System and method to merge pay-for-performance advertising models

• US 9,202,219 B2
• Filed: 03/09/2005
• Issued: 12/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/16/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thryv, Inc. (Mudrick Capital Management LP)
• Original Assignee: YellowPages.com LLC (Mudrick Capital Management LP)
• Inventors: Van Der Linden, Sean, Faber, Scott, Halstead, Mark, Altberg, Ebbe
• Primary Examiner(s): VANDERHORST, MARIA VICTORIA
• Application Number:
  US11/077,516
• Publication Number:
  US 20060184417A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,919 Days
• Field of Search: 705/14
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0247 Calculate past, present or future revenues
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0267 Wireless devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions

Abstract

Methods and apparatuses for merging different types of pay for performance advertisements. In one embodiment, a method includes: determining an indicator of potential revenue for a party from price information of a list of entities, which includes first price information for a first type of advertisements and second price information for a second type of advertisements; and sorting the list of entities based at least partially on the indicator of potential revenue. In one embodiment, a method includes: converting price information for an advertisement of a first type to equivalent price information for a second type of advertisements. In one embodiment, a method includes: determining automatically, based on a call bid amount for a pay per call advertisement, a click bid amount for a pay per click advertisement to provide a phone number of the pay per call advertisement.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

transmitting by a server system a plurality of transmissions via a network to end-user devices associated with advertising entities to facilitate a user interface and/or an application programming interface of the server system to prompt specification of information about the advertising entities;

processing by the server system data uploaded from the end-user devices via the network from the end-user devices and storing the data in a database system hosted by the server system, the data comprising respective information about the advertising entities, advertisements respectively associated with the advertising entities, and respective price information for the advertisements respectively associated with the advertising entities, the processing the data the storing data comprising identifying respective communication references for real-time communication connections directed to the advertising entities, and the storing the data comprising respectively associating the respective communication references with the advertising entities to facilitate establishment of real-time communication connections with the advertising entities;

receiving, over a voice communications channel, via an interactive voice response telephony voice portal, a voice communication from a consumer, the voice communication comprising a request for a listing, wherein the voice portal utilizes voice recognition techniques to receive the request, wherein the request corresponds to a first category of service and/or product;

processing the request, by the server system, to determine based at least in part on the request for a listing, a subset of the advertising entities, the determining comprising retrieving a subset of information stored in the database system based at least in part on the request and the first category of service and/or product, the subset of information corresponding to the subset of the advertising entities;

determining, by the server system, an indicator of potential revenue for the first category of service and/or product based at least in part on;

tracked data for conversions of advertisements corresponding to the first category; and

a subset of the price information for the subset of advertising entities retrieved from the database system based at least in part on merging i) a first type of advertisements that have performance measured based at least in part on a first type of consumer actions as events responsive to the first type of advertisements and ii) a second type of advertisements that have performance measured based at least in part on a second type of consumer actions as events responsive to the second type of advertisements, the subset of the price information including first price information for the first type of advertisements and second price information for the second type of advertisements, wherein;

the first type of consumer actions is different from the second type of consumer actions;

one or both of the first type of consumer actions and the second type of consumer actions corresponds to real-time communications;

the indicator of potential revenue is in terms of price information for advertisements of the first type; and

the second price information for the second type of advertisements is converted to equivalent price information for advertisements of the first type according to a conversion factor between price information for the first type of advertisements and the second type of advertisements;

sorting, by the server system, the plurality of entities into an ordered list based at least partially on the indicator of potential revenue for the first category of service and/or product;

presenting, over the voice communications channel, via the voice portal, an advertisement of a top-ranked entity of the ordered list to the consumer, wherein the voice portal utilizes text to speech techniques to present the advertisement to the consumer;

after the presenting the advertisement via the voice portal, processing a selection corresponding to the advertisement, the selection received over the voice communications channel from the consumer; and

in response to the selection, initiating by the server system a first real-time communication connection using a first communication reference retrieved from the database system and associated with the top-ranked entity.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first type of advertisements are pay per call advertisements and the second type of advertisements are paid call service listings.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

wherein the price information is for the advertisements of the list of entities;

the indicator of potential revenue is partially determined based on likelihood of measurable and chargeable events resulting from the advertisements of the list of entities.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the first type of advertisement is based on pay per call;

and the second type of advertisement is based on paid call service; and

the measurable and chargeable event includes;

calls for the first type of advertisement; and

money paid for services for the second type of advertisement.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the price information is for one of services and goods.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the price information comprises at least one of:

a price for a product;

a price for a service; and

a price for the advertisement submitted by one of the bidding advertising entities to sell one of a product and a service.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the conversion factor is based on a ratio of performance conversion rates between the first type of advertisement and the second type of advertisement.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the conversion factor is manually specified.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicator of potential revenue is further based on costs for the first type of advertisement and the second type of advertisement.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicator of potential revenue is further based on revenue sharing between a first party and a second party.

