| Positioning advertisements on the bases of expected revenue -> Monitor Keywords |
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Positioning advertisements on the bases of expected revenueRelated Patent Categories: Data Processing: Financial, Business Practice, Management, Or Cost/price Determination, Automated Electrical Financial Or Business Practice Or Management Arrangement, Distribution Or Redemption Of Coupon, Or Incentive Or Promotion ProgramPositioning advertisements on the bases of expected revenue description/claimsThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20070027751, Positioning advertisements on the bases of expected revenue. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
[0001] A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosures, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention generally provides methods and systems for facilitating the ranking and positioning of advertisements. More specifically, the present invention provides methods and systems that use combinations of analytics data, confidence scores, and expected revenue to determine an ordering or positioning of one or more advertisements in response to a given request received from a client device. [0003] Advertisements are commonly used on the Internet to promote various products and services. Advertisements may comprise banner ads, links to web pages, images, video, text, etc. The various advertisements used to promote products on the Internet may be displayed according to a variety of formats, such as within a ranked result set in response to a search query, embedded in a web page, a pop-up, etc. The advertisements displayed to a user of a client device may be selected, redirecting a user to the advertiser's website providing information regarding the product or service advertised. [0004] Client devices, communicatively coupled to a network such as the Internet, are able to access various websites that may display advertisements. For example, a user of a client device may submit a search query comprising one or more terms to a search engine, which causes the search engine to retrieve a result set comprising links to content and advertisements responsive to the search terms provided by a user. The search engine displays the result set to a user, who may then select or view items in the result set comprised of one or more advertisements. [0005] While the Internet provides advertisers with the ability to reach a significant quantity of users, thereby increasing the likelihood that a given product or service is purchased by a user, Internet advertising further provides revenue to search engines that retrieve and display advertisements in response to various requests. A search engine may generate profit when a given advertisement in a result set is selected by a user or displayed to a user in response to a search query. For example, advertisers may pay a predetermined amount to have banners, images, or other advertisements displayed to users in response to a given search query ("impressions"). Search engines may also charge advertisers for each advertisement selected by a user or delivered to a user ("click through"). However, different advertisements may be more or less profitable for a search engine to display as the amount paid by each advertiser for displaying or having a user select an advertisement varies. Furthermore, an advertisement ranked and displayed first in a result set is more likely to be selected by a given user than an advertisement ranked second, third, etc. Therefore, advertisers often want their one or more advertisements displayed in positions that increase the likelihood that a given advertisement is selected. [0006] A bidding marketplace may be used whereby advertisers may bid for the position or rank of a given advertisement in response to a given query. Current methods for selecting the position or rank of an advertisement using a bidding marketplace may select an advertisement with the greatest bid to appear first in a ranked list of advertisements or in a position most likely to be seen and selected by users. Such methods for selecting advertisements with the greatest bid are based upon the assumption that advertisements with the greatest bids will yield the greatest revenues for a search engine. However, while an advertisement with the greatest bid may generate the most profit when selected, an advertisement with a lower bid may generate more profit if the likelihood of users selecting the second advertisement is significantly greater. [0007] In addition to ranking methods based upon bids associated with advertisements, result sets comprised of advertisements generated in response to a user's query may also be ranked according to an algorithm that determines the frequency with which a query term appears in a given web site. Such ordering methodologies, however, are tailored to provide users with results that are ordered according to their relevancy with respect to a given query. Such ordering methods order results, such as advertisements, in descending order with the result most closely related to a user's query ranked first. Ordering advertisements in a result set in descending order with respect to relevancy is based upon the assumption that an advertisement ranked first in a result set displayed to a user is more likely to be viewed or selected than an advertisement ranked second, third, etc. However, these methods fail to take into account the profit interests and needs of the search engine providing the result on behalf of an advertiser. [0008] While the ranking of an advertisement in a ranked result set is often indicative of the likelihood that a given advertisement is selected, the advertisement's appeal to users of client devices may play an important role in generating revenue for a search engine. Advertisers may pay a search engine for each user that selects a given advertisement. Advertisements that are the most appealing and most relevant to a given user's query may often be the advertisements most frequently selected by users, thereby generating greater revenue for a search engine. As noted above, current methodologies for ordering advertisements in response to a request examine the relevancy of a given advertisement. While relevancy is often a factor in a user's selection of a given advertisement, the likelihood of a user selecting a given advertisement is also based upon the advertisement's appeal to users, which may be determined based upon previous users' interactions with the advertisement. Therefore, when determining an ordering for advertisements in response to a request, search engines may want to consider relevancy, appeal and revenue to increase the likelihood that the most relevant and profitable advertisements are displayed and selected by users. [0009] Current methods and systems for ranking advertisements in a result set or positioning items in a given web page fail to take into account relevance, appeal and revenue generating potential of advertisements displayed in response to a search request. In order to overcome shortcomings associated with existing techniques for ranking or positioning one or more advertisements, embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for examining the relevancy, appeal, and revenue generating potential of one or more advertisements and ranking or positioning the one or more advertisements based upon the same. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0010] The present invention is directed towards methods and systems for determining one or more positions for one or more advertisements in a given document. According to one embodiment of the invention, a result set comprising one or more advertisements ordered by expected revenue is retrieved. A document for displaying one or more of the advertisements within the result set is divided into one or more locations. According to one embodiment of the invention, a document comprises a web page. A first set of advertisements is selected from the result set to position at a primary location of the given document. The first set of advertisements is selected based upon the expected revenue associated with the one or more advertisements. A second set of advertisements is selected from the result set to position at one or more additional locations of the given document. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0011] The invention is illustrated in the figures of the accompanying drawings which are meant to be exemplary and not limiting, in which like references are intended to refer to like or corresponding parts, and in which: [0012] FIG. 1. is a block diagram presenting a system for retrieving and ranking one or more advertisements based upon a request received from a client device. [0013] FIG. 2 is a flow diagram presenting a method for retrieving and ordering one or more advertisements based upon expected revenue in response to a request and delivering the one or more advertisements to client devices. [0014] FIG. 3 is a flow diagram presenting a method for calculating the price charged to an advertiser in a bidding marketplace. [0015] FIG. 4 is a flow diagram presenting a method for selecting the positioning of one or more advertisements in a given web page. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT [0016] In the following description of the preferred embodiment, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration a specific embodiment in which the invention may be practiced. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. [0017] FIG. 1 presents a block diagram illustrating one embodiment of a system for retrieving and ordering advertisements. According to the system of FIG. 1, a search provider 100 comprises one or more software and hardware components to facilitate retrieving and ordering advertisements including, but not limited to, an index component 102, an advertisement data store 104, a scoring component 106, a search engine 112, a ranking/positioning component 110 and an analytics data store 108. The search provider 100 is communicatively coupled to a network 116, which may include a connection to one or more local and/or wide area networks, such as the Internet. [0018] According to one embodiment of the invention, a search engine 112 receives search requests from client devices 124a, 124b and 124c communicatively coupled to the network 116. A client device 124a, 124b and 124c may be any device that allows for the transmission of search requests to the search provider 100, as well as receipt of a ranked result set of advertisements from the search provider 100. According to one embodiment of the invention, a client device 124a, 124b and 124c is a general purpose personal computer comprising a processor, transient and persistent storage devices, input/output subsystem and bus to provide a communications path between components comprising the general purpose personal computer. For example, a 3.5 GHz Pentium 4 personal computer with 512 MB of RAM, 40 GB of hard drive storage space and an Ethernet interface to a network. Other client devices are considered to fall within the scope of the present invention including, but not limited to, hand held devices, set top terminals, mobile handsets, etc. The client device 124a, 124b and 124c typically runs software applications such as a web browser that provide for transmission of search requests, as well as receipt and display of ranked result sets which may comprise of one or more advertisements. [0019] The search engine 112 receives a search request from a given client device 124a, 124b and 124c, and investigates the index 102 to identify one or more advertisements responsive to the search request. The search engine 112 retrieves one or more advertisements from the advertisement data store 104 on the basis of the investigation of the index 102. The one or more advertisements retrieved from the advertisement data store 104 may be retrieved based on one or more match types. For example, advertisements constituting exact matches may be retrieved, where an exact match may comprise an advertisement wherein the advertisement contains all of the terms of a given search query received from a client device 124a, 124b and 124c. Similarly, advertisements constituting a broad match may be retrieved, where a broad match comprises an advertisement wherein at least one of the search terms of a given query appear in the advertisement. According to another embodiment of the invention, one or more categories of advertisements may be retrieved in response to the request. For example, a category may comprise one or more advertisements related to a given product or service. [0020] The search engine 112 generates a result set that comprises one or more advertisements or links to advertisements that fall within the scope of the search request. Advertisements may comprise banner ads, text, audio files, video files, etc., selectable by a user of a client device 124a, 124b and 124c. Advertisements may also comprise links to advertisements that may be selected by a given user of a client device 124a, 124b and 124c. Continue reading about Positioning advertisements on the bases of expected revenue... Full patent description for Positioning advertisements on the bases of expected revenue Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Positioning advertisements on the bases of expected revenue patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. Each week you receive an email with patent applications related to your keywords. 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