Implementations consistent with the principles of the invention relate generally to communication networks and, more particularly, to determining advertising statistics for an advertiser and/or advertising network across one or more documents or web sites.
Users browsing the Internet will often encounter advertisements on the web pages that they access. Internet advertising has become big business with companies scrambling to find ways to make their advertisements appear most prominently on web pages, particularly the web pages that users most often access.
One way for companies to get an edge over their competitors is to find out what web sites are the most popular and to determine how the visibility of their advertisements on these web sites compare to those of their competitors. Some companies may employ individuals to look at advertisements appearing on a random set of web pages for a web site and then perform some manual calculation to determine the company's visibility on that web site. This technique is not only time consuming, but is often very inaccurate since the random set of web pages may include web pages that users rarely access.
In accordance with one implementation consistent with principles of the invention, a method may include determining a number of times that clients access a group of documents associated with a web site, where at least one document in the group of documents includes at least one advertisement. The method may further include determining a percentage of client views for an advertiser or an advertising network across the web site based on the determined number of times.
In another implementation consistent with principles of the invention, a method may include determining, for each document in a group of documents associated with a group of web sites, a number of times that clients access the document, where at least one document in the group of documents includes at least one advertisement. The method may further include determining a percentage of client views for an advertiser or an advertising network across the group of web sites based on the determined numbers of times.
In yet another implementation consistent with principles of the invention, a method may include capturing document identification information in response to clients accessing a group of documents containing advertisements; determining values representing a number of times that each document in the group of documents is accessed based on the captured document information; and determining share-of-site or share-of-market statistics for at least one of an advertiser or an advertising network based on the determined values.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate one or more implementations of the invention and, together with the description, explain the invention. In the drawings,
The following detailed description of implementations consistent with the principles of the invention refers to the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers in different drawings may identify the same or similar elements. Also, the following detailed description does not limit the invention.
Systems and methods consistent with principles of the invention provide information to advertisers or advertising networks relating to the visibility of advertisements on one or a group of documents and/or web sites. In this way, advertisers and advertising networks can determine not only the visibility of their own advertisements, but also the visibility of their competitors. With this information, advertisers and advertising networks may take actions to increase their presence on popular web sites in which their competitors have a marketing advantage, leading to increased visibility and profits.
Based on the logs, statistics may be generated for a specific advertiser or advertising network. For example, the logs may be used to determine the advertiser's or advertising network's “share-of-document” for a specific document, which may be defined as the visibility (or presence) of the advertiser's ad or advertising network's ad(s) compared to all of the other ads on the document. The logs may also be used to determine the advertiser's or advertising network's “share-of-site” for a web site, which may be defined as the percentage of client views of the advertiser's ad or advertising network's ad(s) (i.e., the percentage of times that clients accessed a document that included the ad(s)) across the web site. The logs may be further used to determine the advertiser's or advertising network's “share-of-market” for a group of web sites (e.g., all or a portion of the web sites in a particular country, all or a portion of the web sites on the Internet, or some other grouping of web sites), which may be defined as the percentage of individual client views of the advertiser's ad or advertising network's ad(s) across the group of web sites. By monitoring share-of-document, share-of-site, and/or share-of-market information for a group of advertisers and/or advertising networks over time, new advertising competitors may be readily identified, decreases/increases in share-of-site for each advertiser or advertising network may be determined, etc. This information may provide advertisers and/or advertising networks with a marketing advantage over competitors that do not have this type of information.
A “document,” as the term is used herein, is to be broadly interpreted to include any machine-readable and machine-storable work product. A document may include, for example, an e-mail, a file, a combination of files, one or more files with embedded links to other files, a news group posting, a blog document, a web advertisement, etc. In the context of the Internet, a common document is a web page. Documents often include textual information and may include embedded information (such as meta information, images, hyperlinks, etc.) and/or embedded instructions (such as Javascript, etc.). A “link,” as the term is used herein, is to be broadly interpreted to include any reference to/from a document from/to another document or another part of the same document. A “web site,” as the phrase is used herein, is to broadly interpreted to include a logical grouping of documents (e.g., web pages).
