Patent ID: 8533755

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for accelerating advertising placement decisions, comprising the steps of: receiving, at a programmed computer, a source signal stream having a channel identifier and an indication that an advertisement placement opportunity is located in the signal stream a time period prior to an advertisement signal point; identifying, using the programmed computer, a list representative of a plurality of recipient signal streams having the channel identifier and at least one audience attribute prior to expiration of the time period; where said identifying comprises: extracting metadata including the channel identifier from the source signal stream; inserting into the source stream a unique signal ID corresponding to the temporal starting location of the advertisement placement opportunity and the channel identifier; generating a look-ahead decision trigger with the signal ID as trigger data; transmitting the look-ahead decision trigger to an ad management service; transmitting the channel identifier to a session manager; receiving from the session manager, a list of client identities indicative of a number of recipients currently viewing a channel corresponding to the channel identifier; transmitting the list of client identities and the channel identifier to a subscriber information service; receiving, from the subscriber information service, a list of sets of audience qualifiers correlated to the client identities and the channel identifier; obtaining, using the programmed computer, a plurality of advertisements targeted to the list representative of the plurality of recipient signal streams; wherein said obtaining comprises: transmitting, to an ad decision server, an ad call for each element of the list of sets of audience qualifiers and the channel identifier; receiving, from the ad decision server, the plurality of advertisements targeted to the list representative of the plurality of recipient signal streams; associating the unique signal ID with each of the plurality of targeted advertisements, and storing, using the programmed computer, the plurality of advertisements in at least one cache.