Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9779425B2/en
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 07:00:22
Document Index: 382331751

Matched Legal Cases: ['application No. 13717619', 'application No. 13717619', 'application No. 15713059', 'application No. 13717619', 'application No. 13717619', 'application No. 13717619']

US9779425B2 - System and method for dynamic management of affiliate links for online marketing - Google Patents
System and method for dynamic management of affiliate links for online marketing Download PDF
US9779425B2
US9779425B2 US13/731,383 US201213731383A US9779425B2 US 9779425 B2 US9779425 B2 US 9779425B2 US 201213731383 A US201213731383 A US 201213731383A US 9779425 B2 US9779425 B2 US 9779425B2
US13/731,383
US20140019266A1 (en
2012-03-30 Priority to US201261617857P priority Critical
2012-07-12 Priority to US13/547,771 priority patent/US20130262971A1/en
2012-12-31 Priority to US13/731,383 priority patent/US9779425B2/en
2012-12-31 Application filed by REWARDSTYLE Inc filed Critical REWARDSTYLE Inc
2013-02-28 Assigned to NASTYGOAT CORPORATION reassignment NASTYGOAT CORPORATION ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: BOX, Baxter, JORDAN, Forrest, STOLIARTCHOUK, ALEXEI
2013-03-15 Priority claimed from US13/838,578 external-priority patent/US20140019267A1/en
2013-03-27 Priority claimed from ES13717619T external-priority patent/ES2702901T3/en
2013-05-30 Priority claimed from US13/905,926 external-priority patent/US20140019248A1/en
2014-01-16 Publication of US20140019266A1 publication Critical patent/US20140019266A1/en
2014-04-15 Assigned to REWARDSTYLE, INC. reassignment REWARDSTYLE, INC. CHANGE OF NAME (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: NASTYGOAT CORPORATION
2014-04-16 Priority claimed from US14/254,050 external-priority patent/US9875488B2/en
2015-07-08 Assigned to REWARDSTYLE, INC. reassignment REWARDSTYLE, INC. ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: REWARDSTYLE, INC.
2017-10-03 Publication of US9779425B2 publication Critical patent/US9779425B2/en
2019-02-07 Assigned to SILICON VALLEY BANK reassignment SILICON VALLEY BANK FIRST AMENDMENT TO INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SECURITY AGREEMENT Assignors: REWARDSTYLE, INC.
2019-02-07 Assigned to SILICON VALLEY BANK reassignment SILICON VALLEY BANK INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SECURITY AGREEMENT Assignors: REWARDSTYLE, INC.
With the rapid evolution of technology in recent years, there has been a growing trend toward online publishing, by businesses, such as online magazine publishers, as well as by individuals, such as personal bloggers. These online publishers frequently review and publish commentary on a variety of products on their web site and via 3rd party online social networking sites. Accordingly, online marketing has evolved to include awarding commission to web site operators on sales made to consumers who have arrived at an affiliate's web site through a tracked link on the web site operator's web site.
FIG. 5A depicts the syntax of a typical affiliate network advertiser link URL exemplar for fictional affiliate network “AffiliateNetwork1.com,” highlighting additional variables and placeholders utilized by redirection scripts;
FIG. 5B depicts the syntax of a typical affiliate network advertiser link URL exemplar for fictional affiliate network “AffiliateNetwork2.com,” highlighting additional variables and placeholders utilized by redirection scripts;
FIG. 5C depicts the syntax of a typical affiliate network advertiser link URL exemplar for fictional affiliate network “AffiliateNetwork3.com,” highlighting additional variables and placeholders utilized by redirection scripts;
FIG. 5D depicts the syntax of a typical affiliate network advertiser link URL exemplar for fictional affiliate network “AffiliateNetwork4.com,” highlighting additional variables and placeholders utilized by redirection scripts;
FIG. 6A depicts the parsed syntax of the affiliate network advertiser URL exemplar for fictional affiliate network “AffiliateNetwork1.com,” highlighting the various identified parameters;
FIG. 6B depicts the parsed syntax of the affiliate network advertiser URL exemplar for fictional affiliate network “AffiliateNetwork2.com,” highlighting the various identified parameters;
FIG. 6C depicts the parsed syntax of the affiliate network advertiser URL exemplar for fictional affiliate network “AffiliateNetwork3.com,” highlighting the various identified parameters;
FIG. 6D depicts the parsed syntax of the affiliate network advertiser URL exemplar for fictional affiliate network “AffiliateNetwork4.com,” highlighting the various identified parameters;
The above figures are provided for the purpose of illustration and description only, and are not intended to define the limits of the disclosed invention. Use of the same reference number in multiple figures is intended to designate the same or similar parts. Furthermore, if the terms “top,” “bottom,” “first,” “second,” “upper,” “lower,” “height,” “width,” “length,” “end,” “side,” “horizontal,” “vertical,” and similar terms are used herein, it should be understood that these terms have reference only to the structure shown in the drawing and are utilized only to facilitate describing the particular embodiment. The extension of the figures with respect to number, position, relationship, and dimensions of the parts to form the preferred embodiment will be explained or will be within the skill of one having ordinary skill in the art to which the invention pertains after the following teachings of the present invention have been read and understood.
