Conventionally, charities receive donations from entities that send gifts to the charities. The gifts typically include time, cash, checks, or products. For instance, when an entity generates revenue, the entity may decide to contribute some portion of the generated revenue to a charity. However, because the entity must remember to donate the funds after generating revenue it is likely the charity may lose gifts because the entity neglects to send the gift to the charity.
Currently, an entity that has advertising space for sale may generate revenue by allowing advertisers to display advertisements in the advertising space. On the Internet, these entities are publishers who have web pages that provide web page real estate for advertisers to display the advertisements to potential consumers of the goods or services. The publishers earn revenue in proportion to clicks on the advertisements by potential consumers. Conventionally, the publisher may donate a portion of the revenue earned by sending a check to the charity. If a publisher hopes to donate all their revenue from a specific web site, the publisher will have to remember to send the donation every month.
Conventionally, publishers rely on the charities to keep accurate records that acknowledge each separate donation. These onerous burdens on the publishers and charities may increase the likelihood that publishers chose to forego support of worthy charity.
Embodiments of the invention overcoming these and other problems in the art relate in one regard to an advertisement server system, computer-readable media, and computer-implemented method to direct funds from publishers to philanthropic organizations. The advertisement server system allows publishers to direct funds from normal publishing activities to philanthropic organizations. This may increase the likelihood that publishers will donate to the philanthropic organizations.
The advertisement server system includes advertisement servers and databases. The advertisement servers are configured to register a publisher having web page real estate available for advertising. The databases are connected to the advertisement servers. The databases are configured to store records of each philanthropic organization selected by the publisher. In turn, the advertisement servers provide a management graphical user interface for customizing an advertisement placeholder transmitted to the publisher. In some embodiments, the advertisements rendered in the advertisement placeholder are filtered by the advertisement server to be consistent with a selected philanthropic organization that corresponds to the advertisement placeholder.
This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the detailed description. This summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used in isolation as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.
This patent describes the subject matter for patenting with specificity to meet statutory requirements. However, the description itself is not intended to limit the scope of this patent. Rather, the inventors have contemplated that the claimed subject matter might also be embodied in other ways, to include different steps or combinations of steps similar to the ones described in this document, in conjunction with other present or future technologies. Moreover, although the terms “step” and “block” may be used herein to connote different elements of methods employed, the terms should not be interpreted as implying any particular order among or between various steps herein disclosed unless and except when the order of individual steps is explicitly described. Further, embodiments are described in detail below with reference to the attached drawing figures, which are incorporated in their entirety by reference herein.
As utilized herein, the term “component” refers to any combination of hardware, software, or firmware. Also, as utilized herein, the term “publisher” refers to at least one computer hosting web pages that receive advertisement placeholders and advertisements that are displayed in the advertisement placeholders.
Embodiments of the invention provide an advertisement server system that allows publishers to direct advertising revenue to designated philanthropic organizations. The advertisement server system improves the visibility of an advertiser's goods or services, increases inventory of publisher web page real estate, and increases advertiser bid density. The advertisement server system provides graphical user interfaces to select a philanthropic organization that directly receives a portion of the revenue generated by the publisher. The advertisement server system identifies each publisher that donates to a philanthropic organization as a donor. The publishers receive advertisement placeholders corresponding to a philanthropic organization selected by the publisher. In an embodiment, the advertisement server system searches an account database to provide a report generation page that reports the donations made by each publisher to each philanthropic organization over a selected period of time.
During registration with the advertisement server system, a publisher creates an account, specifies whether an employer provides matching contributions, and identifies one or more accounts to receive revenue earned by the publisher. The advertisement server system tracks the number of clicks on an advertisement displayed in the advertisement placeholder. In turn, revenue is directed to the account established by the publisher based on the number of clicks. In some embodiments, at least one account belongs to a philanthropic organization, and the advertisement management system directs a portion of the revenue to the account dedicated to the philanthropic organization.
Accordingly, the advertisement server system creates a philanthropic advertising campaign using advertisement placeholders displayed on web pages belonging to publishers. The advertisement placeholders identify a philanthropic organization supported by the publisher and shows advertisements received from the advertisement server system in the advertisement placeholder. The advertisement server system directs revenue to the philanthropic organization supported by the publisher on a monthly basis and does not direct this revenue to the publisher. In some embodiments, the advertisement server system generates an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 1099 earnings statement for the philanthropic organization supported by the publisher. Also, the advertisement server system generates a charitable donation tax receipt at the end of each year for the publisher.