Clients 210 may include client entities. An entity may be defined as a device, such as a personal computer, a wireless telephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a lap top, or another type of computation or communication device, a thread or process running on one of these devices, and/or an object executable by one of these devices. Servers 220-240 may include server entities that gather, process, search, and/or maintain documents in a manner consistent with the principles of the invention. In one implementation consistent with the principles of the invention, servers 220-240 may maintain documents that include advertisements.
While servers 220-240 are shown as separate entities, it may be possible for one or more of servers 220-240 to perform one or more of the functions of another one or more of servers 220-240. For example, it may be possible that two or more of servers 220-240 are implemented as a single server. It may also be possible for a single one of servers 220-240 to be implemented as two or more separate (and possibly distributed) devices.
Network 250 may include a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a telephone network, such as the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), an intranet, the Internet, another type of network, or a combination of networks. Clients 210 and servers 220-240 may connect to network 250 via wired, wireless, and/or optical connections.
Processor 320 may include a processor, microprocessor, or processing logic that may interpret and execute instructions. Main memory 330 may include a random access memory (RAM) or another type of dynamic storage device that may store information and instructions for execution by processor 320. ROM 340 may include a ROM device or another type of static storage device that may store static information and instructions for use by processor 320. Storage device 350 may include a magnetic and/or optical recording medium and its corresponding drive.
Input device 360 may include a mechanism that permits an operator to input information to the client/server entity, such as a keyboard, a mouse, a pen, voice recognition and/or biometric mechanisms, etc. Output device 370 may include a mechanism that outputs information to the operator, including a display, a printer, a speaker, etc. Communication interface 380 may include any transceiver-like mechanism that enables the client/server entity to communicate with other devices and/or systems. For example, communication interface 380 may include mechanisms for communicating with another device or system via a network, such as network 250.
As will be described in detail below, the client/server entity, consistent with the principles of the invention, may perform certain operations. The client/server entity may perform these operations in response to processor 320 executing software instructions contained in a computer-readable medium, such as memory 330. A computer-readable medium may be defined as a physical or logical memory device and/or carrier wave.
The software instructions may be read into memory 330 from another computer-readable medium, such as data storage device 350, or from another device via communication interface 380. The software instructions contained in memory 330 may cause processor 320 to perform processes that will be described later. Alternatively, hardwired circuitry may be used in place of or in combination with software instructions to implement processes consistent with the principles of the invention. Thus, implementations consistent with the principles of the invention are not limited to any specific combination of hardware circuitry and software.
Client logs 410 may include information relating to client visits to documents for a web site of a group of web sites over a period of time. The information may include, for example, the identities of the documents that the clients accessed and a pageview count for each document. Advertising statistics determination software 420 may include software for determining share-of document, share-of-site, and/or share-of-market statistics for one or more advertisers and/or one or more advertising networks across a document and/or one or more web sites. Advertising statistics determination software 420 may provide one or more reports based on the share-of-document, share-of-site, and/or share-of-market determinations.
The document identification information may be captured, for example, as part of advertising logs, browser logs, and/or toolbar logs. Advertising logs may also be used for capturing information identifying documents accessed by clients 210. For example, when a client 210 visits a document that provides AdSense advertisements, code on the document (e.g., javascript, XML code, etc.) may cause a request for advertisements to be sent to an advertising server. The request may include the URL of the document. The URL may be logged, along with information identifying which advertisements were shown on that document.
Browser logs may be used for capturing information identifying documents accessed by clients 210. For example, some browsers, such as the Opera browser, may provide conceptually-targeted advertisements with documents. Thus, the browser may send a request for advertisements to an advertising server for a document accessed by client 210. The request may include the URL of the document. The URL may be logged, along with information identifying which advertisements were shown on that document.
When a client 210 accesses a document using a browser toolbar, such as the Google toolbar, a request for a pagerank for the document that client 210 is accessing may be sent to a server, such as server 220. The pagerank request may include all or a portion of the URL associated with the accessed document. This document identification information may be captured by server 220.
