Assembling internet display pages with content provided from multiple servers after failure of one server

• US 10,672,039 B2
• Filed: 04/30/2014
• Issued: 06/02/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pulsepoint Incorporated (Pulsepoint Holdings LLC)
• Original Assignee: Pulsepoint Incorporated (Pulsepoint Holdings LLC)
• Inventors: Subramanian, Anand, Sarkar, Shanthi, Sterns, Jeremy
• Primary Examiner(s): Li, Sun M
• Application Number:
  US14/266,013
• Publication Number:
  US 20140236738A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,225 Days
• Field of Search: 705 1471, 705 1473, 705 1441
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0243 Comparative campaigns
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement

Abstract

Presented are embodiments of methods and systems that provide for Internet advertisement pricing and placement to be variably based on the advertisement'"'"'s performance within a given category of Internet media, while at the same time achieving predictable delivery and pricing for both advertisers and publishers. Techniques are presented where an advertiser'"'"'s online campaign will be pre-empted only for underperformance on its own merits, and not for its relative performance or price versus other advertisers. Further, techniques are presented for allowing publishers of advertisements to realize increased revenue from their high value media while using tag passbacks to secure a minimum reserve pricing of their choice.

Claims

1. An internet-based system for assembling content from multiple web servers for presentation at a web browser over the Internet, the system comprising:

a processor;

a nontransitory memory, having stored therein operating instructions programmed to cause the processor;

to receive ad tags from web publishers, an ad tag being a request for an ad to be delivered over the Internet to fill a region of a page, the page to be served over the Internet to a web browser for delivery to a user'"'"'s web browser, and to store the received ad tag into a nontransitory memory;

to evaluate the received ad tags against fulfillment rules in a fulfillment rule base, fulfillment rules in the fulfillment rule base having electronic records specifying respective test criteria and corresponding designators of ad content available to be delivered into the respective ad tags, the rules having respective test criteria against which to test received ad tags, and the ad content designators designating ad content to be provided in response to an ad tag satisfying the rule'"'"'s test criteria;

from among fulfillment rules whose test criteria are met by the received ad tags, to select respective ad content items associated with respective satisfied fulfillment rule(s), and to cause delivery of the selected ad content for integration into pages delivered from the publishers over the Internet, the delivery to web browsers specified by the respective ad tags;

for ad tags for which the evaluation finds that the ad tag fails all fulfillment rules'"'"' test criteria, to pass over the Internet a passback tag to the publisher, to the web browser, or to another ad placement computer, in any case, the passback tag being a request whose data requests an alternative attempt to identify ad content to be served over the Internet into the ad tag for integration into the page by the user'"'"'s browser as specified by the ad tag.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

the evaluating of received ad tags includes evaluating content of at least one of the page currently displayed on the computer display screen, and the content of a page previously displayed on the computer screen.

3. The system according to 1, wherein:

the passback tag is a modified copy of the ad tag passed in a modified form.

4. The system according to 1, wherein:

the passback of the passback tag includes passing the passback tag to the publisher'"'"'s internet page server.

5. The system according to 1, wherein:

the passback of the passback tag includes passing the passback tag to the user web browser.

6. The system according to 1, wherein:

the passback of the passback tag includes passing the passback tag to a third party content server.

7. The system according to 1, wherein:

the ad tag is subject to a minimum acceptable price set by the publisher, and the evaluation of an ad tag against the criteria results in failure if the maximum price among all content providers whose criteria otherwise meet the ad tag is below the minimum price set by the publisher.

8. The system according to 1, wherein:

the criteria for rules include a price term, and the evaluation of an ad tag against a rule'"'"'s criteria results in failure if the ad tag price is above a maximum price criterion of the rule.

9. The system according to 1, wherein:

the ad tag is received by an Open Purchase Order network, in which the programs are programmed to receive ad tags and provide content as specified by the rule of the satisfied criterion, without numerical limit.

10. The system of 1, further comprising:

a classification system operable to classify Internet ad traffic into performance groups, wherein advertisement performance within each performance group is measured independently of advertisement performance in other performance groups;

a nontransitory memory including an inventory of advertisements;

wherein the rules in the rule base are operable to match particular ads in the inventory to particular classifications of Internet ad traffic, and to a performance group corresponding to parameters of any ad tag to be matched to the rule;

wherein each particular advertisement is associated with one or more ad traffic classifications;

a pricing and optimization engine configured to periodically update ad prices in the advertisement inventory according to pricing rules;

the programs in the memory being further operable to;

from among ad content of rules whose test criteria are met by the received ad tag, including the performance group, to select one or more associated advertisements whose price is greater than or equal to the minimum eCPM price in the publisher rules repository for that publisher and performance group, and further operable to deliver the one or more advertisements for display on the publisher'"'"'s Internet page server.

