Abstract:
Method for advertisers to improve ad metrics through performance based prize Competitions. A business method that enables advertisers to host prize competitions that attract and motivate ad-writers to create better ads, resulting in higher click-through-rates (CTR). Advertisers challenge writers to beat the performance of their existing ads by offering cash prizes tied to the annual CPC savings their ads generate. The method automatically advertises competitions, queues submitted ads, A/B tests them, selects the ad with the highest CTR, oversees payouts (if any), and restarts the competition with the next submission. The present invention builds a base of professional writers who specialize in multiple categories of businesses. These writers are motivated by the cash prizes but also by improving their skills over multiple challenges.

Description:
FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH 
       [0001]    Not Applicable 
       SEQUENCE LISTING OR PROGRAM 
       [0002]    Not Applicable 
       CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0003]    Not Applicable 
       TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
       [0004]    The present invention relates generally to online advertising. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method for online advertisers to improve the effectiveness of their online advertisements using competitions with performance based incentives. 
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0005]    The present invention enables advertisers to host prize competitions that attract and motivate top ad-writers to create better ads, resulting in higher click-through-rates (CTR). The present invention addresses a large and growing market—the tens of thousands of online advertising accounts that employ text ads on search engine result pages. With the present invention, advertisers challenge writers to beat the performance of their existing ads by offering cash prizes tied to the annual CPC savings their ads generate. 
         [0006]    Writing online ads is challenging; a high level of skill required to convey an advertising message using a fixed number of characters. For this reason, expert marketers can often achieve substantial CTR improvements over ads produced by non-experts. The present invention will generate tremendous value for advertisers by connecting them with a multitude of ad-writing experts. 
         [0007]    Unlike typical search engine marketing agencies, the present invention is risk-free to advertisers; they pay nothing to establish Competitions; instead, writers are paid a prize (calculated as a percentage of annual savings) whenever their ad improves upon the CTR of a challenged ad. Advertisers are happy to pay this prize because a higher CTR drives cost-per-click (CPC) lower (holding all other variables the same). The present invention receives a commission from the advertiser on top of the prize for its efforts. 
         [0008]    Having an automated system for generating and testing ads allows advertisers to maintain a leaner, more analytics-focused marketing team. The present invention automatically advertises competitions, queues submitted ads, A/B tests them, selects the ad with the highest CTR, oversees payouts, if any, and restarts the process with the next submission. This enables marketing staff to focus on the “hard” skills of managing PPC bids, budgets, and terms, rather than the “soft” skills of writing compelling ads. In this manner, the present invention fills a void in the online marketing landscape—small businesses do not have the resources to hire professional ad writers, and large businesses have neither the time nor the resources to manage an optimal number of ad groups. 
         [0009]    The present invention will build a base of professional writers who specialize in multiple categories of businesses. These writers are motivated by the cash prizes, but also by improving their skills over multiple challenges. Professional writers can generate many ads per day, earning substantial income. Moreover, a writer&#39;s ranking/score provides a verifiable means for claiming expertise to all clients. 
         [0010]    Other prior art systems have been proposed, but have all failed from one or more of the shortcomings previously discussed. For example, US Patent Application publication 20070250378 discloses methods and a system for compensating contestants for participating in development competitions. In one embodiment, a method for compensating contestants for participating in development competitions includes conducting development competitions in which contestants each submit a development, and for each competition evaluating contestants&#39; submissions; based on the evaluation, assigning a score to contestants&#39; submissions, identifying a number of submissions having a score above a threshold value, designating the contestant who submitted a submission having a score above the threshold value that is the highest score to be the winner of that competition, and awarding performance points to contestants who submitted the identified submissions. The method further includes periodically awarding prizes to the contestants who receive the greatest number of performance points during the period. 
         [0011]    US Patent Application publication 20070288107 discloses a system and method for screening submissions in a production contest system. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving a production competition submission from a contestant, automatically screening the submission with a screening system to verify that the submission meets predetermined requirements, and providing feedback to the contestant and a contest administrator regarding the results of whether the submission meets the predetermined requirements. 
         [0012]    U.S. Pat. No. 7,162,417 teaches a system and method that provides content review, distribution, ranking and access and automate creation and performance of contests among sets of content-based contestants. The system and method provide customizable interactive, ongoing, multi-level, multi-round contests with expert review of and filtered submission of content-based contestants. Among other advantages, providers may use the system and method to obtain expert and consumer review and ranking of their content. 
