Click value determination with incentive schemes for website visitors and advertisers

• US 8,819,214 B2
• Filed: 09/29/2006
• Issued: 08/26/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Goswami, Bhavesh
• Primary Examiner(s): SCOTT, RANDY A
• Application Number:
  US11/537,555
• Publication Number:
  US 20080082655A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,888 Days
• Field of Search: 705/14, 705/14.23, 705/14.54, 705/14.66, 705/14.73, 709/224, 709/225, 709/226
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0226 Incentive systems for frequent usage, e.g. frequent flyer miles programs or point systems

Abstract

Tools and techniques are described herein for determining click values, along with incentive schemes for website visitors and advertisers. These tools may provide a click value system that includes a click value determination unit and an incentive administration unit. The click value determination unit may compute respective click values for different visitors to a website. These click values may indicate a likelihood that the visitors may transact for particular goods or services offered through the website. The incentive administration unit manages visitor incentives provided to the visitors, and also manages advertiser incentives provided to the advertisers.

Claims

1. A click value system comprising:

one or more processors;

memory coupled to the one or more processors;

a click value determination unit, stored in the memory and executable on the one or more processors to compute a corresponding click value for each of a plurality of visitors to a website, each click value is a non-monetary value that indicates a likelihood that a corresponding visitor is to purchase an item in a category of multiple categories, wherein a click value designated for a visitor in a first category of the multiple categories is affected by a purchase of an item in a second category of the multiple categories in which a subject matter of the item in the second category indicates an interest of the visitor in the first category;

an advertisement selection unit to receive monetary bids from advertisers for displaying advertisements to one or more visitors having a designated click value in a particular category of the multiple categories, and to select an advertisement of the advertisements in the particular category for display to the one or more visitors having the designated click value based at least on an amount of each monetary bid;

a feedback request unit to send a request for feedback to an advertiser who provided an advertisement that elicited a response by a particular visitor, the request for feedback requesting information on whether the response led to a purchase transaction that is recorded in a purchase transaction history of the particular visitor; and

a transaction history database, stored in the memory, to store respective purchase transaction histories associated with the plurality of visitors for computing respective click values by the click value determination unit.

2. The click value system of claim 1, further comprising an incentive administration unit to manage visitor incentives provided to the plurality of visitors of the website and to manage advertiser incentives provided to an advertiser who presents one or more advertisements via the website.

3. The click value system of claim 2, wherein the incentive administration unit includes a visitor incentive management module to administer the visitor incentives.

4. The click value system of claim 3, wherein the visitor incentive management module is to receive an indication of a visitor access to the website.

5. The click value system of claim 3, wherein the visitor incentive management module is to receive an indication that at least one visitor has logged in to the website.

6. The click value system of claim 3, wherein the visitor incentive management module is to track at least one visitor using at least one cookie.

7. The click value system of claim 4, wherein the visitor incentive management module is responsive to the indication to begin tracking how much advertisement revenue accrues to the website as a result of activity of at least one visitor on the web site.

8. The click value system of claim 3, wherein the visitor incentive management module is to receive a notification that the particular visitor has responded to at least one of the advertisements.

9. The click value system of claim 8, wherein the visitor incentive management module is responsive to the notification to aggregate the amounts of any revenue attributable to one or more responses of the particular visitor to the advertisements.

10. The click value system of claim 8, wherein the visitor incentive management module is responsive to the notification to compute the visitor incentive as a portion of revenue attributable to the one or more responses of the particular visitor to the advertisements.

11. The click value system of claim 3, wherein the click value determination unit is to receive a click notification that at least one visitor has responded to at least one of the advertisements.

12. The click value system of claim 8, wherein the click value determination unit is responsive to the notification to decrease a click value associated with the particular visitor when a prior notification indicates that the particular visitor previously responded to an identical advertisement from the advertisements.

13. The click value system of claim 2, wherein the feedback request unit is further to detect one or more responses from at least one visitor on at least one of the advertisements.

14. The click value system of claim 13, wherein the feedback request unit is further to associate the request for feedback uniquely with the response of the particular visitor.

15. The click value system of claim 1, wherein each click value is further based on a browsing history of the corresponding visitor.

16. The click value system of claim 14, wherein the feedback request unit is further to receive a reply to the request for feedback, and in response to this reply, provide a feedback notification to an advertiser incentive management module.

17. The click value system of claim 16, wherein the incentive administration unit includes an advertiser incentive management module to administer the advertiser incentives, and wherein the feedback request unit is further to provide the feedback notification to the advertiser incentive management module.

18. The click value system of claim 16, wherein the advertiser incentive management module is to provide the advertiser incentive to the advertiser in response to receiving the feedback notification.

19. The click value system of claim 16, wherein the reply indicates that the response of the particular visitor to the advertisement of the advertiser resulted in the purchase transaction.

20. The click value system of claim 16, wherein the web site is for, in response to receiving the reply, providing a purchase notification to the click value determination unit.

21. The click value system of claim 20, wherein the click value determination is for increasing a click value of the visitor in response to the purchase notification from the website.

22. The click value system of claim 16, wherein the advertiser incentive management module is to reduce the advertiser incentive provided to the advertiser in response to receiving the feedback notification when the advertiser incentive management module previously received another feedback notification that indicated the advertisement of the advertiser resulted in a previous purchase transaction.

23. The click value system of claim 2, wherein the incentive administration unit includes an advertiser incentive management module to administer the advertiser incentives.

24. The click value system of claim 1, wherein each click value further indicate a respective likelihood that the corresponding visitor may transact for particular goods or services offered through the web site.

