Assigning slots to content in a pipeline

• US 9,928,224 B1
• Filed: 01/30/2015
• Issued: 03/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 02/06/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Days, Adam Lloyd, Johnson, Adam Brent, Fakhari, Yashar Dehkharghani, Sutariya, Mehul Gordhanbhai
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ludwig, Matthew
• Application Number:
  US14/609,799
• Time in Patent Office: 1,152 Days
• Field of Search: 715204, 715234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data

Abstract

Disclosed are various embodiments for assigning user interface widgets to page slots associated with a page pipeline. In response to a request to generate a content page, content placement requests are then received from user interface widgets. The page slots are associated with a placement value indicating a value of the page slot relative to other page slots in the page template and can be weighted based upon their location in a page pipeline. The highest ranked user interface widgets according to an effectiveness metric or placement score are scheduled for placement in the content page.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying a program, that when executed in a computing device, causes the computing device to at least:

obtain a request to generate a content page on behalf of a user;

identify a behavior pipeline in which to place the user based at least in part upon at least one arrival condition associated with the request, the behavior pipeline comprising a plurality of pipeline stages, wherein individual ones of the plurality of pipeline stages are associated with a plurality of content slots, the plurality of content slots being ranked according to a placement value;

generate a ranking of a plurality of user interface widgets according to an overall probability that a terminal event will occur, the overall probability based on at least one of a first probability that the user will progress to the terminal event or a second probability that the user will progress to a subsequent one of the plurality of pipeline stages, the terminal event comprising at least one of;

adding a product to a virtual shopping cart, purchasing the product, following a hyperlink, or entering another page pipeline;

match the plurality of content slots with at least a subset of the plurality of user interface widgets according to the ranking and the placement value; and

generate the content page with the subset of the plurality of user interface widgets corresponding to a respective plurality of content slots of the content page.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the program further causes the computing device to at least:

obtain a second request to generate a subsequent content page corresponding to the subsequent one of the plurality of pipeline stages;

generate a second ranking of a remaining plurality of user interface widgets according to the overall probability that the terminal event will occur; and

generate the subsequent content page with a subset of the remaining plurality of user interface widgets corresponding to a respective remaining plurality of content slots of the subsequent content page.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein a footer content slot of the plurality of content slots is associated with a lowest placement value.

4. A system, comprising:

a data store; and

at least one computing device in communication with the data store, the at least one computing device configured to at least;

receive a request to generate a content page on behalf of a user;

identify a page pipeline in which to place the user based at least in part upon at least one arrival condition associated with the request, the page pipeline comprising a plurality of content pages, individual ones of the plurality of content pages being associated with a respective page template comprising a plurality of page slots, wherein individual ones of the plurality of page slots are ranked according to a placement value;

generate a ranking of a plurality of user interface widgets according to an overall probability that a terminal event will occur, the overall probability based on at least one of a first probability that the user will progress to the terminal event or a second probability that the user will progress to a subsequent one of the plurality of content pages, the terminal event comprising at least one of;

adding a product to a virtual shopping cart, purchasing the product, following a hyperlink, or entering another page pipeline;

match the plurality of page slots with at least a subset of the plurality of user interface widgets according to the ranking and the placement value; and

generate the content page with the subset of the plurality of user interface widgets.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the placement value is based at least in part upon the overall probability that the terminal event will occur.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to at least:

obtain another request to generate a subsequent content page associated with the subsequent one of the plurality of content pages;

match the plurality of page slots of the subsequent one of the plurality of content pages with a subset of a remainder of the plurality of user interface widgets according to the ranking and the placement value; and

generate the subsequent content page with the subset of the remainder of the plurality of user interface widgets.

7. The system of claim 4, wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to at least:

place the user in a first page pipeline with a first content page of the plurality of content pages based at least in part on a first value of an arrival condition of the at least one arrival condition; and

place the user in a second page pipeline with the first content page of the plurality of content pages based at least in part on a second value of the arrival condition.

8. The system of claim 4, wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to at least:

obtain a second request to generate a new content page outside of the page pipeline;

identify a new page pipeline based at least in part upon a second at least one arrival condition associated with the second request to generate the new content page, the new page pipeline comprising a plurality of other content pages, ones of the plurality of other content pages being associated with a page template comprising a plurality of other page slots, the plurality of other page slots being ranked according to the placement value;

generate a second ranking of a plurality of other user interface widgets according to the overall probability;

match the plurality of other page slots with at least a subset of the plurality of other user interface widgets according to the second ranking and the placement value; and

generate the new content page with the subset of the plurality of other user interfaces.

9. The system of claim 4, wherein the at least one arrival condition comprises at least one of a referrer link, a referrer page, shopping cart data, user profile data, session data, cookie data, or a user account associated with the request.

10. The system of claim 4, wherein the overall probability is based at least in part upon at least one of a user profile of the user or the at least one arrival condition.

11. The system of claim 4, wherein the at least one computing device is further configured to at least generate an event informing the plurality of user interface widgets of the request to generate the content page, wherein at least one of the plurality of user interface widgets is configured to submit a second request to schedule content within the content page.

12. A method, comprising:

identifying, via at least one computing device, an arrival condition associated with a request to generate a content page;

identifying, via the at least one computing device, a page pipeline corresponding to the arrival condition, the page pipeline comprising a plurality of content pages, individual ones of the plurality of content pages being associated with a respective page template comprising a plurality of page slots, the plurality of page slots being associated with a placement value;

generating, via the at least one computing device, at least one ranking of a plurality of user interface widgets according to an overall probability that a terminal event will occur, the overall probability based at least in part on a first probability that a user will progress to the terminal event or a second probability that the user will progress to a subsequent one of the plurality of content pages, the terminal event comprising at least one of;

adding a product to a virtual shopping cart, purchasing the product, following a hyperlink, or entering another page pipeline; and

matching, via the at least one computing device, at least one of the plurality of page slots with a respective one of the plurality of user interface widgets based at least in part upon the at least one ranking and the placement value.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the placement value is based at least in part upon the overall probability that the terminal event will occur.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

generating, via the at least one computing device, the content page with a subset of the plurality of user interface widgets placed in respective ones of the plurality of page slots.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

replacing, via the at least one computing device, a failed user interface widget with a next highest ranking one of the plurality of user interface widgets, the failed user interface widget comprises one of the plurality of user interface widgets that encountered an error.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

matching, via the at least one computing device, a lower ranked subset of the plurality of page slots with a respective remaining user interface widget based at least in part upon the at least one ranking and the placement value, where the lower ranked subset comprises ones of the plurality of page slots associated with a placement value lower than the one of the plurality of page slots corresponding to the failed user interface widget.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving, via the at least one computing device, a second request to generate a subsequent content page associated with the subsequent one of the plurality of content pages;

generating, via the at least one computing device, a second ranking of the plurality of user interface widgets according to the overall probability; and

matching, via the at least one computing device, the plurality of page slots of a remainder of the subsequent one of the plurality of content pages with a subset of the plurality of user interface widgets according to the second ranking and the placement value.

18. The method of claim 12, wherein identifying the plurality of user interface widgets for placement within the page pipeline is based at least in part on the arrival condition.

19. The method of claim 12, wherein the overall probability is based at least in part upon at least one of a user profile of the user or arrival conditions of the user.

20. The method of claim 12, further comprising requesting, via the at least one computing device, markup language from each of the plurality of user interface widget matched for placement within the content page.