The invention relates to how television commercials are provided to consumers. In the prior art, a user, while viewing a broadcasted television program is interrupted by commercial breaks during which a product or service is advertised which may or may not have any relevance to the viewer. The user, as shown in
A system and method are described to enable advertisers to deliver dynamic targeted commercials during standard televised broadcasts based on a viewer's interest using the viewer's Internet browsing/shopping/searching history.
The viewer's Internet browsing/shopping/searching history is made available through devices the user uses such as a mobile device, desktop, laptop, or other Internet enabled device in the home or office.
For example, assume a user is browsing the Internet for a new phone, TV, dress, or other product or service on a laptop or mobile device while watching TV. The browsing data is collected and uploaded to an ad server, which data is aggregated, analyzed, and associated with a relevant promotion. From here the data is fed back to a cable or satellite provider ad server to deliver a targeted commercial ad to the user during an allocated spot within a commercial break of a program being watched on TV. In this manner, instead of seeing a random ad, an ad relevant to a recent Internet search is shown. The collected browsing data includes cookies, browser history, products of interest based on cookies, location information, software profile, hardware profile, and connection type such as public and local IP addresses.
The system shown in
Once a user's profile has been acquired by ad server 15a in a manner known in the art, the profile is moved to user profile database 21 which operates to match available commercial content or offers to that user. The user profile database used by the invention is the same user profile database built by an ad server 15a based on a user's browsing history. Ad server 15a shown in
A typical user profile has the following information:
External IP address and example such as 43.177.188.201
Local IP address such as 192.168.1.110
Device fingerprint such as device.id 3514
In this manner, if a user's browsing habits show recent activity for a new phone purchase, it would be in the interest of both the user and broadcaster to show advertising that is relevant to that user. The processing as disclosed herein will target the user with ads relevant to one who is looking for, in this example, a new phone. This information about the user is sent to a provider ad server 17 which operates to match the commercial recommendation for the user in a manner similar to existing systems where relevant ads are sent to a user's phone, laptop, etc. based on the user's browsing history. Ad Server 17 sends specific ads to a specific television 13 for a specific viewer. Data aggregator and targeting processing 27 sends the information about the user as explained below.
Although provider ad server 17 is existing technology, it is adapted to accept the recommendation from data aggregator and targeting processing 27 and then present the ad to that specific user via content scheduler/distributor 19. From there, the ad is pushed to the user's TV 13 and the user sees the relevant advertisement instead of a generic advertisement which would otherwise be shown.
The first step of delivering targeted ads, i.e., commercials to any user is to build a profile for the specific user using ad server 15a and existing technology. As noted above, this profile contains unique identifiers (created from cookies, IP information, device fingerprint) for that specific user as well as past/current interests that allow advertisers to directly target that user with a specific promotion. Past and current interests are obtained via browsing data that is collected on a user's device.
User browsing data that is recorded during standard web sessions is used to build a consumer interest profile for each unique user. As this data is collected on the user's device and transmitted to ad server 15a from a service such as Google Marketing, the user's product interests and interaction history can be analyzed and used for offer targeting. The ad server's software is able to identify the browsing data from a user's profile and match it with currently available promotions.
Referring now to
Additionally, an ad server 15a may combine data across multiple publisher's web sessions to augment the user profile via use of cookies and IP addresses. The information could also include location information based on the IP address.
The next step is delivering the collected data from the publisher websites to the ad server 15a for association with current active promotions/analysis of the delivered cookie data from the user profile. The user's profile is pulled from the user profile database 21 to provide, cookies, browsing history, and date/time stamp of browsing interactions. The ad server 15a must be able to accept the new data and store it for use after processing through processing servers 25 which are part of data aggregator and targeting processor 27 unique to the invention. Once this process has completed by ad server 15a, the relevant information (user browsing data) will be sent to processing server 25 for identification of promotions related to the user's browsing history and interests. Server 15a sends data to processing server 25 and user profile database 21.
Processing server 25 operates like the existing Google Marketing Platform that delivers ads to a user device while using the browser. The cable or satellite provider ad server 17 delivers the ads to the television network.
As this data is collected by processing server 25 based on the user's interaction with web sites (across browsers, mobile devices), it is transmitted to data aggregator and targeting processing 27 where the user's product interests and interaction history can be analyzed and used for offer targeting. Data aggregator and targeting processing 27 receives ad server 15a data and looks to see if the user already exists in user profile database 21. If the user exists, the information from the users' interaction with web sites is added to the user profile for targeting. If the user does not exist, a new user profile is created and data aggregator and targeting processing 27 starts building a profile for that user based on the provided information.
Typically, an ad server 15a can collect information such as the following:
This provides the ad server 15a the time and date the user saw a page. It also shows userid, which is the unique ID number the cookie has given to the user browser, ad_id which is the unique ID of the ad and referral_url which is the page the user was on when he or she saw the ad. Because it records the user external IP address, the ad server can also make a good guess of the country and town/city of the user.