11. A tangible non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a server system, cause the server system to:

transmit a plurality of transmissions via a network to end-user devices associated with advertising entities to facilitate a user interface and/or an application programming interface of the server system to prompt specification of information about the advertising entities;

process data uploaded from the end-user devices via the network from the end-user devices and store the data in a database system hosted by the server system, the data comprising respective information about the advertising entities, advertisements respectively associated with the advertising entities, and respective price information for the advertisements respectively associated with the advertising entities, the processing the data the storing data comprising identifying respective communication references for real-time communication connections directed to the advertising entities, and the storing the data comprising respectively associating the respective communication references with the advertising entities to facilitate establishment of real-time communication connections with the advertising entities;

receive, over a voice communications channel, via an interactive voice response telephony voice portal, a voice communication from a consumer, the voice communication comprising a request for a listing, wherein the voice portal utilizes voice recognition techniques to receive the request, wherein the request corresponds to a first category of service and/or product;

processing the request to determine, based at least in part on the request for a listing, a subset of the advertising entities, the determining comprising retrieving a subset of information stored in the database system based at least in part on the request and the first category of service and/or product, the subset of information corresponding to the subset of the advertising entities;

determining an indicator of potential revenue for the first category of service and/or product-based at least in part on;

tracked data for conversions of advertisements corresponding to the first category; and

a subset of the price information for the subset of advertising entities retrieved from the database system and based at least in part on merging i) a first type of advertisements that have performance measured based at least in part on a first type of consumer actions as events responsive to the first type of advertisements and ii) a second type of advertisements that have performance measured based at least in part on a second type of consumer actions as events responsive to the second type of advertisements, the subset of the price information including first price information for the first type of advertisements and second price information for the second type of advertisements, wherein;

the first type of consumer actions is different from the second type of consumer actions;

one or both of the first type of consumer actions and the second type of consumer actions corresponds to real-time communications;

the indicator of potential revenue is in terms of price information for advertisements of the first type; and

the second price information for the second type of advertisements is converted to equivalent price information for advertisements of the first type according to a conversion factor between price information for the first type of advertisements and the second type of advertisements;

sorting the plurality of entities into an ordered list based at least partially on the indicator of potential revenue for the first category of service and/or product;

presenting, over the voice communications channel, via the voice portal, an advertisement of a top-ranked entity of the ordered list to the consumer, wherein the voice portal utilizes text to speech techniques to present the advertisement to the consumer;

after the presenting the advertisement via the voice portal, process a selection corresponding to the advertisement, the selection received over the voice communications channel from the consumer; and

in response to the selection, initiate a first real-time communication connection using a first communication reference retrieved from the database system and associated with the top-ranked entity.

12. A system, comprising:

a server system comprising one or more servers and hosting a database system, the server system further comprising memory coupled to the one or more servers and storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more servers, cause the server system to;

transmit a plurality of transmissions via a network to end-user devices associated with advertising entities to facilitate a user interface and/or an application programming interface of the server system to prompt specification of information about the advertising entities;

process data uploaded from the end-user devices via the network from the end-user devices and store the data in the database system, the data comprising respective information about the advertising entities, advertisements respectively associated with the advertising entities, and respective price information for the advertisements respectively associated with the advertising entities, the processing the data the storing data comprising identifying respective communication references for real-time communication connections directed to the advertising entities, and the storing the data comprising respectively associating the respective communication references with the advertising entities to facilitate establishment of real-time communication connections with the advertising entities;

receive, over a voice communications channel, via an interactive voice response telephony voice portal, a voice communication from a consumer, the voice communication comprising a request for a listing, wherein the voice portal utilizes voice recognition techniques to receive the request, wherein the request corresponds to a first category of service and/or product;

processing the request to determine, based at least in part on the request for a listing, a subset of the advertising entities, the determining comprising retrieving a subset of information stored in the database system based at least in part on the request and the first category of service and/or product, the subset of information corresponding to the subset of the advertising entities;

determine an indicator of potential revenue for the first category of service and/or product-based at least in part on;

tracked data for conversions of advertisements corresponding to the first category; and

a subset of the price information for the subset of advertising entities retrieved from the database system and based at least in part on merging i) a first type of advertisements that have performance measured based at least in part on a first type of consumer actions as events responsive to the first type of advertisements and ii) a second type of advertisements that have performance measured based at least in part on a second type of consumer actions as events responsive to the second type of advertisements, the subset of the price information including first price information for the first type of advertisements and second price information for the second type of advertisements, wherein;

the first type of consumer actions is different from the second type of consumer actions;

one or both of the first type of consumer actions and the second type of consumer actions corresponds to real-time communications;

the indicator of potential revenue is in terms of price information for advertisements of the first type; and

the second price information for the second type of advertisements is converted to equivalent price information for advertisements of the first type according to a conversion factor between price information for the first type of advertisements and the second type of advertisements;

sort the plurality of entities into an ordered list based at least partially on the indicator of potential revenue for the first category of service and/or product;

present, over the voice communications channel, via the voice portal, an advertisement of a top-ranked entity of the ordered list to the consumer, wherein the voice portal utilizes text to speech techniques to present the advertisement to the consumer;

after the presenting the advertisement via the voice portal, process a selection corresponding to the advertisement, the selection received over the voice communications channel from the consumer; and

in response to the selection, initiate a first real-time communication connection using a first communication reference retrieved from the database system and associated with the top-ranked entity.