Patent ID: 8626594

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of conducting electronic commerce on a network, comprising: accessing, by a computer of a broker, a collection of electronic commerce-enabled ad units advertising items offered by merchants and having associated bids the merchants pay responsive to purchases of the advertised items through the ad units, each of the ad units configured to be displayed in a single ad slot of a web page; serving, by the computer, ad units selected from the collection of ad units to customers via the network, the selected ad units displayed within respective web pages published by publishers, the publishers of the web pages being distinct entities from the merchants offering the advertised items and the broker being a distinct entity from the publishers and the merchants; interacting, by the computer, with a customer through a published ad unit displayed within a web page to enable the customer to complete a purchase of an item advertised by the ad unit, wherein the ad unit includes functionality for enabling the customer to complete the purchase of the item offered by a merchant by interacting with the ad unit displayed within a single ad slot of the web page without leaving the web page on which the ad unit was published, wherein interacting with the customer includes receiving, by the broker from the customer, payment from the customer to complete the purchase of the item; and interacting, by the computer, with the merchant offering the item for purchase responsive to receiving payment from the customer, wherein interacting with the merchant includes notifying the merchant that the purchase of the item has been completed and keeping, by the broker responsive to receiving payment from the customer, a portion of the payment as a fee for serving the ad unit, the fee corresponding to a predetermined cost per customer acquisition.