A computer system for directing revenue generated from advertisements includes client devices communicatively connected to a publisher, e.g., web pages, blogs, wikis, or intranet pages. The users of the client devices interact with the content on the web pages and click on advertisements associated with the publisher. The publisher generates revenue based on the level of interaction with the advertisements, and philanthropic organizations may receive a portion of the revenue as a gift from the publisher.
As one skilled in the art will appreciate, the computer system includes hardware, software, or a combination of hardware and software. The hardware includes processors and memories configured to execute instructions stored in the memories. In one embodiment, the memories include computer-readable media that store a computer-program product having computer-useable instructions for a computer-implemented method. Computer-readable media include both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and nonremovable media, and media readable by a database, a switch, and various other network devices. Network switches, routers, and related components are conventional in nature, as are means of communicating with the same. By way of example, and not limitation, computer-readable media comprise computer-storage media and communications media. Computer-storage media, or machine-readable media, include media implemented in any method or technology for storing information. Examples of stored information include computer-useable instructions, data structures, program modules, and other data representations. Computer-storage media include, but are not limited to, random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM), flash memory or other memory technology, compact-disc read only memory (CD-ROM), digital versatile discs (DVD), holographic media or other optical disc storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage, and other magnetic storage devices. These memory components can store data momentarily, temporarily, or permanently.
The network 110 is configured to facilitate communication between the client devices 130 and the publisher 140. The network 110 also facilitates communication between the advertisement server system 120, the advertiser 150, the publisher 140, and the advertisement servers 190. The network 110 may be a communication network, such as a wireless network, local area network, wired network, or the Internet. In an embodiment, the client devices 130 interact with the publisher 140 utilizing the network 110. In response, the publisher 140 provides web pages that include advertisements, where a subset of the advertisements correspond to philanthropic organizations.
The advertisement server system 120 generates advertisement placeholders and selects advertisements that are transmitted via network 110 to the publisher 140. In turn, the publisher 140 includes the advertisement placeholder on a web page and displays the advertisement in the advertisement placeholder. The publisher 140 transmits the web page to client devices 130, which display the advertisements to the user.
In certain embodiments, the advertisement server system 120 interfaces with the publisher 140 to transmit the advertisements. The advertisement server system 120 may require the publisher 140 to configure the advertisement placeholder by specifying a size, a shape, a color, or advertisement filtering criteria. The filtering criteria prevents unwanted advertisements from being displayed in the advertisement placeholder. For instance, the filtering criteria may remove advertisements having specified terms, a specified size, a specified media format, etc.
The advertisement server system 120 also interfaces with the advertisers 150 to allow the advertisers 150 to submit advertisements to the advertisement server system 120. The advertisers 150 provide the advertisement server system 120 with keywords, targeting data, and bids that correspond to the publisher's content or a philanthropic organization that linked to a advertisement placeholder on the web page generated by the publisher. The advertisement server system 120 processes the information provided by the publishers 140 and advertisers 150 and selects a set of appropriate advertisements to transmit to the publisher 140 for display in the advertisement placeholder.
The client devices 130 are utilized by a user to generate search terms and to receive web pages that are relevant to the search terms. The client devices 130 also receive web pages request by the user. The web pages may include advertisements. The client devices 130 include, without limitation, personal digital assistants, smart phones, laptops, personal computers, gaming systems, set-top boxes, or any other suitable client computing device. In one embodiment, the client devices 130 are advertisement-funded client devices that are configured to display advertisements as part of the graphical user interface provided by the operating system of the client devices 130. The client devices 130 include user and system information storage to store user and system information on the client devices 130. The user information may include search histories, cookies, and passwords. The system information may include internet protocol addresses, cached Web pages, and system utilization. In some embodiments, the client devices 130 transmit click requests for one or more advertisements to the publisher 140. In turn, the publisher 140 tracks the click requests for the advertisements displayed in the advertisement placeholder and transmits the number of click requests to the advertisement server system 120.
