U.S. patent application number 09/293463 was filed with the patent office on 2002-06-13 for method of delivery targeting and measuring advertising over networks.
Invention is credited to MERRIMAN, DWIGHT ALLEN, O'CONNOR, KEVIN JOSEPH.
Application Number | 20020072965 09/293463 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 24968825 |
Filed Date | 2002-06-13 |
United States Patent
Application |
20020072965 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
MERRIMAN, DWIGHT ALLEN ; et
al. |
June 13, 2002 |
METHOD OF DELIVERY TARGETING AND MEASURING ADVERTISING OVER
NETWORKS
Abstract
Methods and apparatuses for targeting the delivery of
advertisements over a network such as the Internet are disclosed.
Statistics are compiled on individual users and networks and the
use of the advertisements is tracked to permit targeting of the
advertisements of individual users. In response to requests from
affiliated sites, an advertising server transmits to people
accessing the page of a site an appropriate one of the
advertisement based upon profiling of users and networks.
Inventors: |
MERRIMAN, DWIGHT ALLEN; (NEW
YORK, NY) ; O'CONNOR, KEVIN JOSEPH; (NEW YORK,
NY) |
Correspondence
Address: |
KENYON & KENYON
ONE BROADWAY
NEW YORK
NY
10004
US
|
Family ID: |
24968825 |
Appl. No.: |
09/293463 |
Filed: |
April 15, 1999 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
|
|
09293463 |
Apr 15, 1999 |
|
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08738634 |
Oct 29, 1996 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
705/14.49 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06Q 30/0257 20130101;
G06Q 30/0269 20130101; G06Q 30/0261 20130101; G06Q 30/0225
20130101; G06Q 30/0272 20130101; G06Q 30/0277 20130101; G06Q
30/0264 20130101; G06Q 30/02 20130101; G06Q 30/0255 20130101; G06Q
30/0254 20130101; G06Q 30/0243 20130101; G06Q 30/0251 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
705/14 |
International
Class: |
G06F 017/60 |
Claims
We claim:
1. A method for providing information to be displayed a plurality
of times over a network, a first node communicating with a second
node using a network protocol including address information for the
first node, the method comprising: receiving address information
from the first node at the second node; determining the identity of
the first node based upon the address information; providing a
first set of information from the second node to be displayed by
the first node irrespective of the address of the first node; and
providing at least one object to be displayed by the first node
based upon the address information from the first node and how
often the at least one object has been transmitted.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the providing of the at least one
object is from a third node.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the providing of the at least one
object also depends upon that at least one information that has
been provided by the second node.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first node is part of a first
domain and the providing of the at least one object depends upon
the domain that the first node is a part of.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the method includes storing data
identifying the information transmitted from the second node to be
displayed at the first node.
6. The method of claim 5, wherein the data is the address of a web
page.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the providing of the at least one
object depends upon the data identifying information previously
viewed by the user.
8. A method for providing first information and a plurality of
different objects to be displayed a plurality of times over a
network, a first node communicating with a second node using a
network protocol including address information for the first node,
the method comprising: receiving address information from the first
node at the second node; determining the identity of the first node
based upon the address information; providing a first set of
information from the second node to be displayed by the first node
irrespective of the address of the first node; and providing a
selected one of the object to be displayed by the first node based
upon the address information from the first node and how often the
selected one of the object has been displayed in comparison to how
often the other object has been transmitted.
9. The method of claim 8, wherein the selected one of the object is
first available for displaying on a first date and will not be
available on the network for displaying after a second date, and
the selection of the providing depends in part on how much time has
passed from the first date and how much time remains to the second
date.
10. The method of claim 9, wherein each of the objects is to be
displayed a minimum number of times between the first and the
second date and the selection of particular object is based upon
the relative rates that that particular object is being selected to
maximize the likelihood that each object will be displayed the
minimum number of times for that minimum number of times.
