Methods and apparatuses to manage multiple advertisements

• US 9,202,217 B2
• Filed: 11/03/2006
• Issued: 12/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/06/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thryv, Inc. (Mudrick Capital Management LP)
• Original Assignee: YellowPages.com LLC (Mudrick Capital Management LP)
• Inventors: Altberg, Ebbe, Faber, Scott, Hirson, Ron, Van Der Linden, Sean, Yang, Virginia Hong-Jia
• Primary Examiner(s): Alvarez, Raquel
• Application Number:
  US11/556,668
• Publication Number:
  US 20070067219A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,315 Days
• Field of Search: 705/14.71, 705/14.52, 705/14.69, 705/14.42, 705/14.43
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0243 Comparative campaigns
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0244 Optimization
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/00 Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/09 Third party charged communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/51 for resellers, retailers or service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/68 Payment of value-added services
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0192 Sponsored, subsidised calls via advertising, e.g. calling cards with ads or connecting to special ads, free calling time by purchasing goods
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0196 Payment of value-added services, mainly when their charges are added on the telephone bill, e.g. payment of non-telecom services, e-commerce, on-line banking
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/54 Resellers-retail or service providers billing, e.g. agreements with telephone service operator, activation, charging/recharging of accounts
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/66 Third party billing, i.e. third party can also be the predetermined telephone line of the caller if he is calling from another telephone set

Abstract

Systems and methods to facilitate the management of multiple pay for performance advertisements. In one embodiment, a method includes: generating a user interface to show a plurality of advertisements simultaneously and to allow editing of any of the plurality of advertisements; and updating an advertisement database according to input received in the user interface. In one embodiment, the each advertisement of the plurality of advertisements is charged for according to a price bid in response to a communication lead generated from the advertisement. In one embodiment, the plurality of advertisements are selected from advertisements of more than one user.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

generating, by a server system, advertising content for a plurality of advertisements and storing the plurality of advertisements stored in an advertisement database of the server system, where;

a respective reference is assigned to each advertisement of the plurality of advertisements, the respective reference facilitating real time communication connections between communication devices based at least in part on a Voice over Internet Protocol connection; and

The plurality of advertisements corresponds to a plurality of advertisers;

tracking, by the server system, advertisement performance of the plurality of advertisements based at least in part on the respective references and compiling advertisement performance data corresponding to the plurality of advertisements and the plurality of advertisers;

generating and transmitting, by the server system, a file to an end-user device to facilitate displaying a user interface, via an application of the end-user device, to allow display of i) the advertisement performance data and ii) competitor advertisement attributes and iii) to allow selection of user-selectable options corresponding to advertisement attributes for editing of the plurality of advertisements, where;

the advertisement performance data comprises statistics indicating advertisement performance of the plurality of advertisements for a first time period and a comparison of the advertisement performance of the plurality of advertisements for the first time period to previous advertisement performance of the plurality of advertisements for a previous time period;

the competitor advertisement attributes comprise different respective attributes of competitors correlated to each advertisement of the plurality of advertisements; and

the generating and transmitting of the file is responsive to receiving, by the server system, a signal from the end-user device indicating activation of a link displayed via the application of the end-user device;

receiving, by the server system, a first transmission indicating user input selecting a user-selectable option corresponding to the advertisement attributes;

consequent to processing the first transmission, causing, by the server system, the user interface to present a representation of the plurality of advertisements simultaneously via the application of the end-user device to allow editing of more than one advertisement of the advertisements of the plurality of advertisements, wherein the user interface comprises editable fields for the advertisement attributes selected according to the user input; and

processing, by the server system, a second transmission indicating changes to the more than one advertisement of the plurality of advertisements and updating the advertisement database, in response to a user indication to the user interface.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface comprises a hypertext markup language document.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the hypertext markup language document comprises a spreadsheet showing a plurality of attributes of the plurality of advertisements.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving user input selecting the plurality of advertisements of more than one user, prior to the causing of the user interface to present the plurality of advertisements.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a feedback indicating whether there is an error in updating an advertisement in response to input received in the user interface.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface comprises a field to indicate a status of a previous update to a first advertisement and a field to allow further editing of attributes of the first advertisement.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface allows selection of more than one user.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

displaying statistics of advertisements of the more than one user in the user interface to allow selection of a subset of the advertisements of the more than one user for editing.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the user interface further allows selection of user attributes for editing of the more than one user.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the advertisement attributes include at least one of bid price, advertisement category, description, service area, status, phone number, or business name.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface includes a plurality of fields for associating image files with the plurality of advertisements, each of the plurality of fields providing a set of selection options to select one image file from a set of image files in a server.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

updating the set of selection options in the user interface for a first field of the plurality of fields after receiving an uploaded image file at the server.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

causing the user interface to show a plurality of users simultaneously and allow editing of an attribute of any of the plurality of users.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the attribute is one of a user name, password, street address, name, phone number, company name, email address, or payment information.