The publisher 140 stores web pages having web page real estate available to display an advertisement placeholder and advertisements. In some embodiments, the advertisement placeholder corresponds to a philanthropic organization. The publisher 140 tracks the click requests—received from the client devices 130—for the advertisement placeholder or advertisements. The publisher 140 receives revenue based on the number of click requests received by the advertisement or advertisement placeholder. The publisher 140 is communicatively connected to the advertisement server system 120. The publisher 140 receives advertisements from the advertisement server system 120. The publisher 140 returns, to the client devices 130, the advertisements received from the advertisement server system 120. In some embodiments, the publisher 140 configures the advertisement placeholder and creates a content filter that discards certain advertisements received from the advertisement server system 120.
The advertiser 150 provides targeting data, keywords, bids for keywords, bids for targeting data, and advertisements to the advertisement management system 120. The advertiser 150 promotes goods or services with the advertisements. In some embodiments, the advertiser 150 may opt-in to target philanthropic organizations that are registered with the advertisement server system 120. The targeting of philanthropic organizations may allow the advertiser 150 to reach additional populations of potential consumers and additional web pages with web page real estate available to display advertisements.
The advertisement database 160 stores advertisements. The advertisement database 160 is created based on the advertisements received from the advertiser 150. In an embodiment, the advertisement database 160 is a relational database or an object-oriented database. The advertisement database 160 also stores the keywords, targeting data, and bids associated with each advertisement. In some embodiments, the advertisements are banner advertisements, display advertisements, text, images, contextual advertisements, search advertisements, audio advertisements, or mobile advertisements that describe a good, service or thing that an advertiser wishes to promote to users. The things described in the advertisements may include events and items from all over the world, from various merchants, and from various distributors. The advertisements are selected by the advertisement server system 120 and transmitted to the publishers 140.
The profiles database 170 stores publisher data. The publishers 140 provide the advertisement server system 120 with authentication data, web page locations, and advertisement placeholder configuration data for storage in the profile database 170. In an embodiment, the profiles database 170 is a relational database or an object-oriented database. The authentication data includes a user name or password selected by the publisher 140. The authentication data is used to prevent unauthorized access to the data store in the profiles database. The web page locations are the addresses of the web pages on which an advertisement placeholder is displayed. The advertisement placeholder configuration data includes the color and filter criteria for each advertisement placeholder associated with a web page specified by the publisher 140. In some embodiments, the profiles database 170 stores charity data that indicates whether a publisher 140 chose to donate a portion of the revenue received from advertising to a philanthropic organization. The profile database 170 is accessed to authenticate a publisher that wishes to update any profile data stored in the profile database 170. In some embodiments, the content of the profile database 170 is encrypted with a private key algorithm or a public key algorithm. For instance the algorithm may be a Diffie-Hellman algorithm, blowfish algorithm, or a version of the data encryption standard algorithm.
The accounts database 180 stores the funds received from advertisers based on the clicks on the advertisements rendered in the advertisement placeholder displayed on web page real estate made available by the publisher 140. The accounts are associated with a publisher 140. In an embodiment, the accounts database 180 is a relational database or an object-oriented database. A publisher 140 may have at least one account in the accounts database 180 that is dedicated to storing revenue generated by the publisher 140. The publisher 140 may have additional accounts dedicated to revenue generated for philanthropic organizations. In some embodiments, the revenue in accounts dedicated to philanthropic organizations is matched by a company that has a gift matching campaign. The publisher 140 may be operated by an employee of the company. Thus, the accounts database 180 may be connected with any company selected by the publisher 140 if the company directs funds into the accounts dedicated to philanthropic organizations to match the funds designated for charitable donations by the publisher 140. Because the accounts are associated with a publisher 140 and a philanthropic organization, the publisher 140 may search the accounts database 180 to determine the number and size of each donation made to each philanthropic organization having an account in the accounts database 180.
The advertising servers 190 provide application programming interfaces to allow the advertisement server system 120, publisher 140, and advertiser 150 to communicate with the advertisement database 160, profile database 170, and accounts database 180. The advertising servers 190 also provide graphical user interfaces to the advertisement server system 120 to, among other things, register publishers 140, to customize advertisement placeholders, and to report the donations received for a specified philanthropic organization over a period of time. In an embodiment, the advertising servers 190 ensure that the proper advertisements are delivered to the publisher 140 based on the publisher profile data and the advertiser targeting data.
