Patent ID: 7203684

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for determining content-relevant ads once an e-mail document is rendered on a client device, the method comprising: a) providing, from the client device, a document identifier in an ad request to a content-relevant ad server; b) using, at the content-relevant ad server, content-relevance information associated with the document identifier and ad information to determine a set of one or more ads; c) generating an image including the one or more ads of the determined set; d) providing the generated image and a session identifier to the client device; e) rendering, with the client device, the image in the document; f) detecting a user action with respect to the rendered image; and g) in response to the detection of the user action with respect to the rendered image, sending the session identifier and position information to the content-relevant ad server, wherein the image includes at least two ads, wherein the user action is a user selection of one of the at least two ads included within the image, and wherein the position information is a position of a cursor within the image at the time of a user selection.