11. The method of claim 9, wherein if the user at the first node
selects the object, the user is linked to another node.
12. The method of claim 11, wherein if the user selects the object,
the fact that the user selected that particular object is
stored.
13. The method of claim 12, wherein if the user selects the object,
which particular first information was being displayed when the
user selected the object is also stored.
14. A method of communicating between a plurality of nodes on a
communications network each node in the network having
identification information that is transmitted between nodes when
the nodes are communicating, the method comprising: transmitting
from a first node to a second node a request for information to be
displayed from a second node; transmitting from the second node to
the first node a first portion of the information to be displayed
and transmitting from the second node to the first node
identification information for a third node along with information
to cause the first node to request information from the third node;
and determining at the third node the identification of the first
node and selecting the information to be transmitted back to the
first node based at least in part on the identity of the first node
to display the selected information with the requested
information.
15. A method of targeting the transmission of information to
individual users using browsers of either an Intranet or an
Internet, the method comprising: providing a first web site to be
accessed by browsers, the web site comprised of web pages that for
at least one page upon being accessed, the web site transmits back
a redirect to a second web site; providing a third web site to be
accessed by browsers comprising of web pages that for at least one
page upon being accessed, the second web site transmits back a
redirect to the second web site; and the second web site upon
receiving a redirect from either of the first or the third web site
causes an object to be transmitted to the requesting browser to be
displayed with the page from the accessed web site.
16. A method of tracking the number of times that a user of a
network sees particular information, the users communicating with a
server process using a protocol that includes information to
identify the user, the method comprising: providing a limit of the
number of times that a given user can see the information;
receiving information from the user through the protocol and
transmitting the information back to the user; incrementing a count
reflecting the number of times the information has been transmitted
to the user; and preventing the transmission of the information to
the user if the information has been transmitted to the user more
than the predetermined limit.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] Area of the Art
[0002] This invention relates to methods of delivery of
advertisements and measuring responses to those delivered
advertisements and in particular relates to the targeting of
advertisements delivered over networks such as the Internet.
[0003] Description of the Prior Art
[0004] In advertising, it is considered highly desirable to target
advertisements to the appropriate potential customer base, rather
than to broadcast advertisements in general. It has long been known
that, for example, advertisements for computers should generally
not appear in magazines on gardening and, conversely,
advertisements for gardening tools should not appear in magazines
on computers. Similarly, advertisers have generally targeted their
advertisements on television to programs appropriate for the
desired customer base.
[0005] It has also long been known that an advertisement that is
repeated too often will eventually become ignored by consumers.
Therefore, an advertiser typically wishes to eliminate duplication
and reach as many individuals in the advertiser's target group as
possible.
[0006] The recent development of on-line networks, such as America
On-Line, Compuserve, and the Internet, has led to "on-line"
advertising. For example, on the Internet, often such on-line
advertisements will appear on a web page, such as a banner on the
top or the bottom of the page. When the user views a web page using
a browser such as Internet Explorer 3 or Netscape 3, the banner
appears at the appropriate location and the user may then try to
find out more information regarding the advertisement by selecting
the advertisement (clicking through on that banner) through the use
of the mouse or other pointing device. This will cause a HTTP
message to be generated by the browser using the information
encapsulated in association with the banner to send a request for
an object with a given URL address to a different appropriate web
site to access, for example, the advertiser's home page.
[0007] Nonetheless, such advertising has had, so far, a poor rate
of response because it is untargeted advertising. Thus, someone who
is totally uninterested in computers other than they happen to be
on the Internet, may continually see advertisements for computers.
On the other hand, someone who is interested in computers may
continually see advertisements for gardening tools when browsing
through a particular web site. Thus it would be highly desirable to
have a method of targeting the advertising to the appropriate
user.
