Patent ID: 8150732

Claim:
A method of delivering content to a client computer based on client profile data, comprising the steps of: receiving profile data associated with a first plurality of client computers, said profile data indicating attributes associated with the first plurality of client computers; defining a hierarchical organization of audience segments based upon the profile data, the hierarchical organization of audience segments including a first audience segment, a second audience segment, and a third audience segment; determining client computer membership in the first audience segment based on the association of client computers with a first set of attributes; determining client computer membership in the second audience segment based on the association of client computers with a second set of attributes, wherein the first and second sets of attributes are different from each other; determining client computer membership in the third audience segment based on the association of client computers with a combination of the first and second sets of attributes; transmitting segment-targeting cookies having a segment identifier for the third audience segment to a second plurality of client computers based on the determination of client computer membership in the third audience segment; selecting content to deliver to the second plurality of client computers; and delivering the selected content to the second plurality of client computers based on the determination of the segment identifier in the segment-targeting cookies.