Patent Application
20080052153
The following description is presented to enable any person skilled in the art to make and use the invention, and is provided in the context of a particular application and its requirements. Various modifications to the disclosed embodiments will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the general principles defined herein may be applied to other embodiments and applications without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Thus, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments shown, but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the claims.
The data structures and code described in this detailed description are typically stored on a computer-readable storage medium, which may be any device or medium that can store code and/or data for use by a computer system. This includes, but is not limited to, magnetic and optical storage devices such as disk drives, magnetic tape, CDs (compact discs), DVDs (digital versatile discs or digital video discs), or any device capable of storing data usable by a computer system.
One embodiment of the present invention uses expenditure-related information obtained from a financial application, such as an accounting program, to select advertisements to be displayed to a user of the financial application. This general technique provides a number of compelling advantages.
By examining expenditure-related information, advertisers can target just those people who are actually involved in the buying process. Furthermore, it enables advertisers to target customers of a competitor or prospects who are considering a competitor.
The technique also enables marketers to tailor their advertising message to a prospect based on information about the prospect obtained from the financial application. For example, a business whose accounting records indicate that they are a large business might be presented with a better offer than a business whose accounting records indicate that they are a small business. Or, a high-volume consumer of a product or a service might be presented with a better offer than a low-volume consumer.
This selective targeting of advertisements can be highly effective. For example, consider a tax-preparation application. Targeted advertising that makes use of data from this type of application could for example target: (1) taxpayers who just discovered how big their refund will be; (2) investors who invest in particular funds, fund companies, or brokers at the one time of the year when all investors are examining the income they received from their current fund company or broker; (3) taxpayers looking for more deductions at the very time they are looking for more deductions; (4) taxpayers paying taxable interest and dividends who are in tax brackets where tax-free investments deliver higher returns.
Furthermore, the above-described advertisement-targeting technique is virtually free of cost because leads are collected with no media cost, no mailing cost, no printing costs, and no costs from reaching those not in the actual buying process.
Variations of the present invention are described in more detail below with reference to
Online application 109 can generally include any type of computer-based application which is accessed by a user. In one embodiment of the present invention, online application 109 is an accounting application, such as: QuickBooks™ distributed by Intuit, Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.; Peachtree Quantum Accounting™, distributed by Sage Software of Pleasanton, Calif.; or Denali Premium Accounting Software Suite™, distributed by Cougar Mountain Software of Boise, Id. In general, online application 109 can include any type of application which maintains user-related or expenditure-related information which can be used for purposes of targeted advertising.
Online application 109 maintains data for each user. More specifically, online application 109 maintains user-data 111 for user 102, and similarly maintains user-data 113 for user 103.
Online application 109 also generates a customized view 114 for user 103 as well as a customized view 115 for user 103. These customized views can include advertisements, which are provided by ad server 1112, to be displayed to users 102 and 103. More specifically, ad server 112 inserts ads into customized view 114 for user 102 based on information contained within user-data 111 for user 102. Similarly, ad server 112 inserts ads into customized view 115 for user 103 based on information contained within user-data 113 for user 103.
Note that the user-related data which is used to select ads can also be obtained from other sources. For example, referring to
In one embodiment of the present invention, the user data can be obtained through an “obtaining mechanism,” which can generally include any type of mechanism that can obtain data from an application. For example, the obtaining mechanism can include code (or firmware) that reads user data from online application 109, or code (or firmware) that interacts through a network with a third-party application 120, a third-party web site, or a financial institution 130.
Furthermore, in one embodiment of the present invention, after the user data is obtained, ads can be selected by a “selection mechanism,” which can generally include any type of mechanism that can select an ad based on expenditure-related information or other user-related information. For example, this selection mechanism can be structured as a lookup table, a database system or any type of mapping mechanism that maps information to ads.
In a variation on this embodiment, the expenditure-related information can additionally include: bank account information, credit card account information, PayPal™ account information, investment information, and other account-related information transmitted from a financial institution or found on a website belonging to the financial institution.
Note that instead of (or in addition to) inserting advertisements into the views, ad server 112 can contact a direct mail house 116 to send direct mail (or email) to users 102 and 103.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the ads can be displayed through a “display mechanism,” which can generally include any type of mechanism that can display an advertisement. For example, this display mechanism can include a computer display, a printer or a web browser.
As is illustrated in
After the targeted ads are selected and are displayed to a user, a billing engine 150 can bill advertisers 106-108 for displaying the selected ads to the user, or for responses by the user to the selected ads.