As used herein, the term “computer readable medium” means any tangible portable or fixed RAM or ROM device, such as portable flash memory, a CDROM, a DVDROM, embedded RAM or ROM integrated circuit devices, or the like.
As used herein, the term “affiliate network advertiser link” and “affiliate link” mean URLs that point (i.e., link) to a website's specific page or subpage (a “deep link”), or to a website's homepage through which a visitor's analytics are tracked. For example, it is possible to create an “affiliate network advertiser link” or “affiliate link” to an advertiser affiliate's home or main webpage, or to an advertiser affiliate's product webpage, and any activity including product purchases are tracked and recorded.
In an embodiment, the method begins in step 302 with a publisher identifying an advertiser affiliate 170 webpage to integrate into the publisher's web post using online publisher 140 by clicking a system activator bookmarking button (i.e., a bookmark application or “bookmarklet”) located on the bookmark bar on the online publisher's 140 web browser that executes an initialization JavaScript. The bookmarklet allows the JavaScript to be stored as the URL of a bookmark in the publisher's browser, to be activated by the publisher's user interface device (“mouse”) click. The use of a bookmarklet allows the system to mask the complexity of the underlying link generation server 120 operation from the publisher.
In this embodiment the link generation server 120 will then create a loader inline frame (“iframe”) that creates a final iframe containing the scraped webpage information and the affiliate link. Link generation server 120 will communicate the webpage information and the network affiliate advertiser link URL to the online publisher 140, as shown in step 312. Given the excessive length of the typical affiliate network advertiser link URL (see FIG. 5), the link generation server may provide the publisher, instead, with a shortened link that the system uses to access the full link. The publisher may then copy and paste the network affiliate network advertiser link URL (shortened link) to a blog post or other online publication. In another embodiment the affiliate network advertiser link URL is not shortened, but is provided in full length to the publisher.
Frames allow a visual HTML Browser window to be split into segments, each of which may show a different document. An iframe places yet another HTML document in a frame inside the original parent document. Unlike an object element, an inline frame can be the “target” frame for links defined by other elements and can be selected by the publisher as the focus for printing or viewing its source.
FIG. 5 depicts the syntax of a few typical affiliate network advertiser link URL exemplars, while FIG. 6 depicts the resulting parsed syntax, highlighting the various renamed parameters as variables for the link generation server 120 to populate. A shown in FIG. 5A, the affiliate network advertiser link begins with the URL of the affiliate network 502 (in this instance, “AffiliateNetwork1.com”) and includes additional variables and placeholders utilized by its redirect scripts. Within this string of variables is the advertiser ID 504 followed by additional redirect variables 506 and finally, the advertiser webpage URL 508. FIG. 6A depicts the results. As shown, the link generation server 120 records the affiliate network advertiser link URL and necessary variables and placeholders 502 and 506, and isolates an advertiser ID parameter 602 and advertiser webpage URL parameter 604 for subsequent substitution during dynamic affiliate network advertiser link creation.
FIG. 5B depicts yet another affiliate network advertiser link URL exemplar. The link generation server 120 parses the URL text to isolate the affiliate network URL 502 (in this instance, “AffiliateNetwork2”), the advertiser ID 504, the additional redirect variables 506, and the advertiser webpage URL 508. The resulting affiliate network advertiser link URL syntax is shown in FIG. 6B, which again provides for an advertiser ID parameter 602 and advertiser webpage URL parameter 604. The link generation server 120 substitutes an advertiser ID and advertiser URL for these parameters during affiliate network advertiser link creation for this affiliate network.
