Methods and systems for selectively displaying advertisements

• US 7,870,023 B2
• Filed: 06/16/2004
• Issued: 01/11/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Zhigu Holdings Limited
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Chau, Carolyn Khanh, Cho, Wei Wei Ada, Hart, Michael Patrick, Ozer, Stuart
• Primary Examiner(s): Carlson; Jeffrey D
• Application Number:
  US10/869,682
• Publication Number:
  US 20040243623A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,400 Days
• Field of Search: 705/14.4, 725/32
• US Class Current: 705/14.4
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0248 Avoiding fraud
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0252 based on events or environment, e.g. weather or festivals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0264 based upon schedule
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0272 Period of advertisement exposure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A system, including a planning module, a control module and a receiver module, configured to schedule display of one or more advertising impressions of available advertising inventory. The planning module enables scheduling a requested quantity of advertising impressions in accordance with target criteria. Further, the planning module enables selecting an advertising impression goal for advertisement, assigning an advertising type and defining a weight for the advertisements. The control module receives the schedule, the advertising type and the defined weights and generates one or more metadata files that contain target criteria, advertising type and weights for the advertisements. The one or more metadata files, with the advertisements, are delivered to the receiver module that is configured to define a display frequency for the advertisements based upon one or more of the metadata files. The receiver module selectively displays advertisement content associated with the advertisements to achieve the advertising impression goal.

Claims

1. A method which is implemented by a computing system that includes a processor for selecting one or more advertisements to display to a viewer, the method comprising:

the computing system identifying, for a defined target, each advertisement from a plurality of advertisements as either a committed advertisement or a flexible advertisement;

upon identifying a first absolute weight for each committed advertisement and a relative weight for each flexible advertisement, the computing system defining a total flexible advertising inventory value as the difference between the sum of the first absolute weights for the committed advertisement content and a base factor;

the computing system defining a second absolute weight for each of the flexible advertisements based upon the relative weight of the flexible advertisement, the sum of the relative weights of the flexible advertisement, and the total flexible advertising inventory value; and

the computing system randomly selecting the advertisement based upon the first absolute weight of the committed advertisement and a second absolute weight of the flexible advertisement.

2. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the target is defined by at least one of market area data, date data, time data, ad type date, an ad space data.

3. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein identifying the advertisement comprises:

receiving a data file defining an advertisement of a plurality of advertisements as either a committed advertisement or a flexible advertisement; and

analyzing the data file to identify the advertisement as the committed advertisement or the flexible advertisement.

4. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the method further includes defining a total committed advertising inventory value by at least summing the first absolute weight for each committed advertisement.

5. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein defining a total flexible advertising inventory value comprises subtracting the total committed advertising inventory from the based factor for the target.

6. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising, defining a relative weight for each committed advertisement based upon the first absolute weight for each committed advertisement when the total of the absolute weights of all committed advertisements is greater than the base factor, indicating the total committed advertising inventory is greater than the total available advertising inventory.

7. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein randomly selecting the advertisements comprises:

defining a list of available advertisements from the committed advertisements and the flexible advertisements; and

selecting the advertisements from the list of available advertisements based upon the absolute weight and the relative weight for each advertisement.

8. A method as recited in claim 7, further comprising displaying the selected advertisement within a document and removing the selected advertisement from the list of available advertisements.

9. A method as recited in claim 7, further comprising removing the selected advertisement from the list of available advertisements for subsequent requests for advertisements within the current instance of the document.