Patent ID: 7822637

Claim:
A method for automatically regulating opportunities for presenting electronic advertisements while a visitor is in contact with a communications node, the method comprising: Upon a visitor visiting a communications node, electronically and automatically and individually for that visitor, with at least one Internet-connected computer: (a) obtaining a profile of the visitor, which profile contains data identifying various attributes believed to be associated with the visitor; (b) accessing an electronic storage device containing pre-stored data derived from a plurality of pre-collected bids, the bids being for delivery of an associated electronic advertisement to a visitor visiting the communications node, each of which plurality of bids having been collected by receiving: (i) a first offer price where a visitor to the communications node has a subset of attributes; and (ii) one or more supplemental offer prices, each for where the visitor has an individual attribute in addition to the subset of attributes; (c) identifying from the data a bid based on the total, for each of the plurality of the pre-collected bids, of (i) the first offer price associated with a subset of attributes that match the corresponding entries in the visitor's profile, and (ii) the corresponding one of the supplemental offer prices, in each case where the individual attribute matches the corresponding entry in the visitor's profile; (d) arranging for the delivery to the visitor of the electronic advertisement associated with the identified bid; and (e) recording billing data identifying the delivered advertisement and the price for delivery to the visitor of the advertisement associated with the identified bid.