         [0013]    U.S. Pat. No. 7,162,417 teaches a system and method that provides content review, distribution, ranking and access and automate creation and performance of contests among sets of content-based contestants. The system and method provide customizable interactive, ongoing, multi-level, multi-round contests with expert review of and filtered submission of content-based contestants. Among other advantages, providers may use the system and method to obtain expert and consumer review and ranking of their content. 
         [0014]    US Patent Application publication 20040148222 discloses a method and a system for online advertising in an advertisement auction environment. A current cost per click (CPC) for the advertisement is calculated. A click through rate (CTR) for the advertisement is calculated. An effective cost for the advertisement is calculated. Also, effective costs of a set of advertisements are calculated. The effective cost of the advertisement is compared with the effective costs of the set of advertisements to determine rankings of the advertisement and the set of advertisements. Priority statuses of the advertisement and of the set of advertisements are determined. A first set of data is transmitted to an advertiser that includes the effective cost for the advertisement, the effective costs of the set of advertisements, the rankings of the advertisement and the set of advertisements, the maximum price to the first priority status, the click through rate of the advertisement, the first rank status click through rate (the CTR for the best performing advertisement), a maximum price for a collection of advertisements that the advertisement is associated with, the priority statuses of the advertisements, and other data. A second set of data is received from the advertiser that includes changes to the advertisement and to the current CPC of the advertisement. 
         [0015]    What is needed is an automated system for generating and testing ads that allows advertisers to maintain a leaner, more analytics-focused marketing team. 
         [0016]    Finally, what is also needed is a means for automatically advertising Competitions, queuing submitted ads, manually accepting them, A/B testing them, selecting the ad with the highest CTR, overseeing payouts (if any), and moving on to the next challenge ad. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0017]    The present invention is business method that enables advertisers to host prize competitions that attract and motivate ad-writers to create better ads, resulting in higher click-through-rates (CTR). With The present invention, advertisers challenge writers to beat the performance of their existing ads by offering cash prizes tied to the annual CPC savings their ads generate. 
         [0018]    Having an automated system for generating and testing ads allows advertisers to maintain a leaner, more analytics-focused marketing team. The present invention automatically advertises competitions, queues submitted ads, A/B tests them, selects the ad with the highest CTR, oversees payouts, if any, and restarts the competition with the next submission. This enables marketing staff to focus on the “hard” skills of managing PPC bids, budgets, and terms, rather than the “soft” skills of writing compelling ads. In this manner, the present invention fills a void in the online marketing landscape—small businesses do not have the resources to hire professional ad writers, and large businesses have neither the time nor the resources to manage an optimal number of ad groups. 
         [0019]    The present invention will build a base of professional writers who specialize in multiple categories of businesses. These writers are not only motivated by the cash prizes, but also by improving their skills over multiple challenges. Professional writers can generate many ads per day, earning substantial income. Moreover, a writer&#39;s present invention ranking/score provides a verifiable means for claiming expertise to all clients. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0020]    The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein and form a part of the specification, illustrate the present invention and, together with the description, further serve to explain the principles of the invention and to enable a person skilled in the pertinent art to make and use the invention. 
           [0021]      FIG. 1  is a flow chart illustrating the relationship of events in the present invention; 
           [0022]      FIG. 2  is a flow chart illustrating the process for the creation of a Champion Ad; 
           [0023]      FIG. 3  is flow chart illustrating the process for an Advertiser to practice the present invention is shown; 
           [0024]      FIG. 4  is a flow chart illustrating the process for a Challenger to use the practice the present invention; and 
           [0025]      FIG. 5  is a flow chart illustrating the system structure for a Competition as taught by the process and method of the present invention. 
       
    
    
     DEFINITIONS OF IMPORTANT TERMS AND ACRONYMS 
     Entities 
       [0026]    Advertiser is defined as someone that creates a Competition to improve the performance of his advertisement. 
         [0027]    A Challenger is defined as one who generates a Challenger Ad to compete against the existing Champion Ad to become the new Champion Ad. 
         [0028]    OAA is defined as “Online Advertising Account”, whereby one example of an OOA would be Google&#39;s AdWords. 