[0008] In addition, if a user of such computer networks is
continuously exposed to the same advertisement, the response rate
to the advertisement will generally decline. Therefore, it is
highly desirable to have a system that controls the frequency of
exposure of advertisements to particular users. In addition, it is
also important for the advertisers to track response to the
advertisements and to acquire as much information about those
people responding to the advertisements for targeting those same
people at later dates.
[0009] Therefore, it is a first object of this invention to provide
targeting of advertising over networks such as the Internet. It is
a second object of this invention to provide control over frequency
of exposure to users for advertisements appearing on web pages over
time. It is a third object of the invention to provide the
capability to gather information about recipients of the
advertisement.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0010] These and other objects of the invention are achieved by the
disclosed system and methods. Information about networks and
subnetworks is routinely collected. In addition, information about
individual users is also gathered when users select (click on)
different advertisements. Also, data is tracked on how often a
given advertisement has been displayed, how often a given user has
seen a given advertisement, and other information regarding the
user and the frequency of the display of the advertisement
[0011] To effect such a capability, an advertising server process
is provided as a node on the network. The various advertisements
are stored on the network of the server and preferably on the
server. When, for example, a user using a web browser accesses a
web page that is affiliated with the advertising server process,
the affiliated page's encoding includes an embedded reference to an
object provided by the advertising server process. That causes the
user's browser to contact the advertising server process to provide
the advertising image or information that will appear on the
accessed web page as displayed by the user's browser. Using the
address information and/or other information passed by the browser
for the user, including the page being accessed by the user, the
advertising server process determines an appropriate advertisement
to select for the particular user. In addition, the advertising
server process will use information such as the number of times the
user has seen various advertisements, how often the advertisement
has been seen by any user and the start and stop date for the
various advertisements to select which advertisement to transmit to
the user's web page for display.
[0012] If the user decides to respond to the advertisement selected
by the web server by clicking on the advertisement, the advertising
server process logs that fact and to have more information about
the given user. A derive profile process is used for compiling
information on TCP/IP networks for use by the advertising server
process. By compiling the information on networks and user
selections, the advertising server process is able to compile
information that can be used for targeting advertising.
DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES
[0013] FIG. 1 is diagram for explaining a first embodiment of the
invention.
[0014] FIG. 2 is a diagram explaining the processes performed in
the preferred embodiments.
[0015] FIGS. 3A, 3B and 3C are diagrams showing the basic structure
of some of the databases kept by the advertising server.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0016] The basic architecture of the network 10 comprises at least
one affiliate web site 12, an advertisement (ad) server web site 19
and one or more individual advertiser's web sites 18. Affiliates
are one or more entities that generally for a fee contract with the
entity providing the advertisement server permit third party
advertisements to be displayed on their web sites. When a user
using a browser accesses or "visits" a web site of an affiliate, an
advertisement provided by the advertisement server 19 will be
superimposed on the display of the affiliate's web page displayed
by the user's browser. Examples of appropriate affiliates include
locator services, service providers, and entities that have popular
web sites such as museums, movie studios, etc.
[0017] The basic operation of the system is as follows in the
preferred embodiment. When a user browsing on the Internet accesses
an affiliate's web site 12, the user's browser generates an HTTP
message 20 to get the information for the desired web page. The
affiliate's web site in response to the message 20 transmits one or
more messages back 22 containing the information to be displayed by
the user's browser. In addition, an advertising server process 19
will provide additional information comprising one or more objects
such as banner advertisements to be displayed with the information
provided from the affiliate web site. Normally, the computers
supporting the browser, the affiliate web site and the advertising
server process will be at entirely different nodes on the Internet.
Upon clicking through or otherwise selecting the advertisement
object, which may be an image such as an advertisement banner, an
icon, or a video or an audio clip, the browser ends up being
connected to the advertiser's server or web site 18 for that
advertisement object.
