Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US7734503?ie=ISO-8859-1
Timestamp: 2015-04-25 13:31:52
Document Index: 20190930

Matched Legal Cases: ['Application No. 2', 'Application No. 2005292312', 'Application No. 200529312', 'Application No. 540', 'Application No. 10', 'Application No. 10', 'Application No. 2007', 'Application No. 200580039330', 'Application No. 10', 'Application No. 05798786']

Patent US7734503 - Managing on-line advertising using metrics such as return on investment and ... - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign inAdvanced Patent SearchPatentsTo help advertisers to manage their online advertising, some business metric, such as ROI, profit, gross profit, etc., may be estimated and/or tracked with respect to an ad campaign, or a portion of the ad campaign. An advertiser may provide a business metric target, such as a target ROI, a target gross...http://www.google.com/patents/US7734503?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US7734503 - Managing on-line advertising using metrics such as return on investment and/or profitAdvanced Patent SearchPublication numberUS7734503 B2Publication typeGrantApplication numberUS 10/953,861Publication dateJun 8, 2010Filing dateSep 29, 2004Priority dateSep 29, 2004Fee statusPaidAlso published asCA2581864A1, CA2581864C, CN101084518A, EP1805708A2, EP1805708A4, US8639574, US20060069614, US20100211460, WO2006039210A2, WO2006039210A3Publication number10953861, 953861, US 7734503 B2, US 7734503B2, US-B2-7734503, US7734503 B2, US7734503B2InventorsSumit Agarwal, Thomas KorteOriginal AssigneeGoogle, Inc.Export CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatent Citations (15), Non-Patent Citations (15), Referenced by (8), Classifications (17), Legal Events (2) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetManaging on-line advertising using metrics such as return on investment and/or profit
Interactive advertising provides opportunities for advertisers to target their ads to a receptive audience. That is, targeted ads are more likely to be useful to end users since the ads may be relevant to a need inferred from some user activity (e.g., relevant to a user's search query to a search engine, relevant to content in a document requested by the user, etc.) Query keyword targeting has been used by search engines to deliver relevant ads. For example, the AdWords advertising system by Google of Mountain View, Calif., delivers ads targeted to keywords from search queries. Similarly, content targeted ad delivery systems have been proposed. For example, U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 10/314,427 (incorporated herein by reference and referred to as �the '427 application�) titled �METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR SERVING RELEVANT ADVERTISEMENTS�, filed on Dec. 6, 2002 and listing Jeffrey A. Dean, Georges R. Harik and Paul Buchheit as inventors; and 10/375,900 (incorporated by reference and referred to as �the '900 application�) titled �SERVING ADVERTISEMENTS BASED ON CONTENT,� filed on Feb. 26, 2003 and listing Darrell Anderson, Paul Buchheit, Alex Carobus, Claire Cui, Jeffrey A. Dean, Georges R. Harik, Deepak Jindal and Narayanan Shivakumar as inventors, describe methods and apparatus for serving ads relevant to the content of a document, such as a Web page for example. Content targeted ad delivery systems, such as the AdSense advertising system by Google for example, have been used to serve ads on Web pages.
Regardless of whether or how ads are targeted, an advertiser typically compensates the content (e.g., Web page) owner (and perhaps an ad serving entity). Such compensation may occur whenever the ad is served (per impression), or may be subject to a condition precedent such as a selection, a conversion, etc. Compensation per selection (commonly referred to as �pay per click�) is currently becoming popular.
The present invention may involve novel methods, apparatus, message formats, and/or data structures for helping advertisers to track and/or manage their online advertising. The following description is presented to enable one skilled in the art to make and use the invention, and is provided in the context of particular applications and their requirements. Thus, the following description of embodiments consistent with the present invention provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the present invention to the precise form disclosed. Various modifications to the disclosed embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art, and the general principles set forth below may be applied to other embodiments and applications. For example, although a series of acts may be described with reference to a flow diagram, the order of acts may differ in other implementations when the performance of one act is not dependent on the completion of another act. Further, non-dependent acts may be performed in parallel. No element, act or instruction used in the description should be construed as critical or essential to the present invention unless explicitly described as such. Also, as used herein, the article �a� is intended to include one or more items. Where only one item is intended, the term �one� or similar language is used. Thus, the present invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown and the inventors regard their invention to include any patentable subject matter described.
When an online ad is served, one or more parameters may be used to describe how, when, and/or where the ad was served. These parameters are referred to as �serving parameters� below. Serving parameters may include, for example, one or more of the following: features of (including information on) a document on which, or with which, the ad was served, a search query or search results associated with the serving of the ad, a user characteristic (e.g., their geographic location, the language used by the user, the type of browser used, previous page views, previous behavior, user account, any Web cookies used by the system, etc.), a host or affiliate site (e.g., America Online, Google, Yahoo) that initiated the request, an absolute position of the ad on the page on which it was served, a position (spatial or temporal) of the ad relative to other ads served, an absolute size of the ad, a size of the ad relative to other ads, a color of the ad, a number of other ads served, types of other ads served, time of day served, time of week served, time of year served, etc. Naturally, there are other serving parameters that may be used in the context of the invention.