These application instances 223 and 233 maintain user-data locally on the client machines. More specifically, application instance 223 maintains user-data 222 associated with user 202 on client machine 204, and application instance 233 maintains user-data 232 associated with user 203 on client machine 205.
Client machines 204 and 205 also maintain a local collection of ads as well as local ad-selection engines. More specifically, client machine 204 maintains a local collection of ads 225 and a local ad-selection engine 224. Similarly, client machine 205 maintains a local collection of ads 235 and a local ad-selection engine 234. These local ad-selection engines 224 and 234 operate by selecting ads to be displayed to users 202 and 203 based on user-data 222 and 232, respectively.
In some embodiments, the system illustrated in
The desktop version of the system is attractive for users who do not want to store confidential user-data on a remote server which is controlled by a third party. However, in order for the advertisers to be billed, some amount of information needs to be communicated from the client systems to a billing engine 250.
In either the online version or the desktop version, the users may want an assurance from the application provider that user-data will remain confidential, and will only be used for billing purposes.
Next, the system accepts bids from advertisers (step 306). The system then uses these bids to determine a set of rules for selecting advertisements to display to users (step 308). These rules can be structured in a number of ways. For example, the rules can be structured to maximize revenue obtained from the advertisers. However, they can also be structured to optimize value provided to the user. Note that providing value to users will make users more likely to view the advertisements, which will provide an incentive for users to opt-in to viewing the advertisements.
Next, the system uses the obtained information to select ads to display (step 404). These ads are selected based on the rules, which were previously determined from advertiser's bids. For example, the ads can be selected based on multiple desktop data types.
Note that this selection process can take place at a server for the online version of the application, or alternatively, can take place on the client machine, for the desktop version of the application. Note that if the selection process takes place on the client machine, the user's information never needs to be revealed to a server.
This selection process can involve considering any type of user-data which is maintained by the application. This can include, but is not limited to: expenditure-related information obtained from the application; other non-expenditure-related information obtained from the application; information from a questionnaire filled out by the user; or browsing behavior of the user.
The questionnaire data can be obtained by asking users about their business and about their business-related expenses. For example, the users can be asked: what categories of merchandise they buy; how much they buy; who they buy from; and what business purchases or decisions they have recently made.
Ads can also be selected based on the user's behavior outside of the application. For example, a user who recently visited web pages for Xerox copiers might receive ads from Canon's copier division.
In another example, suppose a user visits the Acura website, which suggests the user is interested in higher-end import cars. Later on, suppose the user reads a story on a new site about Iraq's latest suicide bombings. Rather than displaying some commercially-irrelevant, low-value ad, to the user, the news site can display an ad from Lexus. Because Lexus and Acura are competitors, Lexus may be willing the pay a relatively large sum for an ad which directly targets Acura customers.
Next, after the ads have been selected, the system displays the ads to the user (step 406). These advertisements can be displayed to the user in a number of ways. For example, the system can: display the selected advertisements through the financial application; display the selected advertisements through a browser; display the selected advertisements through a pop-up; send direct mail or email to the user; or can place a telephone call to the user.
Note that a given advertisement can present the user with a promotional discount to help win the user's business. For example, a large promotional discount can be presented to a user who is a high-expenditure customer of a competitor of the advertiser.
In a variation on the present invention, while displaying the ads to the user, the system enables the user to invite multiple vendors to submit competitive bids to win the user's business. For example, the user could fill out a short questionnaire which describes the user's situation. This information would enable the vendors to return some type of bid for the user's business. The system could then auction the right to respond to the user to a fixed number of vendors.
Finally, the system bills the advertisers (step 408). Note that the advertisers can be billed in a number of ways. For example, they can be billed simply for having their ads displayed to users, or they can be billed based on a user response, for example, such as click-throughs. Note that if the billing process takes place through the link tracing engine 240 and through billing engine 250 which are illustrated in
One embodiment of the present allows users of an application to “opt-in” to receive advertisements in exchange for a discounted price for the application. This can be accomplished by providing two editions of the application: (1) a normal edition without advertisements which is provided to the user at a normal price, and (2) a discounted or free edition, which includes ads.
These editions would have the same features. The difference between the additions is that users of the alternative edition know they will be marketed to in strictly defined and controlled ways. The amount of marketing would be strictly limited in quantity, and in the ways the users' data can be used, to make the marketing more relevant to the user.
The foregoing descriptions of embodiments of the present invention have been presented only for purposes of illustration and description. They are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the present invention to the forms disclosed. Accordingly, many modifications and variations will be apparent to practitioners skilled in the art. Additionally, the above disclosure is not intended to limit the present invention. The scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims.