[0018] In FIG. 1, a user operates a web browser, such as Netscape
or Microsoft Internet Explorer, on a computer or PDA or other
Internet capable device 16 to generate through the hypertext
transfer protocol (HTTP) 14 a request 20 to any one of preferably a
plurality of affiliate web sites 12. The affiliate web site sends
one or more messages back 22 using the same protocol. Those
messages 22 preferably contain all of the information available at
the particular web site 12 for the requested page to be displayed
by the user's browser 16 except for one or more advertising objects
such as banner advertisements. These objects preferably do not
reside on the affiliate's web server. Instead, the affiliate's web
server sends back a link including an IP address for a node running
an advertiser server process 19 as well as information about the
page on which the advertisement will be displayed. The link by way
of example may be a hypertext markup language (HTML)<img>tag,
referring to, for example, an inline image such as a banner. The
user's browser 16 then transmits a message 23 using the received IP
address to access such an object indicated by the HTML tag from the
advertisement server 19. Included in each message 23 typically to
the advertising server 19 are: (i) the user's IP address, (ii) a
cookie if the browser 16 is cookie enabled and stores cookie
information, (iii) a substring key indicating the page in which the
advertisement to be provided from the server is to be embedded, and
(iv) MIME header information indicating the browser type and
version, the operating system of the computer on which the browser
is operating and the proxy server type. Upon receiving the request
in the message 23, the advertising server process 19 determines
which advertisement or other object to provide to user's browser
and transmits the messages 24 containing the object such as a
banner advertisement to the user's browser 16 using the HTTP
protocol. Preferably contained within the HTTP message is a unique
identifier for the advertiser's web page appropriate for the
advertisement. That advertisement object is then displayed on the
image created by the web user's browser as a composite of the
received affiliate's web page plus the object transmitted back by
the advertising web server.
[0019] As part of the "click through" process, when the user clicks
on the banner or other advertising object displayed by the user's
browser 16, the user's browser again transmits a message to the ad
server. The ad server notes the address of the computer of the
browser (or any other identifier such as a cookie or a digital
signature) that generated the message 23 and transmits back the URL
of the advertiser's web page so that the users web browser 16
generates a message 26 to contact the advertiser's web site. 18.
The ad server process 19 also notes that a "click through" for an
advertisement has occurred and updates the various databases in the
manner described below. In the above scenario for the click through
process, the ad server process must remember which advertisement
was sent to the user's browser in order to know where to redirect
the user's browser.
[0020] While in the above embodiments, the user is a computer on an
IP network using a browser, the affiliate web sites are web pages
of affiliates located somewhere on the Internet and the ad server
is a particular node on the Internet, other setups are also
possible. The affiliates may be ISP's or may be actual dedicated
web servers and the users may be an entire network instead of an
individual browsing on a single computer with a browser.
[0021] FIG. 2 shows the ad server architecture. The ad server,
which may comprise one or more servers uses a database 54 that will
be described below and performs reporting processes 59, management
processes 58, derivation of profile processes 52 and advertisement
processes 19. The derive profile process 52 is how the
advertisement server gathers information about individual users or
TCP/IP networks for individual users. Advertisements, which may be
advertisement banners are stored within the ad server process 19 as
part of the advertising server process 19 and are periodically
updated and refreshed. The advertisement server process 19 is used
for responding to requests from advertisements provided by the
user's as described above. The management process 58 is used for
updating the various advertisements and overall control of the
advertising server process 19 and also permits the advertisers to
interface with the database to obtain up to the date reports on the
placement of the advertisements. The report process 59 is used for
generating online reports about the success rate of the
advertisement and statistics on the users that are viewing and
clicking through on various advertisements and also updating the
counters in the database that store how often an advertisement has
been displayed.
[0022] The basic database structure is shown in FIG. 3. For each
user identified by the system as shown in FIG. 3A, a user
identification, IP address, domain type, time zone, location of the
user, standard industrial code for the user's network, the
particular advertisements seen and the number of times each such
advertisement is seen, the advertisements that were selected or
"clicked on" and the pages on which the various users'
advertisements were seen is collected. By using the information
such as which advertisements a user has expressed interest in and
which pages the user was viewing when the user clicked through
along with other information, targeted Internet advertising is
possible.
