Method and system for placement and pricing of internet-based advertisements or services

• US 20070055569A1
• Filed: 08/11/2006
• Published: 03/08/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pulsepoint Incorporated (Pulsepoint Holdings LLC)
• Original Assignee: ContextWeb Incorporated (Pulsepoint Holdings LLC)
• Inventors: Sterns, Jeremy, Subramanian, Anand, Sarkar, Shanthi
• Granted Patent: US 8,751,302 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.420
• 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 pricing advertisements, comprising:

a classification system, including a server interconnected with at least one data store, a processor, and executable instructions;

the data store contains an advertisement performance criteria having at least one metric;

the executable instructions are configured to access the advertisement performance criteria so as to classify Internet ad traffic into performance groups, wherein each performance group is associated with a minimum profitable eCPM amount;

an Internet property operated by a publisher, the property containing at least one page configured to display advertisements;

an advertisement inventory including associated with a rule base having rules operable to associate particular ads in the inventory to at least one ad traffic classification performance group, and further operable to associate each of the particular ads with a minimum price and a maximum price;

an ad server in communication with at least one computer having a display screen, the ad server configured to receive a request to deliver an ad, wherein the ad server contains executable operating instructions programmed to consult the classification system to determine the performance group corresponding to a parameters of the ad request, apply the rules in the rule base to the advertisement inventory associated with that performance group so as to select one or more associated advertisements, and deliver the one or more advertisements for display on the Internet property page;

a historical statistics repository which includes the historical performance of each advertisement in the inventory associated with an ad traffic classification; and

a pricing and optimization engine configured to apply the historical statistics to establish the current performance of each ad in each performance group, compare the current performance to an expected performance, and establish a new price between the minimum price and the maximum price;

wherein the current performance and the new price yields an eCPM at or above the minimum eCPM for the performance group, and if such price is not possible then the pricing and optimization engine disassociates that ad from the performance group.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the classification system is further configured to determine the corresponding performance group of the ad request by applying contextual advertising parameters;

and

wherein the Internet ad traffic is classified at least according to inferences based on the content of one of a 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 claim 1, wherein the new price chosen by the pricing and optimization engine is the minimum possible price that yields an eCPM amount greater or equal to the minimum eCPM for the associated performance group.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein the classification system is operable to classify the Internet ad traffic according to at least one of the publisher, the internet domain name of a requested page, the topical or contextual category of the requested page, dimensions of ad space on the requested page, an ad media type specified by the publisher for the ad space, contextual keyword or keywords on the requested page, the time of day when the request was made, the day of the week when the request was made, a user'"'"'s geographical location, and the user'"'"'s demographic data.

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein the classification system is further configured to classify the Internet ad traffic free of any information about a user, and the user'"'"'s demographic group.

6. The system according to claim 1, wherein if a certain ad has less than a predefined number of historical impressions in a particular performance group, the pricing and optimization engine fails to disassociate that certain ad from that particular performance group.

7. The system according to claim 1;

wherein one of the advertising performance criteria metrics is a click-through rate (CTR).

8. The system according to claim 1;

wherein one of the advertising performance criteria metrics is a cost per action (CPA).

9. The system according to claim 1, wherein the minimum price is set by an Open Purchase Order (“

OPO”

) network.

10. The system according to claim 1, wherein the minimum price is set by the publisher.

11. A system of serving ads on an Internet site, configured such that a publisher is ensured a minimum predictable revenue while also offering the publisher higher revenue for its higher value traffic, the system comprising:

an Internet property, operated by the publisher, containing at least one page where an advertisement can be inserted for display;

a data store containing at least one advertisement performance metric;

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 publisher-rules repository containing a publisher'"'"'s minimum eCPM price per performance group for ads delivered for display on that publisher'"'"'s site by an OPO ad server, and further including one or more passback tags associated with the publisher;

a data store including an inventory of advertisements;

a rule base having rules operable to match particular ads in the inventory to particular classifications of Internet ad traffic;

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 OPO ad server operable to receive a request to deliver an ad, wherein the OPO ad server contains executable operating instructions programmed to consult the classification system to determine the performance group corresponding to a parameters of the ad request, apply the rule base to the advertisement inventory associated with that performance group so as 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 property, or if no such ads exist then deliver a passback tag registered to the publisher.

12. The system in accordance with claim 11, wherein the publisher passback tag is an identical tag that the publisher was previously running on its Internet property, thereby resulting in the publisher generating the same revenue on passed-back traffic as was generated on all its previous traffic prior.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the factor at least one of ad price, the historical performance, and a delivery volume target.

13. A method for delivering advertisements to web pages through an ad server, comprising the steps of:

classifying the web pages with a classification system;

applying rules, populated in a rule base, to an inventory of ads and a set of the web pages so as to determine a set of available ads to show on the set of web pages;

assigning prices to members of the set of available ads according to a combination of a set of prices corresponding to the result of the classifying step'"'"'s page classification, and a historical performance of each member of the set of available ads; and

ranking the members of the set of available ads according to at least one factor.