25. The click value system of claim 1, wherein a first click value and a second click value of the click values are based at least in part on the respective purchase transaction histories of a first visitor and a second visitor with the website, and wherein the first click value is relatively higher than the second click value based at least in part on the purchase transaction histories indicating that the first visitor has conducted more frequent or more recent purchase transactions with the website than the second visitor.

26. The click value system of claim 15, wherein a first click value and a second click value of the click values are based at least in part on the respective browsing histories associated with a first visitor and a second visitor, and wherein the first click value is relatively higher than the second click value based at least in part on the browsing histories indicating that the first visitor has browsed the website more frequently or more recently than the second visitor.

27. The click value system of claim 15, wherein a first click value and a second click value are based at least in part on the respective browsing histories associated with a first visitor and a second visitor, and wherein the first click value is relatively higher than the second click value based at least in part on the browsing histories indicating that the first visitor has browsed the website for a longer period of time than the second visitor.

28. The click value system of claim 14, wherein the request for feedback is a request for the advertiser to indicate how long the particular visitor browsed an advertiser'"'"'s website after the response from the particular visitor.

29. The click value system of claim 1, wherein the advertisement selection unit is further to:

display the advertisement of the advertiser in a less prominent location on the web site than an additional advertisement when a monetary bid for the advertisement is less than a monetary bid for the additional advertisement from another advertiser;

or

display the advertisement in a more prominent location on the website than the additional advertisement when the monetary bid for the advertisement is more than the monetary bid for the additional advertisement.

30. The click value system of claim 1, wherein the advertisement selection unit further selects the advertisement of the advertisements for display to the one or more visitors based at least on one or more of a length of relationship between each advertiser and the website, visitor affinity of one or more visitors for each advertiser, a click-through rate of each advertiser, or amounts of purchase transactions for each advertiser through the website.

31. A click value system comprising:

one or more processors;

memory coupled to the one or more processors;

a click value determination unit, stored in the memory and executable on the one or more processors to compute a corresponding click value for each of a plurality of visitors to a website, each click value indicating a perceived business value associated with a corresponding visitor, and is based at least in part on a purchase transaction history of the corresponding visitor with the web site, the click value determination unit is to assign a higher click value to a specific visitor when the purchase transaction history of the specific visitors shows a number of purchase transactions that is more than one standard deviation above a mean number of transactions for visitors to the website, and assign a lower click value when the number of purchase transactions is at the mean number of transactions or less than one standard deviation below the mean number of transactions for the visitors to the website;

a feedback request unit to send a request for feedback to an advertiser who provided an advertisement that elicited a response by a particular visitor, the request for feedback requesting information on whether the response led to a purchase transaction that is recorded in a purchase transaction history of the particular visitor; and

a transaction history database, stored in the memory, for storing respective purchase transaction histories associated with the plurality of visitors for computing respective click values by the click value determination unit.

32. The click value system of claim 31, further comprising an incentive administration unit to manage visitor incentives provided to the plurality of visitors of the website and to manage advertiser incentives provided to advertisers who present advertisements via the website.

33. The click value system of claim 32, wherein the feedback request unit is further to receive a reply to the request for feedback, and in response to this reply, provide a feedback notification to an advertiser incentive management module.

34. The click value system of claim 33, wherein the advertiser incentive management module is to reduce the advertiser incentive provided to the advertiser in response to receiving the feedback notification when the advertiser incentive management module previously received another feedback notification that indicated the advertisement of the advertiser resulted in a previous purchase transaction.

35. The click value system of claim 31, wherein each click value is further based on a browsing history of the corresponding visitor.

36. A click value system comprising:

one or more processors;

memory coupled to the one or more processors;

a click value determination unit, stored in the memory and executable on the one or more processors to compute a corresponding click value for each of a plurality of visitors to a website, each click value is a non-monetary value that indicates a likelihood that a corresponding visitor is to purchase an item, and is based at least in part on a purchase transaction history of the corresponding visitor with the website;

an advertisement selection unit to receive monetary bids from advertisers for displaying advertisements to one or more visitors having a designated click value, and to select an advertisement of the advertisements for display to the one or more visitors having the designated click value based at least on an amount of each monetary bid; and

an incentive administration unit to manage an advertiser incentive provided to an advertiser associated with the advertisement that is selected for display, the incentive administration unit to reduce the advertiser incentive that is provided to the advertiser in response to a feedback notification that indicates that the advertisement resulted in a purchase transaction when the incentive administration unit previously received another feedback notification that indicated the advertisement of the advertiser resulted in a previous purchase transaction.

37. The click value system of claim 36, wherein each click value is further based on a browsing history of the corresponding visitor.

38. The click value system of claim 36, wherein the incentive administration unit further manages visitor incentives provided to the plurality of visitors of the website.

39. The click value system of claim 38, further comprising a feedback request unit to track purchase transactions of the plurality of visitors resulting from at least one of the advertisements, and to provide one or more feedback notifications to the incentive administration unit.

40. The click value system of claim 36, wherein the advertisement selection unit further selects the advertisement of the advertisements for display to the one or more visitors based at least on one or more of a length of relationship between each advertiser and the website, visitor affinity of one or more visitors for each advertiser, a click-through rate of each advertiser, or amounts of purchase transactions for each advertiser through the website.

41. The click value system of claim 36, wherein the purchase transactions of a specific visitor are in a particular category of goods and services and the click value computed for the specific visitor is for the particular category, and the click value determination unit is further to project an additional click value for the specific visitor for a different category of goods or services based at least in part on the purchase transactions of the specific visitor in the particular category.