Systems, methods, and media for mobile advertising conversion attribution

• US 9,552,590 B2
• Filed: 10/01/2013
• Issued: 01/24/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/01/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dstillery, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Dstillery, Inc.
• Inventors: O'Reilly, Thomas
• Primary Examiner(s): Sittner, Matthew T
• Application Number:
  US14/043,610
• Publication Number:
  US 20140095297A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,211 Days
• Field of Search: 705/14.45, 705/14.51, 705/14.55, 705/26.3, 705/14.46, 705/14.53, 705/14.43, 705/14.73, 705/14.64, 705/30, 705/14.41, 705/14.66
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0246 Traffic
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0267 Wireless devices

Abstract

A method for mobile advertising conversion attribution can include receiving, for example, at a conversion tracking server, a signal from a user device indicating that a conversion tag has been received. The signal can include a segment identifier, and a user agent (UA) and/or an internet protocol (IP) address of the user device. A conversion identifier can be defined that is associated with the segment identifier, the UA, and/or the IP address. The conversion identifier can be stored in a first database along with an indication of when the conversion identifier was received. A second database can be searched for an advertisement identifier that matches the conversion identifier and was received within a predetermined period of time before the conversion identifier. If a match between the conversion identifier and an advertisement identifier is located, a signal indicating that an advertisement was converted can be sent to an advertiser.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

generating, at a first time and at a conversion tracking device, an advertisement tag configured to be received by a user device;

receiving, at the conversion tracking device and at a first time, an indication of receipt of the advertisement tag by the user device, the indication of receipt of the advertising tag including at least one of a user agent or an IP address;

defining a first database entry including an association between the first time and at least one of the user agent or the IP address, the first database entry defined by the conversion tracking device;

receiving, at the conversion tracking device and at a second time, an indication of receipt of a conversion tag by the user device, the indication of receipt of the conversion tag including at least one of the user agent or the IP address, the indication of receipt of the conversion tag devoid of data that was stored by the user device in response to receipt of the advertisement tag by the user device;

defining a second database entry including an association between the second time and at least one of the user agent or the IP address, the second database entry defined by the conversion tracking device;

identifying, by the conversion tracking device, a conversion event based on a comparison of the first database entry and the second database entry, such that the conversion event is identified independent of data stored by the user device; and

sending, from the conversion tracking device and in response to identifying the conversion event, a signal reporting the conversion event to an advertiser.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the indication of receipt of the advertisement tag includes both the user agent and the IP address, and

the indication of receipt of the conversion tag includes both the user agent and the IP address.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein:

receiving the indication of receipt of the advertisement tag includes receiving a segment identifier,

the first database entry includes an association between the segment identifier, the first time, and at least one of the user agent or the IP address,

the second database entry includes an indication of the segment identifier.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein:

receiving the indication of receipt of the advertisement tag includes receiving a first segment identifier,

the first database entry includes an association between the first segment identifier, the first time, and at least one of the user agent or the IP address,

receiving the indication of receipt of the conversion tag includes receiving a second segment identifier,

the second database entry includes an association between the second segment identifier, the second time, and at least one of the user agent or the IP address,

the identifying the conversion event includes matching the first segment identifier to the second segment identifier.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein

receiving the indication of receipt of the advertisement tag includes receiving a first segment identifier,

the first database entry includes an association between the first segment identifier, the first time, and at least one of the user agent or the IP address,

receiving the indication of receipt of the conversion tag includes receiving a second segment identifier,

the second database entry includes an association between the second segment identifier, the second time, and at least one of the user agent or the IP address, and

the identifying includes:

matching the first segment identifier to the second segment identifier,

matching at least one of the user agent or the IP address of the first database entry to at least one of the user agent or the IP address of the second database entry, and

determining that the first time and the second time are within a predetermined window of time.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the advertisement tag includes configuring the advertisement tag to cause the user device to send the indication of receipt of the advertisement tag to the conversion tracking device when the advertisement tag is received by the user device.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of receipt of the conversion tag does not include an indication of the advertisement tag.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein defining the first database entry includes generating a hash of at least one of the user agent or the IP address.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the advertisement tag includes configuring the advertisement tag to cause the user device to send the indication of receipt of the advertisement tag when the advertisement tag is received by the user device, the indication of receipt of the advertisement including a first segment identifier, the method further comprising:

generating the conversion tag, the conversion tag configured to cause the user device to send the indication of receipt of the conversion tag to the conversion tracking device when the advertisement tag is received by the user device, the indication of receipt of the conversion tag including a second segment identifier.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the advertisement tag is associated with an advertisement campaign and the conversion tag is associated with at least one of a pageview, a registration, a coupon use, a survey response, or a purchase associated with the advertisement campaign.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of receipt of the conversion tag does not include an indication of receipt of the advertisement tag.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the first database entry does not include data associated with a cookie.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of receipt of the conversion tag does not include data associated with a cookie.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the advertisement tag is not configured to cause the user device to store a unique identifier.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of receipt of the conversion tag is received in response to the conversion tag being sent to the user device such that the conversion tag executes on a processor of the user device to cause the user device to send a signal representing at least one of the user agent or IP address.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of receipt of the conversion tag is received in response to the conversion tag being sent to the user device such that the conversion tag executes on a processor of the user device, the conversion tag being configured such that when the conversion tag executes on the processor of the user device, the user device does not send any data that was stored by the user device in response to receipt of the advertisement tag.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the user device is a mobile computing entity.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the user device is a mobile computing entity configured to disallow storage of data associated with the advertisement tag.

19. A non-transitory processor-readable medium storing code representing instructions to be executed by a processor, the code comprising code to cause the processor to:

receive, at a user device, an advertisement tag including a first segment identifier, the advertisement tag being defined by a compute device;

send, from the user device and to the compute device at a first time and in response to receiving the advertisement tag, the first segment identifier and at least one of an indication of a user agent or an indication of an IP address such that the compute device defines an advertisement identifier associated with the first time and at least one of the first segment identifier, the user agent, or the IP address;

receive, at the user device, a conversion tag including a second segment identifier; and

send, from the user device and to the compute device at a second time after the first time and in response to receiving the conversion tag, the second segment identifier and at least one of the indication of the user agent or the indication of the IP address such that the conversion tracking server (1) defines a conversion identifier associated with the second time and at least one of the second segment identifier, the user agent, or the IP address, (2) identifies a conversion based on a match of the conversion identifier to the advertisement identifier, the conversion identified independently of data stored by the user device, and (3) sends a signal indicating that the conversion occurred to an advertiser,

the code to cause the processor to send the second segment identifier to the compute device does not include code to cause the processor to send data that was stored by the user device in response to receipt of the advertisement tag by the user device.

20. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 19, wherein:

the advertisement tag is associated with an advertisement,

the conversion tag is associated with at least one of a purchase or a view associated with the advertisement, and

the code to identify the conversion includes code to verify that the second time is within 24 hours of the first time.

21. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 19, further comprising code to cause the processor to reject a request to store information associated with the advertisement tag.

22. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the code to cause the processor to receive the advertisement tag does not include code to cause the processor to store a cookie.