ATTRIBUTION OF DEMOGRAPHICS TO CENSUS DATA

• US 20130290070A1
• Filed: 03/15/2013
• Published: 10/31/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/20/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: comScore, Inc.
• Original Assignee: comScore, Inc.
• Inventors: Abraham, Magid, Nasr, Ramzi, Meierhoefer, Cameron, Pecjak, Frank
• Granted Patent: US 9,965,767 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7.33
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0204 Market segmentation

Abstract

In general, systems, components, methods, and techniques for gathering, recording, and development of accurate user demographics attributed to accesses by client systems of webpage, web content, or other online resources is provided. For a given a subset of unique users having known demographics for a segment of traffic or general population, a demographic profile may be created for all users of the segment or population within a tolerable margin of error. Demographic data for unique machine identifications (IDs) may be assigned, aggregated, and derived from a single source, or multiple sources, such as panel data, beacon level surveys, cookie exchanges, and the overlay of profile cookies from other publishers.

Claims

1. A system configured to assign demographics to a population of data, the system comprising:

one or more processing devices configured to;

determine a unique client identifier associated with a beacon for web content;

send a request including the unique identifier to a source of demographic information;

receive information from the source in response to the request including demographic information and a time event associated with user interaction with a resource;

determine the potential likelihood that the user generating the beacon is the user that interacted with the resource;

assigning the received demographics to the unique client identifier based on the potential likelihood; and

a database configured to store a record of the unique client identifier and assigned demographics.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more processing devices are further configured to determine the potential likelihood that the user generating the beacon is the user that interacted with the resource by comparing a time associated with the beacon and the time event.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more processing devices are further configured to assign the demographics to the unique client identifier based on the potential likelihood by assigning the demographics when the time event occurs within a predetermined period of time.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the unique client identifier is a client system IP address and user agent combination.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more processing devices are further configured to:

receive a beacon message including the unique client identifier and uniform resource locator of the web content; and

associate a time with receiving the beacon message.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the time event is a user login event associated with the resource.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more processing devices are further configured to:

determine a relative reliability for the assigned demographics as compared to a standard reliability; and

assign the determined reliability to the demographics.

8. The system of claim 7 the one or more processing devices are further configured to:

aggregate a plurality of the unique client identifiers;

assigned demographics; and

determined reliabilities by source of demographics to derive a demographic distribution for a subset of a population.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the one or more processing devices are further configured to:

apply the derived demographic distribution to a population to assign demographics to data of the population; and

store in the database a record of the assigned demographic data for the population.

10. The system of claim 9 the one or more processing devices are further configured to:

generate a report from the assigned demographic data showing the demographics of the population.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more processing devices are further configured to send a request to the source and receive information from the source in response to the request by sending the request to one of a cookie exchange and a profile exchange;

and by receiving information from the cookie exchange or the profile exchange.

12. A computer implemented method of assigning demographics, the method comprising:

determining, by one or more processing devices, a unique client identifier associated with a beacon for web content;

sending, by one or more processing devices, a request including the unique identifier to a source of demographic information;

receiving, by one or more processing devices, information from the source in response to the request including demographic information and a time event associated with user interaction with a resource;

determining, by one or more processing devices, the potential likelihood that the user generating the beacon is the user that interacted with the resource;

assigning, by one or more processing devices, the received demographics to the unique client identifier based on the potential likelihood; and

storing, in a database of a storage device, a record of the unique client identifier and assigned demographics.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein determining the potential likelihood that the user generating the beacon is the user that interacted with the resource includes comparing a time associated with the beacon and the time event.

14. The method of claim 12 wherein assigning the demographics to the unique client identifier based on the potential likelihood, includes assigning the demographics when the time event occurs within a predetermined period of time.

15. The method of claim 12 wherein the unique client identifier is a client system IP address and user agent combination.

16. The method of claim 12 further comprising:

receiving a beacon message including the unique client identifier and uniform resource locator of the web content; and

associating a time with receiving the beacon message.

17. The method of claim 12 wherein the time event is a user login event associated with the resource.

18. The method of claim 12 further comprising determining, by one or more processing devices, a relative reliability for the assigned demographics as compared to a standard reliability;

and assigning the determined reliability to the demographics.

19. The method of claim 18 further comprising:

aggregating, by one or more processing devices, a plurality of unique client identifiers, assigned demographics, and determined reliabilities by source of demographics to derive demographic distribution for a subset of a population.

20. The method of claim 19 further comprising:

applying, by one or more processing devices, the derived demographic distribution to a population to assign demographics to data of the population; and

storing, in a database of a storage device, a record of the assigned demographic data for the population.

21. The method of claim 20 further comprising:

generating, by one or more processing devices, a report from the assigned demographic data showing the demographics of the population.

22. The method of claim 12 wherein sending a request to the source and receiving information from the source in response to the request includes sending a request to one of a cookie exchange and a profile exchange and receiving information from the cookie exchange or the profile exchange.

23. A system configured to assign demographics to a population of data, the system comprising:

a database configured to store data for a population including data for a segment of the population, the data for a segment of the population including beacon data having associated demographic data assigned from one or more sources of demographics; and

one or more processing devices configured to;

access the database and the segment data;

process the segment data to determine results for the segment for the demographics assigned from each source of demographics;

determine a relative reliability of the demographic data from each source of demographics;

apply the determined relative reliability to the results for the segment for each source of demographics to normalize the demographic data for each source of demographics;

aggregate the normalized demographic data for each source of demographics for the segment to derive a demographic distribution for the segment; and

apply the derived demographic distribution to the population to assign demographics to the population of data.

24. The system of claim 23 wherein the one or more processing devices are further configured to:

generate a report from the assigned demographic data showing the demographics of the population.

25. The system of claim 23 wherein a database stores beacon data having associated demographic data assigned from multiple sources of demographics including exchanged centric data, profile centric data, and panel centric data.

26. The system of claim 23 wherein the one or more processing devices are further configured to determine a relative reliability of the demographic data from each source of demographics by comparing the reliability of the demographic data from the source to the reliability of panel centric demographic data.

27. A computer implemented method of assigning demographics to a population of data, the method comprising:

receiving data for a population including data for a segment of the population, the data for a segment of the population including beacon data having associated demographic data assigned from one or more sources of demographics;

a;

processing, by one or more processing devices, the segment data to determine results for the segment for the demographics assigned from each source of demographics;

determining, by one or more processing devices, a relative reliability of the demographic data from each source of demographics;

applying, by one or more processing devices, the determined relative reliability to the results for the segment for each source of demographics to normalize the demographic data for each source of demographics;

aggregating, by one or more processing devices, the normalized demographic data for each source of demographics for the segment to derive a demographic distribution for the segment; and

applying, by one or more processing devices, the derived demographic distribution to the population to assign demographics to the population of data.

28. The method of claim 27 further comprising:

generating, by one or more processing devices, a report from the assigned demographic data showing the demographics of the population.

29. The method of claim 27 further comprising:

storing, in the database, beacon data having associated demographic data assigned from multiple sources of demographics including exchanged centric data, profile centric data, and panel centric data.

30. The method of claim 27 wherein determining a relative reliability of the demographic data from each source of demographics includes comparing the reliability of the demographic data from the source to the reliability of panel centric demographic data.