Methods and apparatuses for offline selection of pay-per-call advertisers
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A method comprising:
- presenting, via at least one media channel, a single advertisement, including a single advertisement telephone number, on behalf of a plurality of competing advertisers;
receiving, via a communication network, a received telephone call to the single advertisement telephone number and identifying a geographic area related to an origin of the received telephone call;
selecting, via a computing device, a first advertiser from the plurality of competing advertisers, based at least in part on the identified geographic area, and identifying a separate previously assigned advertiser telephone number of the first advertiser;
connecting, via the computing device, the received telephone call to the previously assigned advertiser telephone number of the first advertiser to track a telephone connection to the first advertiser established from the received telephone call to the single advertisement telephone number provided in the single advertisement; and
charging, via the computing device, the first advertiser a predetermined fee for the single advertisement in response to connecting the received telephone call, placed to the single advertisement telephone number provided in the single advertisement, to the previously assigned advertiser telephone number of the first advertiser.
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Abstract
Methods and apparatuses to connect telephone calls and track information about the telephone calls resulting from advertisements for groups of advertisers. In one embodiment, a method includes: determining a geographic area after receiving a telephone call to a first telephone number publicized in an advertisement; determining a telephone number of a first advertiser; and connecting the telephone call to the telephone number of the first advertiser, the first advertiser billed for the advertisement based on telephonic connections made to connect the first advertiser and telephone calls to the first telephone number.
47 Citations
17 Claims
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1. A method comprising:
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presenting, via at least one media channel, a single advertisement, including a single advertisement telephone number, on behalf of a plurality of competing advertisers; receiving, via a communication network, a received telephone call to the single advertisement telephone number and identifying a geographic area related to an origin of the received telephone call; selecting, via a computing device, a first advertiser from the plurality of competing advertisers, based at least in part on the identified geographic area, and identifying a separate previously assigned advertiser telephone number of the first advertiser; connecting, via the computing device, the received telephone call to the previously assigned advertiser telephone number of the first advertiser to track a telephone connection to the first advertiser established from the received telephone call to the single advertisement telephone number provided in the single advertisement; and charging, via the computing device, the first advertiser a predetermined fee for the single advertisement in response to connecting the received telephone call, placed to the single advertisement telephone number provided in the single advertisement, to the previously assigned advertiser telephone number of the first advertiser. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A system comprising:
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a communication network configured to receive, responsive to a single advertisement, including a single advertisement telephone number, presented in a media channel on behalf of a plurality of competing advertisers, a received telephone call to the single advertisement telephone number, the received telephone call identifying a geographic area related to an origin of the received telephone call; and a computing device configured to select a first advertiser from the plurality of competing advertisers, based at least in part on the identified geographic area, and to identify a separate previously assigned advertiser telephone number of the first advertiser; wherein the computing device is further configured to connect the received telephone call to the previously assigned advertiser telephone number of the first advertiser to track a telephone connection to the first advertiser established from the received telephone call to the single advertisement telephone number provided in the single advertisement; and wherein the computing device is further configured to charge the first advertiser a predetermined fee for the advertisement in response to connecting the received telephone call, placed to the single advertisement telephone number provided in the single advertisement, to the previously assigned advertiser telephone number of the first advertiser. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A tangible machine readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a method, the method comprising:
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presenting a single advertisement, including a single advertisement telephone number, on behalf of a plurality of competing advertisers; receiving a received telephone call to the single advertisement telephone number and identifying a geographic area related to an origin of the received telephone call; selecting a first advertiser from the plurality of competing advertisers, based at least in part on the identified geographic area, and identifying a separate previously assigned advertiser telephone number of the first advertiser; connecting the received telephone call to the previously assigned advertiser telephone number of the first advertiser to track a telephone connection to the first advertiser established from the received telephone call to the single advertisement telephone number provided in the single advertisement; and charging the first advertiser a predetermined fee for the advertisement in response to connecting the received telephone call, placed to the single advertisement telephone number provided in the single advertisement, to the previously assigned advertiser telephone number of the first advertiser.
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17. A data processing system, comprising:
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a database configured to store a plurality of separate listings of a plurality of advertisers, each separate listing having a respective description of the respective advertiser and being associated with a respective telephone number of the respective advertiser, each separate listing having a respective bid price from the respective advertiser to advertise the respective separate listing of the respective advertiser; and telephone switching equipment coupled to the database, the telephone switching equipment configured to; receive a received telephone call to a telephonic reference presented in a unified advertisement for the plurality of advertisers of the separate listings; and in response to the received telephone call, select a first listing from the plurality of separate listings and connect the received telephone call to a respective telephone number of a first advertiser of the first listing to charge the first advertiser a fee according to a first bid price of the first advertiser.
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Specification