11. A method for assembling web pages from multiple Internet servers for delivery to a users'"'"' web browsers, comprising the steps of:

at a content server computer of the internet, receiving ad tags over the Internet from web publishers, and storing the received ad tags into a nontransitory memory of the content server computer, an ad tag being a request for content for delivery as part of a page to be served over the Internet from a publisher'"'"'s web server to a user web browser;

by the content server computer, evaluating the received ad tags against fulfillment rules in a fulfillment rule database, fulfillment rules in the database having respective electronic records specifying respective criteria and corresponding designators, the criteria including criteria against which to test received ad tags, and the designators respectively designating content to be provided over the Internet in response to an ad tag satisfying the corresponding criteria;

for ad tags for which the evaluating found the evaluation to satisfy a criterion of at least one rule of the rule database, providing content over the Internet as specified by the content designator corresponding to at least one of the satisfied criteria; and

for ad tags for which the evaluating found the evaluation to fail all rules'"'"' criteria, passing the ad tag over the Internet to the publisher, to the web browser, or to another content server computer, in any case, the passback tag being a request for an alternative attempt to identify content to be served over the Internet into the ad tag for delivery to the web browser as specified by the ad tag.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein:

the ad tag is subject to a minimum acceptable price set by the publisher, and the evaluation of an ad tag against the criteria results in failure if the maximum price among all content providers whose criteria otherwise meet the ad tag is below the minimum price set by the publisher.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein:

the criteria for rules include a price term, and the evaluation of an ad tag against a rule'"'"'s criteria results in failure if the ad tag price is above a maximum price criterion of the rule.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein:

the ad tag is passed in modified form.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein:

the passback tag includes passing a modified ad tag to the publisher.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein:

the passback tag includes passing a modified ad tag to the web browser.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein:

the passback tag includes passing a modified ad tag to a third party content provider.

18. A system of serving content from multiple web servers for presentation as a web page over the Internet, the system comprising;

a processor;

a nontransitory memory having stored therein operating instructions programmed to cause the processor;

to receive an ad tag from a web publisher'"'"'s web server, an ad tag being a request to deliver a content item into a page to be served over the Internet to a web browser, and to store the received ad tag into a nontransitory memory;

to evaluate the received ad tag against fulfillment rules in a fulfillment rule base, fulfillment rules in the fulfillment rule base specifying respective test criteria and corresponding designators of content items available to be delivered over the Internet into ad tags, the rules having respective test criteria against which to test received ad tags and content designators designating respective content to be provided in response to an ad tag satisfying the rule'"'"'s test criteria;

from among fulfillment rules whose test criteria are met by the received ad tag, to select a content item associated with a one of the satisfied fulfillment rule(s), and to cause delivery over the Internet of the selected content item into the page to be delivered from the publisher as specified by the ad tag,

for ad tags for which the evaluation finds that the ad tag fails all fulfillment rules'"'"' test criteria, to deliver a passback tag over the Internet to the publisher, to the web browser, or to another content server computer, in any case, the passback tag being a request whose data requests an alternative attempt to identify content to be served over the Internet into the ad tag for integration into the page at the web browser as specified by the ad tag.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein:

the received ad tag is a request to deliver an advertisement to fill the region of the served page.

20. The system in accordance with claim 19, wherein the publisher passback tag is an identical tag that the publisher was previously running on its Internet page server, thereby

resulting in the publisher generating the same revenue on passed-back traffic as was generated on all its previous traffic prior.

21. The system according to claim 18, wherein:

the evaluation of the received ad tag includes evaluating content of at least one of the page currently displayed on the computer display screen, and the content of a page previously displayed on the computer screen.

22. The system according to 22, wherein:

the passback tag is a modified copy of the ad tag passed in a modified form.

23. The system according to 22, wherein:

the passback of the passback tag includes passing the passback tag to the publisher'"'"'s internet page server.

24. The system according to 22, wherein:

the passback of the passback tag includes passing the passback tag to the user web browser.

25. The system according to 22, wherein:

the passback of the passback tag includes passing the passback tag to a third party content server.

26. The system according to 22, wherein:

the ad tag is subject to a minimum acceptable price set by the publisher, and the evaluation of an ad tag against the criteria results in failure if the maximum price among all content providers whose criteria otherwise meet the ad tag is below the minimum price set by the publisher.

27. The system according to 22, wherein:

the criteria for rules include a price term, and the evaluation of an ad tag against a rule'"'"'s criteria results in failure if the ad tag price is above a maximum price criterion of the rule.

28. The system according to 22, wherein:

the ad tag is received by an Open Purchase Order network, in which the programs are programmed to receive ad tags and provide content as specified by the rule of the satisfied criterion, without numerical limit.