertisements with a user relevance of a user of the computer during an advertisement opportunity, generate an advertisement plan for the user by:

monitoring the user to determine a completed route;

for respective completed routes, storing a route record in a user profile, the route record specifying the completed route;

detecting at least one route determinant;

identifying the at least one potential route of the user by performing at least one of;

selecting at least one completed route specified in at least one route record in the user profile, and

identifying at least one potential route that is correlated with the at least one route determinant;

for respective potential routes, identify along the potential route at least one advertisement opportunity where the user may have at least partial attention availability, and the advertisement opportunity associated with an attention type of the user;

for respective advertisement opportunities, selecting from the advertisement set, to be presented at the advertisement opportunity, at least one advertisement that is compatible with the attention type of the user associated with the position along the potential route, and the advertisement selected by;

identifying at least one trait of the user;

detecting at least one advertisement opportunity factor relating the advertisement opportunity to at least one advertisement; and

selecting the advertisement that;

is targeted to the user based on the at least one trait,

is related to the advertisement opportunity by the advertisement opportunity factor, and

has a high user relevance to the user during the advertisement opportunity according to the predictive function,

the advertisements selected to, for respective potential routes, maximize advertisement payments associated with advertisement actions of the advertisements;

monitoring the user to determine;

a selected route among the potential routes, and

an arrival at an advertisement opportunity along the selected route;

upon detecting the arrival at an advertisement opportunity along the selected route, presenting to the user the at least one advertisement selected to be presented at the advertisement opportunity;

monitoring the user to detect at least one advertisement action associated with at least one advertisement; and

upon detecting the advertisement action;

computing the advertisement payment associated with the advertisement and the advertisement action;

identifying at least one trait of the user based on the advertisement action; and

upon identifying the at least one trait, storing the at least one trait in the user profile.