       Competition Terms 
       [0029]    A Challenge is defined as the testing of a Challenger Ad against a Champion Ad in a Competition to determine the one with the best success metric. 
         [0030]    A Competition is defined as a series of Challenges for a particular Ad Group. 
         [0031]    A Champion Ad or Champion is defined as a current advertisement with the best performance or the Advertiser&#39;s advertisement at the initiation of a Challenge. 
         [0032]    The Challenger Ad or Challenger is defined as the advertisement generated by the Challenger to compete against the Champion Ad. 
         [0033]    A Success metric is defined as an Objective or Subjective metric. 
         [0034]    An Ad Group is defined as a collection of one or more ads competing against a Champion Ad. 
         [0035]    A Competition Queue is defined as a series of Challenger Ads waiting to run next in a Competition. 
       DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0036]    In the following are detailed descriptions of the invention of exemplary embodiments. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention, but other embodiments may be utilized and logical, mechanical, electrical, and other changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined only by the appended claims. 
         [0037]    In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. However, it is understood that the invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures and techniques known to one of ordinary skill in the art have not been shown in detail in order not to obscure the invention. 
         [0038]    The present invention enables Advertisers to host Competitions that attract and motivate Challengers to create better ads, resulting in better performance as measured by a Success Metric (e.g. improved click-through-rate). With this invention, Advertisers challenge writers to beat the performance of their existing ads by offering incentives tied to the improvement in the ad&#39;s Success Metric. 
         [0039]    Now referring to  FIG. 1 , Advertisers  1  provide access to their existing online advertising accounts (OAA) hosted with third party partners  10  such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and others via the Third Party Integration Module  8 . The present invention accesses the account using an account access advertising module (AAM)  3 . The AAM  3  identifies all Ad Group and ads within the Ad Groups in the OAA and stores them in the database  6 . The Advertiser  1  is given the choice of launching Competitions from the Competition Contest Module  5  to improve any ad groupings and ads they want to improve. Next, the AAM  3  uses all of the ads found in the previous step to find the highest Success Metric in each ad grouping (also referred to as Ad Groups). The ad with the highest Success Metric is identified as the Champion Ad to be improved on. Thus, this Success Metric establishes the threshold for winning future Challenges until a new Success Metric is established by the next Champion. In an alternative embodiments, the present invention can create new Ad Groups and either automatically or manually create a Champion Ad. 
         [0040]    The Competition and Contest Creation Module (CCCM)  5  creates Competitions and Contests for each of the selected Champion Ads by Challengers  2 . A Competition consists of: An Ad Group, a Champion Ad, a Success Metric (typically click through rate), and a set of rules governing the Competition. 
         [0041]    The Advertiser  1  chooses how much he is willing to pay for an advertisement that beats the Success Metric of his Champion AD. Any metric in the OAA, or calculated from the OAA, can be used as a Success Metric. Metrics found in the OAA include 3, but are not limited to, CTR, conversion rate, cost per conversion, cost per click. 
         [0042]    The Advertiser  1  may provide additional background information (including URLs, words, descriptions, etc.) to communicate, via the System Administration Module  9  the nature of the product/service being advertised to guide Challenger Ads. The Advertiser  1  can select a number of Competition rules/options from the Competition Contest Module  5  such as: duration of Competition; uninvited challengers vs. invited challengers whereby the Advertiser  1  can expose the Competition to the entire un-invited challengers, to specific Challengers that he specifies or to a select group of people—such as employees at his own company; URL not visible; testing ads in Parallel vs. testing ads in Serial; manually accepting ad submissions vs. automatically accepting; how treat tiebreaker; and how to calculate prize. 
         [0043]    Payment information is then collected by the E-Commerce Module  7 . The Competition is then published on a website by the System Administration Module  9 . The Competition continues to run until the Advertiser  1  terminates it. The Competition does not require Challenger Ads in the queue—it continues to run, waiting for new Challenger Ads. 