FIG. 5C depicts a affiliate network advertiser link URL exemplar from the “AffiliateNetwork3” affiliate network, which utilizes an even greater amount of information with its affiliate network advertiser link URLs. In addition to the affiliate network URL 502, the advertiser ID 504, additional redirect variables 506, and the advertiser webpage URL 508, this affiliate network attaches the publisher ID 510. The resulting syntax of 6C shows the addition of the publisher ID 510 appended to the advertiser webpage URL parameter 604. The link generation server knows the publisher ID based upon the publisher's user account information.
FIG. 5D depicts a affiliate network advertiser link URL exemplar from the “AffiliateNetwork4” affiliate network. As shown, this exemplar includes the affiliate network URL 502, the advertiser ID 504, additional redirect variables 506, and the advertiser webpage URL 508 like the others. However, the advertiser webpage URL includes additional brackets that frame the webpage link data. Accordingly, the resulting syntax includes the advertiser ID 602 and advertiser webpage URL parameter 604 as before, along with the extra bracket characters as depicted in FIG. 6D.
Again, as previously discussed using FIG. 3, advertisers 170 may have relationships with multiple affiliate networks 172, with each network 172 handling a particular region of commerce. For example, one such advertiser might have stores in the United States and in Europe, with one affiliate network (“network1”) handling its online product sales affiliate tracking and publishers relationships in the U.S. region and another affiliate network (“network2”) handling its online product sales affiliate tracking and publisher relationships in the European region. Thus, ideally, purchase inquiries originating from the U.S. should be properly handled by network1 while purchase inquiries originating from Europe should be properly handled by network2. In reality, however, publishers are able to browse for and link directly (i.e. without the use of affiliate links) to product offerings across all advertising regions and website visitors are able to visit all advertising regions for a given online retailer because of the global reach of the Internet. Thus, a publisher in France might locate and link to a particular pair of shoes discovered while browsing a U.S. advertiser's website, where the shoes are available in the U.S. and France and handled by two different affiliate networks. If a publisher publishes an affiliate link online using this U.S. advertiser link and a visitor purchases these shoes on the US website through a U.S. affiliate network regional link, tracking will remain intact and the publisher will earn a commission. If visitor adjusts the advertiser website settings to be routed to a French website in order to purchase the shoes, the affiliate network handling U.S. website region will not be able to track analytics on the French website. In the absence of a geographic based affiliate network redirect system visitors to advertiser's website through a publisher's U.S. affiliate product link originating from France will be directed to the French website and all tracking will cease due to incompatible product/affiliate network advertiser link URLs, rendering all analytics and potential commission earnings to publisher lost. Another embodiment of the system provides a clean method for handling such scenarios to ensure cross network/geography analytics and conversions tracking.
1. A system for dynamic management of affiliate links for online marketing, the system comprising:
a computerized link generation server and first database device in network communication with a plurality of affiliate network servers, the affiliate network servers in further network communication with a plurality of online advertiser affiliates, the link generation server in further network communication with a plurality of publisher computing devices capable of network communication using a web or mobile browser, the link generation server configured to perform the computing steps comprising:
provide a bookmarking tool to a subscriber for installation on one of the publisher computing devices;
accept a request from the publisher computing device using the bookmarking tool to analyze a first advertiser affiliate webpage for product data; and
if the first advertiser affiliate webpage contains a product that is available from an associated affiliate network:
provide a first affiliate network advertiser link Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to the publisher computing device for embedding as a hyperlink;
otherwise, activate the bookmarking tool to create a connection via a URL to a data source over the Internet when selected, and a control that creates a new product page link and stores the new product page link in the first database device.
3. The system of claim 1, the computing steps further comprising:
from each of one or more affiliate networks, obtain an affiliate network advertiser link URL exemplar and parse an exemplar syntax to identify an advertiser ID parameter and an advertiser URL parameter contained therein, obtain a listing of a plurality of advertiser affiliates that are members of the affiliate network along with an affiliate network advertiser ID associated with each advertiser affiliate, and configure the listing for provision to the bookmarking tool.