Once document identification information has been captured (e.g., a URL), the content of each document may be analyzed to identify any advertisements that may be associated with the document, if not already known. For example, it will be appreciated that advertisements may be identifiable via some standard signature. As such, advertisements from a document may be identified and the advertiser and/or advertising network with which each advertisement is associated may also be identified. This advertising information may be associated with the document identification information.
The logged information may be stored (block 520), for example, in a computer-readable medium, such as computer-readable medium 400, as client logs 410. Client logs 410 may include information identifying documents that were accessed by clients 210 and advertising information (e.g., advertiser and/or advertising network identities) associated with the documents.
Advertising statistics for the web site or group of web sites may be determined for a particular advertiser or advertising network based on the number of client views (block 620). The advertising statistics may include share-of-document, share-of-site, and/or share-of-market for a particular advertiser or advertising network.
The advertiser's or advertising network's information from client logs 410 may be aggregated across a document to determine the share-of-document for the advertiser or advertising network. For example, the share-of-document for a particular advertiser may be determined as:
Similarly, the share-of-document for a particular advertising network may be determined as:
The advertiser's or advertising network's information from client logs 410 may be aggregated across a web site and weighted by the total number of pageviews (PVS) for the documents with which the advertiser's or advertising network's information is associated to determine the share-of-site for the advertiser or advertising network. For example, the share-of-site for a particular advertiser may be determined as:
Similarly, the share-of-site for a particular advertising network may be determined as:
The advertiser's or advertising network's information from client logs 410 may be aggregated across a group of web sites and weighted by the total number of pageviews (PVS) for the documents with which the advertiser's or advertising network's information is associated to determine the share-of-market for the advertiser or advertising network. For example, the share-of-market for a particular advertiser may be determined as:
Similarly, the share-of-market for a particular advertising network may be determined as:
It will be appreciated that the share-of-document, share-of-site, and share-of-market statistics may be determined from client logs 410 captured for a time period (e.g., a day, a week, etc.). In some situations, a web publisher may rotate between multiple advertising networks on a document (e.g., over the course of a day). To account for the randomness of advertisement placements, client logs 410 may be captured at random times (e.g., at different time each day) and the statistics averaged based on the different sets of logs.
In addition, a number of reports may be generated based on the share-of-document, share-of-site, and share-of-market statistics. For example, an advertising network (or advertister) may generate reports that compare the advertising network's visibility on a web site or group of web sites to the visibility of the advertising network's competitors on that web site or group of web sites. Moreover, by monitoring these statistics over time (e.g., from one week to the next, one month to the next), the advertising network may readily determine when new competitors enter the market, when competitors leave the market, on which web sites their competitors have increased their visibility, on which web sites their competitors have decreased their visibility, etc. These types of reports can give the advertising network (or advertiser) an advantage over their competitors.
The following examples illustrate the above processing. In the first example, assume, as illustrated in
In the second example, assume, as illustrated in
Assume, for explanatory purposes, that the share-of-site is to be determined for the first advertising network for web site 800. To determine the first advertising network's share-of-site, the total pageviews for the documents on web site 800 with which the first advertising network is associated may be divided by the total pageviews of the documents on web site 800. Thus, the first advertising network's share-of-site may be determined as 17,000/21,000 or 81%. Similarly, the second advertising network's share-of-site may be determined as 4,000/21,000 or 19%.
Assume, for explanatory purposes, that the share-of-site is to be determined for advertiser AD1 for web site 800. To determine advertiser AD1's share-of-site, the total pageviews for the documents on web site 800 with which advertiser AD1 is associated may be divided by the total pageviews of the documents on web site 800. Thus, the advertiser AD1's share-of-site may be determined as 17,000/21,000 or 81%.