15. A non-transitory machine readable medium containing instructions which when executed on a server system cause the server system to:

generate advertising content for a plurality of advertisements and store the plurality of advertisements stored in an advertisement database of the server system, where;

a respective reference is assigned to each advertisement of the plurality of advertisements, the respective reference facilitating real time communication connections between communication devices based at least in part on a Voice over Internet Protocol connection; and

the plurality of advertisements corresponds to a plurality of advertisers;

track advertisement performance of the plurality of advertisements based at least in part on the respective references and compile advertisement performance data corresponding to the plurality of advertisements and the plurality of advertisers;

generate and transmit a file to an end-user device to facilitate displaying a user interface, via an application of the end-user device, to allow display of i) the advertisement performance data and ii) competitor advertisement attributes and iii) to allow selection of user-selectable options corresponding to advertisement attributes for editing of the plurality of advertisements, where;

the advertisement performance data comprises statistics indicating advertisement performance of the plurality of advertisements for a first time period and a comparison of the advertisement performance of the plurality of advertisements for the first time period to previous advertisement performance of the plurality of advertisements for a previous time period;

the competitor advertisement attributes comprise different respective attributes of competitors correlated to each advertisement of the plurality of advertisements; and

the generating and transmitting of the file is responsive to receiving, by the server system, a signal from the end-user device indicating activation of a link displayed via the application of the end-user device;

receive a first transmission indicating user input selecting a user-selectable option corresponding to the advertisement attributes for editing of more than one advertisement of the plurality of advertisements;

consequent to processing the first transmission, causing the user interface to present a representation of the plurality of advertisements simultaneously via the application of the end-user device to allow editing of the more than one advertisement of the plurality of advertisements, wherein the user interface includes editable fields for the advertisement attributes selected according to the user input; and

process a second transmission indicating changes to the more than one advertisement of the plurality of advertisements and updating the advertisement database, in response to a user indication to the user interface.

16. A system, comprising:

a server system coupled to one or more network interfaces to facilitate access to a communication network, and memory coupled to one or more servers of the server system and storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more servers, cause the server system to;

generate advertising content for a plurality of advertisements and store the plurality of advertisements stored in an advertisement database of the server system, where;

a respective reference is assigned to each advertisement of the plurality of advertisements, the respective reference facilitating real time communication connections between communication devices based at least in part on a Voice over Internet Protocol connection; and

the plurality of advertisements corresponds to a plurality of advertisers;

track advertisement performance of the plurality of advertisements based at least in part on the respective references and compile advertisement performance data corresponding to the plurality of advertisements and the plurality of advertisers;

generate and transmit a file to an end-user device to facilitate displaying a user interface, via an application of the end-user device, to allow display of i) the advertisement performance data and ii) competitor advertisement attributes and iii) to allow selection of user-selectable options corresponding to advertisement attributes for editing of the plurality of advertisements, where;

the advertisement performance data comprises statistics indicating advertisement performance of the plurality of advertisements for a first time period and a comparison of the advertisement performance of the plurality of advertisements for the first time period to previous advertisement performance of the plurality of advertisements for a previous time period;

the competitor advertisement attributes comprise different respective attributes of competitors correlated to each advertisement of the plurality of advertisements; and

the generating and transmitting of the file is responsive to receiving, by the server system, a signal from the end-user device indicating activation of a link displayed via the application of the end-user device;

receive a first transmission indicating user input selecting a user-selectable option corresponding to the advertisement attributes for editing of more than one advertisement of the plurality of advertisements;

consequent to processing the first transmission, causing the a user interface to present a representation of the plurality of advertisements simultaneously via the application of the end-user device to allow editing of the more than one advertisement of the plurality of advertisements, wherein the user interface includes editable fields for the advertisement attributes selected according to the user input; and

process a second transmission indicating changes to the more than one advertisement of the plurality of advertisements and updating the advertisement database, in response to a user indication to the user interface.