Patent ID: 8751304

Claim:
A computer-implemented method implemented in an advertising exchange, comprising: for each of a plurality of content item requests for a content item received at an advertising exchange: receiving, by the advertising exchange, data specifying a content item selected to fulfill the content item request, the data including a reporting macro that corresponds to an expansion event for which the content item is to expand to an expanded viewing state, the macro being a sequence of characters that is mapped to a replacement sequence of characters, and the content item being identified by a content item identifier; determining, by the advertising exchange, an impression identifier that uniquely identifies an impression for which the content item was selected; generating, by the advertising exchange, a reporting instruction executable by a user device and that causes the user device to transmit a reporting message to the advertising exchange in response to the occurrence of the expansion event corresponding to the reporting macro; substituting, by the advertising exchange, the reporting macro in the data specifying a content item with the reporting instruction; and sending, by the advertising exchange, the data specifying the content item with the reporting instruction substituted for the reporting macro to a user device that generated the content item request; and storing an impression record that specifies the impression identifier and the content item identifier; receiving from user devices reporting messages, each reporting message including an impression identifier and event data that uniquely corresponds to the expansion event, each reporting message generated in response to a user device executing a reporting instruction; and determining, from the impression records and the reporting messages, the impression records that correspond to the received reporting messages; wherein the content items are expandable advertisement served by vendors through the advertising exchange, and the reporting records received are for expandable advertisements for a plurality of vendors.