Monitoring clickstream behavior of viewers of online advertisements and search results

• US 9,105,028 B2
• Filed: 06/20/2011
• Issued: 08/11/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/10/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: comScore, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Compete, Inc. (comScore, Inc.)
• Inventors: Richard, Eric R., Moores, Lauren S, Motienko, Alina V., Johnson, Kyle S.
• Primary Examiner(s): ALVESTEFFER, STEPHEN D
• Application Number:
  US13/163,823
• Publication Number:
  US 20110307331A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,513 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0246 Traffic

Abstract

An aspect of the present invention relates to tracking and analyzing a computer user'"'"'s behavior after viewing a particular search result or a particular advertisement to assess the impact of having viewed the search result or advertisement.

Claims

1. A method of assessing a search result impact on a user, the method comprising:

receiving web browser click events from a data collection agent (DCA), as a click-stream, at a data collection server (DCS), to record and provide user on-line activity, wherein

the DCA comprises a browser event plug-in that, when running within a web browser on a client device;

detects web browser click event data across a plurality of web sites, wherein the web browser click event data relates to event data about the search result;

produces transformed web browser click events by transforming the web browser click event data to remove user personal information from the web browser click event data; and

transmits the transformed web browser click events, as a click-stream, to the DCS;

determining, using a calculation facility, which of the web browser click events are from a user who has viewed the search result;

comparing, using the calculation facility, a user on-line activity for at least a first user who has viewed the search result to a user on-line activity for at least a second user who has not viewed the search result; and

determining an impact of the search result on the first user'"'"'s on-line activity based on the comparison, the impact including a difference in subsequent web browser click event data of the first user after viewing the search result as compared to the second user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the comparison is of a population of users who have viewed the search result with a population of users who have not viewed the searched result.

3. A method of assessing an advertisement impact, comprising:

receiving web browser click events from a data collection agent (DCA), as a click-stream, at a data collection server (DCS), to record and provide user on-line activity, wherein

the DCA comprises a browser event plug-in that, when running within a web browser on a client device;

detects web browser click event data across a plurality of web sites, wherein the web browser click event data relates to event data about the advertisement;

produces transformed web browser click events by transforming the web browser click event data to remove user personal information from the web browser click event data; and

transmits the transformed web browser click events, as a click-stream, to the DCS;

determining, using a calculation facility, which of the web browser click events are from a user who has viewed the advertisement;

comparing, using the calculation facility, a user on-line activity for at least a first user who has viewed the advertisement to a user on-line activity for at least a second user who has not viewed the advertisement; and

determining an impact of the advertisement on the first user'"'"'s on-line activity based on the comparison of the user on-line activity, the impact including a difference in subsequent web browser click event data of the first user after viewing the advertisement as compared to the second user.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the comparison is of a population of users who have viewed the advertisement with a population of users who have not viewed the advertisement.