         [0044]    As shown in  FIG. 4 , Challengers  22  can search or browse  24  for Competitions  18  to enter on a variety of factors including: industry; Success Metric to beat; statistically significance level necessary to achieve; time to enter the Competition  18 ; when the Competition  18  was created; and number of entries in the Competition&#39;s queue. Challengers  22  submit ads known as Challenger Ads  21  to compete against the Champion ads  17 . The Challenger&#39;s ad  21  will be declared the new Champion Ad  17  if it beats the existing Champion Ad&#39;s Success Metric. The Advertiser  1  logs on to his control panel to review the submissions where he has the option of accepting or rejecting submissions  25 , or can provide criteria that will allow ads to be automatically accepted and rejected. The Advertiser  1  is encouraged to provide a rationale for rejecting submissions. 
         [0045]    All submissions are held in a queue and the order of the queue can be modified by the first user at any time as desired or allowed to run in a default order selected from or provided by the system. The Challenger Ad&#39;s Success Metric is tested against the Champion Ad&#39;s Success Metric according to the Competition rules. The order of submissions that are tested against the Champion Ad  17  can be based on earliest to latest, or can be ordered based on the Advertiser&#39;s preference. 
         [0046]      FIG. 2  is a flow chart illustrating the process for the creation of a Champion Ad  17 . The present invention can create new Ad Groups and either automatically create  27  or manually create  37  an Initial Champion Ad  43 . Each Competition  28  is comprised of a series of Challenges, an initial challenge  41  between the Champion Ad  17  and a first challenger ad  45  and subsequent challenges  42  between the Current Champion Ad  17  and subsequent Challenger Ads  46 . Once a level of statistical significance for a Challenge has been reached a Champion Ad  17  is declared based on the Success Metric from either the current Champion Ad  17  or current Challenger Ad. 
         [0047]    If a Challenger Ad  21  loses the Challenge it is discarded and removed from the challenger Ad queue  44 . If the Challenger Ad  21  beats the Champion Ad  17  based on the Success Metric, it becomes the new Champion Ad  39  and Current Champion Ad  17 . All submissions in the challenger Ad queue  44  are now run against the new Champion Ad  39 . If a winner cannot be declared after a specified period as defined in the Competition rules, the Challenger Ad may be pushed to the end of the challenger Ad queue  44  or discarded  17  depending on the Advertiser&#39;s Competition rules, or a winner may be determined based on time. 
         [0048]    The Competition  28  does not end when a new Challenger Ad  21  is declared a winner, it continues to run—even if there are no ad submissions in the challenger Ad queue  44  until the Advertiser  1  stops the Competition. 
         [0049]    Once a winner is established, calculations are performed to determine the prize that is owed to the Challenger  2 . Prizes can be a flat dollar amount for winning, can be tied to improvement over the original Champion&#39;s Success Metric, improvement over most recent Champion, or another method. 
         [0050]    As Champions Ads  17  are replaced with new Champion Ads  39 , and the threshold for the Success metric increases, it becomes more difficult for Challenger Ads  21  to win Challenges. Therefore, the prize payout can be modified at any point to increase or decrease the prize. 
         [0051]    The Challenger ranking is adjusted based on his performance. If his ad beats the Champion Ad, then his rank may improve. Conversely, if he loses his rank may decrease. 
         [0052]    The present invention can be utilized, but is not limited to: Website Landing pages; Radio ads; Banner ads; online text ads; Print Newspaper and magazine Ads; Video ads; Graphics on a page; and TV ads. 
         [0053]    In alternative embodiments to the basic rules and process listed above, there may be no initial Champion, where the Invention creates the advertisement either manually or automatically. The may also require that the first ad is generated by a human. In another alternative embodiment, the payoff may be a fixed dollar amount a function of how much the challenger ad beat the champion ad, or in some cases there will be no cash prize. 
         [0054]    Now referring to  FIG. 3 , the process for an Advertiser to practice the present invention is shown. First, an Advertiser  1  signs up for an account  12 . The Advertiser  1  provides credentials  19  for advertising systems  13  such as Google AdWords. BoostCTR  14  searches the third party system  10  using the credentials  19  to retrieve existing ads  15 . The Advertiser  1  sets up Competition settings  16 , selects the champion ad  17  and starts Competition  18 . The Advertiser  1  may invite Challengers  22  to participate and/or open the Competition to the un-invited challengers  20 . The Advertiser  1  receives challenge ads  21  from Challengers  22  and  20 . The Advertiser  1  accepts or rejects the challenge ads  21 , as they are entered by the Challengers  22  and  20 . 