[0023] FIG. 3B shows a database structure for the advertisements.
Included in the information for an advertisement are an identifier
for the advertisement, the start date for the advertisement being
carried, the last date the advertisement is to be carried, the
total number of people who have viewed the advertisements, the
target or the minimum number of times the advertisement is to be
viewed, acceptable viewers by their web site's SICS (Standard
Industry Codes), clicked through and pages that the advertisements
are seen on.
[0024] Also, as noted above, to enhance the process of identifying
information about various users, information on domains or networks
is also tracked. This information includes the domain name and type
(e.g., military, government, commerce, foreign countries), the IP
address, the standard industrial code, the time zone and the
address as shown in FIG. 3C. This information can be used in
developing information about users. Through the use of these three
databases and other appropriate databases that may be kept, the
various processes of the advertising server process 19 are
performed.
[0025] Advertising Server Processes 19
[0026] In response to an incoming message to the advertising server
process 19, the advertising server processes 19 first attempts to
identify the user in FIG. 2. This can be accomplished by at least
one of two means. First, any incoming request for an image or a
multimedia object is examined to determined the IP address of the
requesting browser. The advertising server then notes whether a
cookie was received in the MIME heading of the request. From these
two pieces of information, a user identification is determined. If
a cookie was detected, then the cookie contains the user's
identification number that can be accessed in the database. If the
user's browser is cookie enabled but no cookie is detected, then
the request is from a new user so a user identification must be
assigned to the user and that user's new identification number will
be transmitted back to the user's browser along with a write cookie
instruction that causes the browser to write a cookie containing
that unique identification number on the user's local drive for
future accesses to affiliate sites. The cookie instruction is
transmitted back with the advertisement messages 24. Alternatively,
instead of using cookies, digital signatures or certificates or log
ins uniquely identifying the user accessing the affiliate page may
be used.
[0027] If the user's browser does not support cookies, the
advertising server process looks up the user's IP address in a
table that stores identification numbers that correspond to IP
addresses for the users who have previously contacted the
advertising server process. If the IP address is not found in the
table, then the user is a new user and is assigned an unused
identification number. Also, for each new user, that user's
identification number will be marked for further processing under
the derive profile process 52 described below. Also, if the domain
for the new user has not previously been processed in the domain
profile process, it may not be possible to target the advertisement
for the new user and rather the new user should be shown a generic
advertisement. Also, for new users, a promotional advertisement may
be shown to get the new user to provide information about him or
herself and his or her employer.
[0028] If the user is an existing user, the ad server 19 obtains
from a database all of the information known about the user
including the user's geographic location, the domain type
(commercial educational, governmental, the Internet service
provided), the organization type where the user works (for example
a SIC code), the company size, the number of employees in that
company, the particular types of advertisements that the user has
clicked on by SIC or other appropriate coding and the number of
times that the user has been exposed to each advertisement
currently in the system as described in FIG. 3A. Also, the relative
time of day for the user is calculated based upon either the user's
country code or the user's IP access provider or the location of
their domain.
[0029] Each advertisement along with a table of the targeting
profile criteria for the advertisement and other data regarding the
advertisement currently available is stored in a database such as
shown in FIG. 3B. The actual advertising object, which may be a
banner image in a GIF or JPEG file format, an icon for an audio or
video clip or some other object is kept as part of the advertising
server process. This information may include targeted consumers by
SIC, country, organization type and type of advertisements
previously selected by the user. For any of the advertisements
currently provided for which there is a match (for example there
may be several advertisements targeted at people interested in
computers), the next step is to determine which of the
advertisements for which there is a match should be selected.