4. The system of claim 1, the computing steps further comprising:
from each of two or more different affiliate networks, obtain an affiliate network advertiser link URL exemplar and parse an exemplar syntax to identify an advertiser ID parameter and an advertiser URL parameter contained therein, and obtain a listing of a plurality of advertiser affiliates that are members of the affiliate network along with an affiliate network advertiser ID associated with each advertiser affiliate;
if the first advertiser affiliate webpage contains a product that is not available from the associated affiliate network or the first database device:
create a new product page and page link for a first affiliate network advertiser URL based upon the affiliate network advertiser link URL exemplar of a selected affiliate network of which the first advertiser affiliate is a member, wherein the created affiliate network advertiser link URL comprises an associated advertiser ID as the advertiser ID parameter and a first advertiser affiliate product webpage URL as the advertiser URL parameter;
store the new product page and the page link in the first database device; and
provide the created first affiliate network advertiser link URL to the bookmarking tool, wherein the bookmarking tool is configured to embed the created first affiliate network advertiser link URL into a publisher document.
8. The system of claim 4, the computing steps further comprising:
scrape a first advertiser affiliate webpage metadata to create a new first database device record; and
associate the new first database device record with the created affiliate network advertiser link URL.
9. The system of claim 4, wherein the first database device contains a record associated with the first advertiser affiliate product data, the computing steps further comprising:
scrape a first advertiser affiliate webpage metadata; and
automatically update the first database device record.
10. A method for dynamic management of affiliate links for online marketing, the method steps comprising:
in a first networked computing device, provide a bookmarking tool to a publisher's computer;
the first networked computing device further configured to accept a request from the bookmarking tool on the publisher's computer to analyze a first advertiser affiliate webpage for product data; and
if the first networked computing device determines that the first advertiser affiliate webpage contains a product that is available from an associated affiliate network:
with the first networked computing device, provide a first affiliate network advertiser link URL to the bookmarking tool on the publisher's computer, wherein the bookmarking tool is configured to embed the first affiliate network advertiser link URL in a publisher document.
12. The method of claim 10, the method steps further comprising:
the first networked computing device further configured to, from each of two or more affiliate networks, obtain an affiliate network advertiser link URL exemplar and parse an exemplar syntax to identify an advertiser ID parameter and an advertiser URL parameter contained therein, obtain a listing of a plurality of advertiser affiliates that are members of the affiliate network along with an affiliate network advertiser ID associated with each advertiser affiliate, and configure the listing for provision to the bookmarking tool.
13. The method of claim 10, the method steps further comprising:
the first networked computing device further configured to, from each of the affiliate networks, obtain an affiliate network advertiser link URL exemplar and parse an exemplar syntax to identify an advertiser ID parameter and an advertiser URL parameter contained therein, and obtain a listing of a plurality of advertiser affiliates that are members of the affiliate network along with an affiliate network advertiser ID associated with each advertiser affiliate;
if the first advertiser affiliate webpage contains a product that is not available from the associated affiliate network:
create a deep link first advertiser affiliate product URL based upon the affiliate network advertiser link URL exemplar of a selected affiliate network of which the first advertiser affiliate is a member, wherein the created affiliate network advertiser link URL comprises an associated advertiser ID as the advertiser ID parameter and a first advertiser affiliate webpage URL as the advertiser URL parameter; and
provide the created deep link first advertiser affiliate product URL to the bookmarking tool, wherein the bookmarking tool is configured to embed the created deep link advertiser affiliate product URL into a publisher document.
17. The method of claim 13, the method steps further comprising:
the first networked computing device further configured to scrape a first advertiser affiliate webpage metadata to create a new first database device record; and
associate the new first database device record with the created affiliate network advertiser link.
18. The method of claim 13, wherein the first database device contains a record associated with the first advertiser affiliate product data, the method steps further comprising:
the first networked computing device further configured to scrape a first advertiser affiliate webpage metadata; and
automatically updating the first database device record.
19. A tangible non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions for causing a programmable processor to perform operations for dynamic management of affiliate links for online marketing, the program steps comprising:
provide a bookmarking tool to a publisher's computer;
accept a request from the bookmarking tool on the publisher's computer to analyze a first advertiser affiliate webpage for product data by determining whether extracted webpage information from the first advertiser affiliate webpage matches webpage information stored in a database of affiliate network webpages for two or more affiliate networks, the advertiser affiliate associated with one of the affiliate networks; and
provide a first affiliate network advertiser link URL to the bookmarking tool, wherein the bookmarking tool is configured to embed the first affiliate network advertiser link URL into a publisher document.