The ratio of the number of selections (e.g., clickthroughs) of an ad to the number of impressions of the ad (i.e., the number of times an ad is rendered) is defined as the �selection rate� (or �clickthrough rate�) of the ad. The selection rate of an ad rendered in an ad spot may be composed of various components such as a creative-specific selection rate (CSR), and a position-specific selection rate (PSR) for example. An estimated selection rate may be defined as the product of the component selection rates.
The ratio of the number of conversions to the number of impressions or selections of the ad (i.e., the number of times an ad is rendered or selected) is referred to as the �conversion rate.� If a conversion is defined to be able to occur within a predetermined time since the serving of an ad, one possible definition of the conversion rate might only consider ads that have been served more than the predetermined time in the past.
Content from a document may be rendered on a �content rendering application or device�. Examples of content rendering applications include an Internet browser (e.g., Explorer, Netscape, Opera), a media player (e.g., an MP3 player, a Realnetworks streaming audio or video file player, etc.), a viewer (e.g., an Abobe Acrobat pdf reader), etc.
�Ad area� may be used to describe an area (e.g., spatial and/or temporal) of a document reserved or made available to accommodate the rendering of ads. For example, Web pages often allocate a number of spots where ads can be rendered, referred to as �ad spots�. As another example, an audio program may allocate �ad time slots�.
An �offer� is something presented for acceptance. In the context of the present invention, an offer will often be a monetary amount, associated with an advertisement, to be paid, upon the occurrence of an act with respect to the advertisement (e.g., impression, selection, conversion, etc.). An offer may be a bid. In some embodiments, rather than defining a precise value to be paid, an offer may specify a maximum and/or a minimum amount to be paid. An offer may be non-monetary.
An �arbitration� is a process for determining one or more winning participants competing for something. An auction is an example of an arbitration.
FIG. 1 is a high level diagram of an advertising environment. The environment may include an ad entry, maintenance and delivery system (simply referred to as an �ad server� or �ad delivery system�) 120. Advertisers 110 may directly, or indirectly, enter, maintain, and track ad information in the system 120. The ads may be in the form of graphical ads such as so-called banner ads, text only ads, image ads, audio ads, animation ads, video ads, ads combining one of more of any of such components, etc. The ads may also include embedded information, such as a link, and/or machine executable instructions. Ad consumers 130 may submit requests for ads to, accept ads responsive to their request from, and provide usage information to, the system 120. An entity other than an ad consumer 130 may initiate a request for ads. Although not shown, other entities may provide usage information (e.g., whether or not a conversion or a selection related to the ad occurred) to the system 120. This usage information may include measured or observed user behavior related to ads that have been served.
FIG. 2 illustrates an environment 200 in which the present invention may be used. A user device (also referred to as a �client� or �client device�) 250 may include a browser facility (such as the Explorer browser from Microsoft, the Opera Web Browser from Opera Software of Norway, the Navigator browser from AOL/Time Warner, etc.), some other content rendering facility, an e-mail facility (e.g., Outlook from Microsoft), etc. A search engine 220 may permit user devices 250 to search collections of documents (e.g., Web pages). A content server 210 may permit user devices 250 to access documents. An e-mail server (such as Gmail from Google, Hotmail from Microsoft Network, Yahoo Mail, etc.) 240 may be used to provide e-mail functionality to user devices 250. An ad server (also referred to as an �ad delivery system�) 210 may be used to serve ads to user devices 250. For example, the ads may be served in association with search results provided by the search engine 220. Alternatively, or in addition, content-relevant ads may be served in association with content provided by the content server 230, and/or e-mail supported by the e-mail server 240 and/or user device e-mail facilities.
FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary inter-relationship 400 of advertising information, some of which information may be organized in a manner consistent with the present invention. As shown, account information 410 may include, for example, a unique e-mail address, a password, billing information (e.g., a billing address, a credit card, etc.), etc. Accordingly, the term �account� relates to information for a given advertiser.
The term �target ROI� or �target profit� should be broadly construed to include any predetermined ROI or profit, or an determinable ROI or profit. One example of a target ROI or profit is a daily ROI or profit.
Profitability 50% 50% 50% 50% 50% 50% (Margin) CPC $0.49 $0.50 $0.65 $0.75 $0.95 $1.00 Conversions � 10% 10% 10% 10% 10% per Click Revenue per $10.00 $10.00 $10.00 $10.00 $10.00 $10.00 Conversion Clicks per day 0 100 170 270 300 315 Profit per Click $1.00 $1.00 $1.00 $1.00 $1.00 $1.00 Ad Spend 0 $50 $110.50 $203 $285 $315 Gross Rev $0.00 $100.00 $170.00 $270.00 $300.00 $315.00 Adv ROI 0 100% 54% 33% 5% 0% MAX ROI In this case, the profit per click is $1.00 (=10% of $10.00). The ROI is defined as:
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