[0030] The preferred embodiment also includes determining which
advertising object should be selected if two or more advertising
object have criteria matching the user. selecting from the matched
advertisements by determining how often the particular user has
been exposed to the given advertisement. For each user, data is
kept about the number of times that a user has seen a given
advertisement based upon the user ID. For each advertisement where
the user matches the criteria, if the number of times that the user
has seen the advertisement is less than a predetermined threshold,
the advertisement is retained as one of the possible matches. If
the number of times that the user has seen a given advertisement
exceeds the threshold, the advertisement is discarded as a possible
candidate for transmitting back to the user.
[0031] From the advertisements for which the user matches the
criteria and for which the user has seen the advertisement less
than the threshold, any of number of algorithms may be used to
select the particular advertisement to transmit back to the user.
In an embodiment, the formula used is based upon a satisfaction
index (SI) according to the following formula: 1 SI = n N * end -
start now - start
[0032] Where:
[0033] n: the number of times the particular advertisement has been
viewed by anyone
[0034] N: the number of times the advertisement is to be see by
anyone
[0035] end-start: the total number of days that the advertisement
is scheduled to run
[0036] now-start: the number of days that the advertisement has run
to date
[0037] The satisfaction index (SI) is 1.0 when the advertisement is
on schedule. If the advertisement is running behind schedule (i.e.,
the current rate of display means that the advertisement will not
be viewed the targeted number of times by the end date so that the
SI is less than 1.0) while if the SI is greater than 1.0, the
advertisement is running ahead of schedule. Therefore, the
advertisement that is to be selected for viewing is the one that
has a matched profile and has the smallest SI. Upon selecting the
advertisement, the selected advertisement object is then
transmitted to the user's browser over the Internet by transmitting
the GIF stored in RAM in one or more messages.
[0038] After delivery of the advertisement to the user, additional
processing needs to be done both for tracking the exposure of the
advertisement and for having more information about the user.
First, the system stores the fact that the advertisement was sent
to the user by storing that information in the database based upon
the user ID. This information is used for processing the user's
response to the advertisement when the user "clicks" on the
advertisement. Also, the advertising processor updates the
advertisements satisfaction index and logs the advertisement
delivery for providing reports. Also, if the advertisement that has
been sent has a limit on the number of times that the advertisement
can be sent, the count of the number of times that the
advertisement has been transmitted is incremented. This limit can
be the overall limit for the number of times that the advertisement
is viewed and/or the limit that any specific user can view the
advertisement. If the limit on the number of times the
advertisement can be sent is reached, then the particular
advertisement is removed from the list of those that can be
transmitted. In addition, even if an advertisement has not been
transmitted recently, the SI is updated to reflect the passage of
time.
[0039] If the user then decides that he wants to respond to the
advertisement and then clicks on the advertisement, the
advertisement server 19 receives an HTTP request 23 for a click
through which it will recognize by receiving the same IP address
(and optionally, the user ID specified by the cookie, digital
signature or certificate or log in identification) in the request
from the same affiliate's web page within a predetermined period.
Since the advertisement server previously recorded which
advertisement was sent to that IP address, it sends the redirect
message causing the user's browser to receive the URL for the
advertiser's web site based upon data stored in the server. In
addition, the server logs that the advertisement was clicked
through, which user selected the advertisement based upon the IP
address, and the page on which the advertisement was seen based
upon the click through. This information can then be logged in
later reporting processes 59.
[0040] As an alternative to using a satisfaction index, the
selection of the particular advertisement object to be sent back to
the viewer's browser by the advertising server process 19 can be
made by different criteria. For example, models can be created to
maximize the likelihood of a click through. Such models for
maximizing the likelihood of a click through may be based upon
empirically gathered information about either types of
advertisements or individual advertisements actually on the system
correlated to the compiled information on a user or the user's
network and the specific page through which the user is accessing
the advertising server process 19.
