Patent ID: 8719101

Claim:
A method of online advertising, comprising: providing an advertisement associated with a first party for display in a network communication delivered to a computing device of a recipient during a browsing session, wherein the advertisement contains an interactive element displayed within the advertisement, and wherein the network communication is associated with a second party different than the first party; receiving an indication that the recipient activated the interactive element displayed within the advertisement; determining, in response to the receiving the indication, whether an identifier containing unique identifying information about the recipient is present on the computing device; if the identifier containing unique identifying information about the recipient is not present on the computing device: causing a text field to be displayed in at least a portion of the advertisement; receiving contact information inputted into the text field by the recipient; generating a user profile associated with the recipient based on the contact information; and causing an identifier associated with the user profile to be stored on the computing device of the recipient; and if the identifier containing unique identifying information about the recipient is present on the computing device: retrieving a user profile associated with the recipient from a visitor information database using at least a portion of the identifier, wherein the user profile comprises at least delivery method preferences and demographic information; retrieving additional information associated with the advertisement based on at least a portion of the user profile associated with the recipient; delivering the additional information to the recipient based on the delivery method preferences, the delivering being performed without interrupting the browsing session of the recipient; and recording the activation by the recipient of the interactive element as recipient tracking data in an analytics server, the recipient tracking data being associated with the unique identifying information about the recipient.