         [0055]      FIG. 4  illustrates the process for an uninvited Challenger  20  and a Challenger  22  to practice the present invention. First, a Challenger  22  signs up for an account  23 . The Challenger  22  searches or browses for Competitions to enter  24 . The Challenger  22  submits a challenge ad  21  for Competition  18 . The Challenger&#39;s ad  21  is accepted or rejected by the Advertiser  1 . If accepted  25 , the Challenger&#39;s ad  21  competes against current Champion Ad  17 . If the Challenger&#39;s ad  21  is worse  26  than the champion ad  17 , it is discarded  27 . If Challenger&#39;s ad  21  is better  28  than the champion ad  17 , the Challenger  22  receives a prize  29  based on the Competition settings  16 . A Challenger&#39;s score/ranking  30  fluctuates to reflect performance in Competition  18 . 
         [0056]      FIG. 5  illustrates the process for a Competition as structured by the process and method of the present invention. Accepted ads  31  are entered into the Competition queue  32  to compete against the current champion ad  17 . Challenger Ads  18  compete in a competition  35  until a winner or tie is determined  36 . Challenger ads  18  that perform worse than the champion are discarded  38 . Challenger ads  18  that perform better than the current champion ad  17  become new champions  39 . When a new champion  39  is declared, a prize  40  is awarded to the new champion  39 , if the new champion  39  was the Challenger  40 . A prize is not awarded if the current champion Ad  17  is not defeated by the Challenger  40 . 
         [0057]    The basic rules of the Competition can be easily and quickly selected or changed by an Advertiser or Administrator to create a plurality of different Competitions. Duration can be adjusted so that a Competition runs until a winner is declared by one or more variables being meet, a fixed period of time or a Min/Max criteria is completed. Alternatively, the duration of the Competition can be set by the first user to any period of time. Additionally, an Advertiser can always end Competitions at any time and Competitions can be paused by the Advertiser. 
         [0058]    The number of ads tested per Competition can run either as: a plurality of ads versus one ad; one ad versus a plurality of ads; and a plurality of ads versus a plurality of ads. 
         [0059]    Pricing for a Winner or multiple winners can be based on a flat fee, free, the advertiser&#39;s increased profit, reduced expense, measured improvement with respect to one or more variables, based on amount that challenger advertisement improves over champion advertisement. 
         [0060]    The advertiser can decide the level of statistical significance that must be achieved to declare a winner or the present invention can decide the level of statistical significance that must be achieved to declare a winner. Statistical Significance can be measured against different metrics. 
         [0061]    Types of Ad may include, but should not be limited to: Website Landing pages; Radio ads; Banner ads; online text ads; Print Newspaper and magazine Ads; Video ads; Graphics on a page; and TV ads. 
         [0062]    Values being tested include, but should not be limited to: CTR; Conversion rate; CPA (cost per acquired customer); Total conversions in a given time period; Time on site, and page views per visit. 
         [0063]    With respect to Challengers, rankings of Challengers may be determined in many manners such as, but not limited to: Average amount of improvement; Win percentage; Total wins; Total losses; Total ad submissions; and monetary winnings. 
         [0064]    Accepting Challenger Submissions can be done manually or automatic based on one or more rules or the ranking of the writers. 
         [0065]    In the event of a tie, the Champion wins or the Challenger wins based on settings, the Challenger ad is sent to the back of the queue to be run in a challenge again, the Challenge time is extended, or an Advertiser can declare a tie at any time. 
         [0066]    Competitions may be un-invited challengers or invited challengers and an Advertiser can make a Competition open to all, invitation only, open to both all and those with invitations, or make one or more open based rules to determine those writers who may participate. 
         [0067]    Advertisers can write ads for their own Competitions and can have multiple challenges at once. Writer can withdraw their ads from a Competition at any time for any reason. 
         [0068]    Thus, it is appreciated that the optimum dimensional relationships for the parts of the invention, to include variation in size, materials, shape, form, function, and manner of operation, assembly and use, are deemed readily apparent and obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, and all equivalent relationships to those illustrated in the drawings and described in the above description are intended to be encompassed by the present invention. Furthermore, other areas of art may benefit from this method and adjustments to the design are anticipated. Thus, the scope of the invention should be determined by the appended claims and their legal equivalents, rather than by the examples given.