[0041] Derivative Profile Process 52
[0042] In addition, as part of the profiling process for gathering
information about users and IP addresses needs to be done. First,
appropriate "networks" need to be identified based upon the TCP/IP
network address of the user. Periodically, the derive profiles
process searches the user database for the address of additional
users that have addresses for unknown networks, indicating that
they are new users. Then the server does a reverse domain name
search to locate the domain name of the user. The server also
queries Internet WhoIs databases to find information about the
network, which will often include the domain name.
[0043] Alternatively, a reverse form of look up can be used
independent of people accessing the network. When a domain is
discovered, the server will check common DNS names for the name,
such as those starting with "www", and "ftp". These resolve to IP
addresses in most cases. From the IP addresses, the network number
can be extracted and if the network does not yet have a domain name
associated with the network number or address, the new domain
associated with the network. A reverse domain name look up (A Whois
lookup) will then usually provide the name, address and phone
number of the organization, thereby providing the geographic
location and the time zone of the network. Once the domain name is
acquired, the server will determine whether the domain is an
educational, military, governmental network and for non-U.S. based
networks what country the network is located in through the
extension.
[0044] However, it should be noted that some networks cover broad
geographic areas and that further checking needs to be done to
ensure that the data may be inaccurate. This can be done by
performing a trace route operation to trace the network topology
back to the network being examined. If the last two or three nodes
on the trace show as being from a given region, the chances are
high that the specific user on a network is located in that
geographic area. Thus, reverse traces can be used to confirm
location with a database for geographic locations. By checking
telephone directories and other sources, the specific location for
such users may be found by looking up the locations where the owner
of the domain name has facilities and using the one closest to the
outcome of the trace back step If the information for a given user
is different than the location of the domain based upon the trace
back, it is this address and location information that is then
used.
[0045] Further for each domain that is found, a determination must
be made as to whether the domain is an Internet Service Provider
(ISP). A list of domains that are ISP's is compiled manually. For
any user having a domain name of an ISP, the user is presumed to be
an individual and so only information relating to that individual
are used for the profiling process.
[0046] Reporting Process
[0047] The reporting process uses standard database techniques for
generating any desired reports. For example, reports showing the
number of viewings and click throughs of various advertisements may
be generated along with reports showing the click through rates
relative to the matching criteria. Also, reports on the SI can be
readily generated.
[0048] In addition to using the domain profiling process and
logging advertisement clicked on by individual users and the pages
being accessed by users of affiliate web sites, in addition
surveying may be used. Further, for those survey respondents who
are responding for non-ISP users discussed above, the results of
the survey can be attributed to others on the same network. This
provides further information for targeting the display of the
advertisements.
[0049] Of course, those of skill in the field will understand that
the disclosed techniques need not just be confined to Internet
advertising but will work on other communication networks and
private on line services such as CompuServe and America On Line. In
addition, while specific user and domain profile information and
matching criteria are discussed, it will be obvious to those of
ordinary skill in the field that the specific type of user and
domain name information profiled and used as matching criteria may
include other or different criteria. In addition, while the
specific examples are for IP networks, the same concepts can be
applied to virtual LAN's such that a VLAN is the equivalent of a
domain or on IPX based protocols or other network protocols.
[0050] Still further, rather than using cookies or IP addresses or
other network addresses to identify the users, digital signatures
or certificates may be used. In addition, a log in technique may be
used whereby when users first access an affiliated web site, the
user is assigned through a log in procedure a unique identifier and
a log in name. When the user subsequently accesses either the same
or a different affiliated web site, the user logs in using the
unique identifier, thereby ensuring that users can be identified
notwithstanding proxy servers or different users using the same
computer.
[0051] Still further, those of ordinary skill in the field will
also understand that while the advertising server, the affiliate
web site and the advertiser's web site are described as being in
different geographic locations, that is not required. Still
further, while the advertising server process, reporting process,
derive profile process and management process are described as
being implemented on one computer platform performing all of the
above described functions, it is readily understood by those of
skill that any or all of these functions may be implemented on one
or more different computers and further that these processes may be
performed at different nodes on the network.
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