In the third example, assume, as illustrated in
As illustrated, web site 910 includes three documents 912, 914, and 916. Document 912 includes advertisements AD1, AD2, and AD3 that are provided by a first advertising network (AN1). Also, it has been determined (e.g., via client logs 410) that document 912 has been viewed 10,000 times during a particular time period. Document 914 includes advertisements AD4, AD5, and AD6 that are provided by a second advertising network (AN2). Also, it has been determined (e.g., via client logs 410) that document 914 has been viewed 1,000 times. Document 916 includes advertisements AD7, AD8, and AD9 that are provided by the first advertising network. Also, it has been determined (e.g., via client logs 410) that document 916 has been viewed 3,000 times.
Web site 920 includes four documents 922, 924, 926, and 928. Document 922 includes advertisements AD1, AD2, and AD3 that are provided by the first advertising network. Also, it has been determined (e.g., via client logs 410) that document 922 has been viewed 1,000 times. Document 924 includes advertisements AD10, AD11, and AD12 that are provided by the second advertising network. Also, it has been determined (e.g., via client logs 410) that document 924 has been viewed 5,000 times. Document 926 includes advertisements AD13, AD14, and AD15 that are provided by a third advertising network (AN3). Also, it has been determined (e.g., via client logs 410) that document 926 has been viewed 4,000 times. Document 928 includes advertisements AD4, AD5, and AD6 that are provided by the second advertising network. Also, it has been determined (e.g., via client logs 410) that document 928 has been viewed 8,000 times.
Web site 930 includes three documents 932, 934, and 936. Document 932 includes advertisements AD16, AD17, and AD18 that are provided by the third advertising network. Also, it has been determined (e.g., via client logs 410) that document 932 has been viewed 2,000 times. Document 934 includes advertisements AD19, AD20, and AD21 that are provided by a fourth advertising network (AN4). Also, it has been determined (e.g., via client logs 410) that document 934 has been viewed 1,000 times. Document 936 includes advertisements AD4, AD22, and AD23 that are provided by the second advertising network. Also, it has been determined (e.g., via client logs 410) that document 936 has been viewed 1,000 times.
Assume, for explanatory purposes, that the share-of-market is to be determined for the first advertising network for group of web sites 900. To determine the first advertising network's share-of-market, the total pageviews for the documents on web sites 900 with which the first advertising network is associated may be divided by the total pageviews of the documents on web sites 900. Thus, the advertising network's share-of-market may be determined as 14,000/36,000 or 39%.
Assume, for explanatory purposes, that the share-of-market is to be determined for advertiser AD4 for group of web sites 900. To determine advertiser AD4's share-of-market, the total pageviews for the documents on web sites 900 with which the advertiser AD4 is associated may be divided by the total pageviews of the documents on web sites 900. Thus, advertiser AD4's share-of-market may be determined as 10,000/36,000 or 28%.
Systems and methods consistent with the principles of the invention provide information to advertisers or advertising networks relating to the visibility of their advertisements on a document or one or a group of web sites.
The foregoing description of exemplary embodiments of the invention provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of the invention. For example, while series of acts have been described with regard to
It will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art that aspects of the invention, as described above, may be implemented in many different forms of software, firmware, and hardware in the implementations illustrated in the figures. The actual software code or specialized control hardware used to implement aspects consistent with the principles of the invention is not limiting of the invention. Thus, the operation and behavior of the aspects were described without reference to the specific software code—it being understood that one of ordinary skill in the art would be able to design software and control hardware to implement the aspects based on the description herein.
Further, certain portions of the invention may be implemented as “logic” that performs one or more functions. This logic may include hardware, such as an application specific integrated circuit or a field programmable gate array, software, or a combination of hardware and software.
No element, act, or instruction used in the present application should be construed as critical or essential to the invention unless explicitly described as such. Also, as used herein, the article “a” is intended to include one or more items. Where only one item is intended, the term “one” or similar language is used. Further, the phrase “based on” is intended to mean “based, at least in part, on” unless explicitly stated otherwise.
This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/394,194, filed Mar. 31, 2006, which is incorporated herein by reference.
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Entry |
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International Search Report and Written Opinion dated Nov. 23, 2007, 11 total pages. |
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 11394194 | Mar 2006 | US |
Child | 13021349 | US |