LEVERAGING A SOCIAL NETWORK FOR TARGETED ADVERTISING

• US 20130325605A1
• Filed: 06/05/2012
• Published: 12/05/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2012
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Callaghan, David Michael, Nukala, Chandrasekhar
• Application Number:
  US13/489,112
• Publication Number:
  US 20130325605A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.53
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements

Abstract

A computer-implemented method of advertising for electronic commerce gathers information from a user'"'"'s social network for the purpose of generating advertisements that are directly targeted to the user, thereby providing a customized shopping experience for the user. Ads can also be directly targeted to the user'"'"'s contacts. The information can be user profile data, purchase data, or a combination thereof. Further, the information can pertain to the user, the user'"'"'s social networking contacts, or groups within the social network that include a subset of the user'"'"'s contacts who share a common interest. The information can be aggregated and stored on a server computer and group statistics can be extracted from the data, while maintaining individuals'"'"' anonymity. An aggregate data set can then be used to generate a targeted advertisement for presentation by an advertising server to the user or the user'"'"'s contacts, via an electronic device.

Claims

1. A method of advertising on a digital network, comprising:

receiving, on a server computer, an identification associated with a user of a third-party social networking web site;

using the identification, retrieving purchase information associated with user contacts who are linked to the user through the third-party social networking web site; and

generating targeted advertising to be presented to the user based on at least the purchase information of the user contacts.

2. The method of claim 1, further including:

selecting at least one group from a plurality of groups on a user'"'"'s page of the third-party social networking web site; and

wherein retrieving purchase information only applies to the user contacts that are in the selected group.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the targeted advertising is a banner ad displayed on a web page.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the targeted advertising is presented to the user in the form of a virtual retail marketplace whose appearance and purchase items offered for sale are tailored to the user to provide a customized shopping experience.

5. The method of claim 4, further including transmitting purchase data from the online marketplace web site to an aggregation server that stores the purchase data in association with other data from the third-party social networking web site.

6. The method of claim 1, further including receiving purchase information using an application on a mobile phone and transmitting the purchase information to an aggregation server that stores the purchase information in association with the identification of the user.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the user can selectively exclude purchase information from being received based on purchase item type.

8. The method of claim 1, further including:

receiving purchase information associated with users of the third-party social networking web site;

identifying a common group among the users using linking information in the third-party social networking web site; and

storing in a database the received purchase information in association with the common group, but without identifications of the users so that the purchase information is anonymous.

9. The method of claim 1, further including generating a user profile associated with the user, the user profile including the purchase information associated with the user'"'"'s contacts through the third-party social networking web site.

10. A computer-readable storage device that includes computer-executable instructions for causing a computing device programmed thereby to perform a method comprising:

identifying a target user for whom a targeted advertisement can be generated;

accessing a third-party social networking web site to obtain contacts who are linked to the target user; and

using data associated with the contacts for the purpose of generating a targeted advertisement.

11. The computer-readable storage device of claim 10, wherein the data associated with the contacts includes purchasing behaviors of the contacts.

12. The computer-readable storage device of claim 11, further including selectively excluding certain purchase items from being included in the data.

13. The computer-readable storage device of claim 10, further including identifying a group from the third-party social networking web site and wherein the generation of the targeted advertisement includes selecting a purchase item for the targeted advertisement that was purchased by other users in the group, wherein the group comprises a subset of the target user'"'"'s contacts.

14. The computer-readable storage device of claim 10, wherein the using of the data further includes:

generating a user profile for the target user;

transmitting the user profile to an online marketplace web site;

generating the targeted advertisement; and

presenting the targeted advertisement to the target user.

15. The computer-readable storage device of claim 10, further including generating a banner ad as the targeted advertisement for the current user.

16. The computer-readable storage device of claim 10, wherein the data includes purchase data and further including aggregating the purchase data for a user'"'"'s contacts and storing the purchase data without associated identification of the contacts so that the purchase data is anonymous.

17. A method of advertising on a network, comprising:

using a server computer, accessing a third-party social networking web site to obtain a user profile associated with a target user, wherein the user profile includes links to contacts of the target user through the third-party social networking web site;

receiving, on the server computer, purchase information associated with one or more contacts linked to the target user;

generating a user profile for the target user using at least the contacts'"'"' purchase information; and

transmitting the user profile to a server for generating targeted advertising.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the user profile further includes personal information of the target user.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the user profile includes a group and contacts linked to the target user through the group, wherein the purchase information is only shared with contacts linked to the target user through the group.

20. The method of claim 17, further including selecting one or more target customers from the contacts identified within the social networking web site;

and

proposing purchase items to the target customers via an electronic device.