Once the data leaves the ad server 15a for delivery directly to processing server 25, the next step will be identification of the user. For this, processing server 25 pulls external IP and profile data for the user from user profile database 21 and compares it against a list of existing user data from stored by data aggregator and targeting processing 27. If the user already exists in the database used by processing server 25, then the user's profile data stored on that database used by processing server 25 will be appended with the new data from ad server 15a which expands upon the user's current interest set. If the user is new, that is not previously known to processing server 25 then a new generic profile containing all browsing data for the user from ad server 15a will be generated to track future user interaction/interest data.
Participating publishers 1, 2 and 3 shown in
This could happen near real-time over the Internet via web services or via asynchronous mechanisms such as file exchanges or bulk transfers.
The data format will vary from one ad server 15a to the next and one publisher to the next, but can include all the information specified above, i.e., client_ip, referral url, interest, time, ad_id, ad_placement_id, userid. In addition, the information may be provided as aggregated content for a client_ip. The information is likely to be tag, value pair, usually captured using a markup language like XML, JSON, etc.
Once the server connections are properly authenticated and authorized, data transmission can be initiated. This authentication happens between existing server to server API keys and credentials. Ad server 15a provides keys for user profile database 21 and data aggregator 27 in a manner well known in the art.
Example of data transmitted as a file or data-stream could look as follows:
Once the information is received and processed by processing server 25, a processing server user profile segmenting service component of processing server compares the new data against the processing server's existing data and match ip address and user data to augment the user profiles and create/update user segments.
Some examples of user segments could be male, baby boomer, football lover, etc.
Once the processing server 25 has received all relevant information from the user up to this point (Cookie Data, User Profile Data, IP Data, Date/Time), the processing server 25 begins the targeting phase of the process. This involves initiation of an automated review of the user's cookie/product interest data by the software of the processing server, associated promotion checks within the processing server and against the data sent by the provider's ad server 17, and transmission of the user profile data and interest data to the provider's ad server 17 for promotion delivery. Provider Ad Server 17 will accept the recommendation that is output from data aggregator and targeting processing 27 as explained above.
Once a relevant ad is identified, the user identification data and the ad to be displayed will be then transmitted to the provider's ad server 17 environment which sends a selected ad to content scheduler/distributor 19 which sends the ad to the television 13 at the appropriate time in a manner well known in the art.
The processing server 25 maintains a database of ads with meta-data from providers. Provider ad server 17 provides processing data aggregator and targeting processing 27 which updates processing server 25 with the database of ads for recommendation.
Typically, an ad will include Ad Title, Ad descriptions, Ad images, Ad videos. An Ad metadata may include campaign start and end dates, user segments, appropriate time of the day to display, frequency and sequence to be displayed, rotation rules across other ads.
Processing server 25 user data is grouped in segments based on enhanced information received from ad server 15a. Each user segment is than associated with a campaign that is suitable for that segment. Based on the metadata received for a user, processing server 25 identifies the user segments and additional attributes in the meta data to match the best possible ad for a provider for that user. For example, if a male, baby boomer is watching a Sunday afternoon NFL game and previously was Internet browsing for a running shoe, then a running show ad is selected for the provider ad server 17 based on the matching service provided by processing server 25.
The browsing data received by one or many individuals all using the same external IP with varying local IPs will be collected and analyzed into profile segments. These segments collectively create a household that can be targeted. The delivery of an ad based on previous browsing history and interests is reliant on the most recent data set. For example, if two individuals are behind the same external IP and their devices can be identified via local IP, device id, and/or user agent information, then then can be grouped into a household that can be targeted.
Alternatively, existing acoustic recognition techniques such as audio fingerprinting can be used to identify the television content using a user's device to listen and match content being watched in the same room or listening area. For example, two individuals could be in different rooms from each other. For example, assume one of the individuals, a user with a local IP of 192.168.123, is browsing for shopping items. The television is audible and the user device would be able to recognize this audio and match the user with the television program. From here, if a relevant offer is ready to air for that user after the data aggregator and targeting processing 27 provides the user match, the provider ad server 17 then delivers a relevant offer to that the TV. The user device (set top box, smart tv, etc. . . . ) would be able to match the external IP and local IP of the device to provide the correct ad from the provider ad server 17.
Once processing server 25 has identified and validated a promotion in data aggregator and targeting processing 27, processing server 25 sends the captured user data to the provider ad server 17. From here, the provider ad server 17 will need to receive data at the user's profile to know who this data set is related to, what their interests are, and what valid promotions can be sent to the user. If all this is validated, then the shared promotion will be delivered by the content scheduler/distributer 19.
Once processing server 25 has identified the user, determined the product interests of the user, and the user's browsing history, the user can then be served an ad based on the user's unique IP/Profile data. This can happen during any commercial break during the normally televised viewing period.
There are many applications where getting contextual information and/or services to a person's TV is desirable and welcome. For the user, this is presented as a feature to enhance their TV experience by presenting them with advertising that ties in to their interests. If the user is constantly seeing advertisements that do not align with their beliefs, purchasing habits, or interests, then it does not hold value for the user which in turn does not provide the best content to display from the provider. It is in the interest of the user and provider to display content that the user would appreciate.
Number | Date | Country | |
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62574171 | Oct 2017 | US |