20. The compute readable medium of claim 19, the program steps further comprising:
from each of the affiliate networks, obtain an affiliate network advertiser link URL exemplar and parse the exemplar syntax to identify the advertiser ID parameter and the advertiser URL parameter contained therein, and obtain a listing of a plurality of advertiser affiliates that are members of the affiliate network along with the affiliate network advertiser ID associated with each advertiser affiliate;
create a first affiliate network advertiser link URL based upon the affiliate network exemplar of a selected affiliate network of which the first advertiser affiliate is a member, wherein the created affiliate network advertiser link URL comprises the associated advertiser ID as the advertiser parameter and the first advertiser affiliate advertiser webpage URL as the advertiser URL parameter;
store the created affiliate network advertiser link URL and an associated new product page in the database of affiliate network webpages; and
provide the created first affiliate network advertiser link URL to the publisher for embedding as a hyperlink.
US13/731,383 2012-03-30 2012-12-31 System and method for dynamic management of affiliate links for online marketing Active 2032-12-26 US9779425B2 (en)
US201261617857P true 2012-03-30 2012-03-30
US13/547,771 US20130262971A1 (en) 2012-03-30 2012-07-12 System and method for affiliate link generation
US13/731,383 US9779425B2 (en) 2012-03-30 2012-12-31 System and method for dynamic management of affiliate links for online marketing
US13/838,578 US20140019267A1 (en) 2012-07-12 2013-03-15 System and Method for Dynamic Creation of Product Links from a Web Browser Application
ES13717619T ES2702901T3 (en) 2012-03-30 2013-03-27 System for dynamic creation of affiliate product links from a web browser application
EP13717619.4A EP2831753B1 (en) 2012-03-30 2013-03-27 System for dynamic creation of affiliate product links from a web browser application
PCT/US2013/034151 WO2013148870A2 (en) 2012-03-30 2013-03-27 System for dynamic creation of affiliate product links from a web browser application
US13/905,926 US20140019248A1 (en) 2012-07-12 2013-05-30 System and Method for Location Based Dynamic Redirection of Advertiser Affiliate Links for Online Advertising
US14/254,050 US9875488B2 (en) 2012-03-30 2014-04-16 Targeted marketing based on social media interaction
US14/507,682 US9495693B2 (en) 2012-03-30 2014-10-06 Targeted marketing based on social media interaction
US15/876,684 US20180144371A1 (en) 2012-03-30 2018-01-22 Targeted marketing based on social media interaction
US13/547,771 Continuation-In-Part US20130262971A1 (en) 2012-03-30 2012-07-12 System and method for affiliate link generation
US13/838,578 Continuation-In-Part US20140019267A1 (en) 2012-03-30 2013-03-15 System and Method for Dynamic Creation of Product Links from a Web Browser Application
US20140019266A1 US20140019266A1 (en) 2014-01-16
US9779425B2 true US9779425B2 (en) 2017-10-03
ID=49236761
US13/547,771 Pending US20130262971A1 (en) 2012-03-30 2012-07-12 System and method for affiliate link generation
US13/731,383 Active 2032-12-26 US9779425B2 (en) 2012-03-30 2012-12-31 System and method for dynamic management of affiliate links for online marketing
US (2) US20130262971A1 (en)
CN107004206A (en) 2014-04-16 2017-08-01 里沃德风尚股份有限公司 Targeted data based on social media interaction
WO2007092358A2 (en) 2006-02-02 2007-08-16 Zazzle Com, Inc. METHOD AND COMPUTER MEDIUM FOR ORGANISING URLs FOR AFFILIATE REFERRALS
US20090106098A1 (en) 2007-10-23 2009-04-23 Getz Jalem M Affiliated advertising widget
2012-07-12 US US13/547,771 patent/US20130262971A1/en active Pending
2012-12-31 US US13/731,383 patent/US9779425B2/en active Active
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US20130262971A1 (en) 2013-10-03
US20140019266A1 (en) 2014-01-16
Owner name: NASTYGOAT CORPORATION, TEXAS
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:STOLIARTCHOUK, ALEXEI;JORDAN, FORREST;BOX, BAXTER;REEL/FRAME:029893/0892
Free format text: CHANGE OF NAME;ASSIGNOR:NASTYGOAT CORPORATION;REEL/FRAME:032693/0650
Free format text: FIRST AMENDMENT TO INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SECURITY AGREEMENT;ASSIGNOR:REWARDSTYLE, INC.;REEL/FRAME:048287/0879
Free format text: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SECURITY AGREEMENT;ASSIGNOR:REWARDSTYLE, INC.;REEL/FRAME:048287/0900