Serving content-targeted ADS in e-mail, such as e-mail newsletters
First Claim
1. A method for determining content-relevant ads once an e-mail document is rendered on a client device, the method comprising:
- a) providing, from the client device, a document identifier in an ad request to a content-relevant ad server;
b) using, at the content-relevant ad server, content-relevance information associated with the document identifier and ad information to determine a set of one or more ads;
c) generating an image including the one or more ads of the determined set;
d) providing the generated image and a session identifier to the client device;
e) rendering, with the client device, the image in the document;
f) detecting a user action with respect to the rendered image; and
g) in response to the detection of the user action with respect to the rendered image, sending the session identifier and position information to the content-relevant ad server.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Content-targeted ads are served with e-mail messages, such as HTML e-mail messages by (i) having the document publisher include a unique content identifier in the content, (ii) having a client device pass the unique content identifier to a content-relevant ad server in a content-relevant ad request, and (iii) having the content-relevant ad server use the unique contend identifier to identify previously registered content for purposes of determining content-relevant ads. In the content-relevant ad server, multiple ads may compete for desired ad attributes (e.g., relative position on a page) or features. An arbitration process may be used to chose and/or order the ads. By having the client device pass the unique content identifier to the content-relevant ad server when it needs the ads, ads can be chosen and generated all at the time the user reads (or more generally “opens”) the e-mail document. This permits up-to-date ad information to be used when serving ads. User actions with respect to served ads may be tracked by (i) using an ad image to display ads in the document, and (ii) using an image map (included in the document originally served) to monitor user behavior with respect to an ad served in a document. All the information about the ad impression may be encoded in a unique identifier, which is returned, along with the ad image. The ad image and unique identifier may be provided to a client device. When a user selects an ad, this unique identifier may be returned to the ad server. A position of an image map clicked may also be returned to the ad server. The returned unique identifier and image position may be used to allow the ad server to determine which ad was selected. Thus, the unique identifier permits a selection to be matched with a previous ad serve.
113 Citations
21 Claims
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1. A method for determining content-relevant ads once an e-mail document is rendered on a client device, the method comprising:
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a) providing, from the client device, a document identifier in an ad request to a content-relevant ad server;
b) using, at the content-relevant ad server, content-relevance information associated with the document identifier and ad information to determine a set of one or more ads;
c) generating an image including the one or more ads of the determined set;
d) providing the generated image and a session identifier to the client device;
e) rendering, with the client device, the image in the document;
f) detecting a user action with respect to the rendered image; and
g) in response to the detection of the user action with respect to the rendered image, sending the session identifier and position information to the content-relevant ad server. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. Apparatus for determining content-relevant ads once an e-mail document is rendered on a client device, the apparatus comprising:
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a) an input for accepting, from the client device, a document identifier in an ad request;
b) using content-relevance information associated with the document identifier and ad information to determine a set of one or more ads;
c) generating an image including the one or more ads of the determined set;
d) forwarding the generated image and a session identifier to the client device, wherein, the generated image and session identifier include information which facilitates having the client device send the session identifier and position information to the content-relevant ad server in response to the detection of the user action with respect to the image as rendered on the client device. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A method for determining content-relevant ads once an e-mail document is rendered on a client device, the method comprising:
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a) accepting, from the client device, a document identifier in an ad request to a content-relevant ad server;
b) using content-relevance information associated with the document identifier and ad information to determine a set of one or more ads;
c) generating an image including the one or more ads of the determined set;
d) forwarding the generated image and a session identifier to the client device; and
e) accepting, from the client device, the session identifier and position information. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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Specification