Accordingly, the computing system 100 is configured with a publisher 140 that provides advertisements to a client device 130 based on targeting data and advertisement placeholder customizations stored by the advertisement server system 120. The advertisement server system 120 traverses the advertisement database 160 to provide advertisements to the publisher 140. In turn, the advertisement server system 120 generates revenue for the publisher 140 based on click requests received from the client device 130.
In one embodiment, a log-in graphical user interface is presented to a publisher. The log-in graphical user interface prevents unauthorized access to the advertisement server system. After the publisher provides the correct credentials, the publisher may choose to update a profile, check on revenue generated by the publisher, or request receipts to report revenue and donations made to philanthropic organizations.
In another embodiment, a log-in graphical user interface is presented to a publisher. The log-in graphical user interface allows publishers without designated philanthropic organizations to register for accounts dedicated to philanthropic organizations. After registering for a philanthropic organization, on the next log-in the publisher is not be prompted to designate a philanthropic organization.
In certain embodiments, a registration graphical user interface is presented to a publisher. The registration graphical user interface provides publishers with controls to create a new account. The publisher identifies the account as a standard account or an account dedicated to the philanthropic organization. In turn, the publisher provides identifying information and if necessary selects a philanthropic organization when the publisher chooses to dedicate revenue to a philanthropic organization.
In some embodiments, a verification graphical user interface is presented to a publisher. The verification graphical user interface provides publishers with controls to verify the publisher's identity. The publisher verifies the alias, tax identifier, and account type. In turn, the publisher customizes the advertisement placeholder to correspond with a philanthropic organization selected by the publisher.
In some embodiments, the controls provided to the publisher enables the publisher to select philanthropic organizations, advertisement placeholder placement, and the color of the advertisement placeholder. The advertisement server system receives the selections of the philanthropic organizations, selections of the placement and size of the advertisement placeholder, and selection of the color of the advertisement placeholder. In turn, the advertisement server system generates an advertisement placeholder based on the selections received from the publishers.
In other embodiments, a configuration graphical user interface is presented to a publisher. The configuration graphical user interface provides publishers with controls to customize the advertisement placeholders. The configuration graphical user interface also include a help pane to explain customization of the advertisement placeholders. In turn, the publisher may specify whether the philanthropic organization associated with the advertisement placeholder receives all or a portion of the revenue generated by the advertisements in the advertisement placeholder.
In some embodiments, an additional configuration graphical user interface is presented to a publisher. The configuration graphical user interface provides publishers with detail controls to further customize the advertisement placeholders. The configuration graphical user interface also includes a help pane to explain customization of the advertisement placeholders. In turn, the advertisement server system may generate a preview of the advertisement placeholder using the configurations provided by the publisher.
In an embodiment, an advertisement placeholder creation graphical user interface is presented to a publisher. The advertisement placeholder creation graphical user interface provides publishers with code that is generated by the advertisement server system. The code is used to create the advertisement placeholder using the customizations received from the publisher. In turn, the publisher places the code on the web page to render the advertisement placeholder and to receive advertisements from the advertisement server system.
In some embodiments, the advertisement placeholder is rendered on a web page belonging to the publisher. The advertisement placeholder may include a link to the philanthropic organization selected by the publisher and associated with the advertisement placement placeholder. Depending on the complexity of the advertisement placeholder, the advertisement server system may transmit video, audio, or other media advertisements to the advertisement placeholder. The web page displays the advertisement placeholder may receive and render the video, audio, or other media advertisements.
In an embodiment, a report generation graphical user interface is presented to a publisher or an entity identified as a matching partner. The report generation graphical user interface provides publishers or a matching partner with reports about the donations and clicks received by advertisement placeholders rendered by the publisher. The reports may be used by the matching partner to match the gifts donated by the publisher. The reports may also be used to report gifts made to philanthropic organizations during a specified time period. In some embodiments, the reports may display performance metrics, such as, dwell time, web page history showing changes to the web page over a period of time, advertisement update frequency, and advertisement filtering data.
In an embodiment, the advertisement server system is configured to execute logic for directing revenue to a philanthropic organization identified by a publisher. The advertisement server system may determine a number of impressions and a number clicks. In turn, revenue is transmitted to the philanthropic organization by the advertisement server system based on a ratio selected by the publisher.
In certain embodiments, a publisher registers with the advertising server system. The advertisement server system identifies a philanthropic organization selected by the publisher. The advertisement server system also generates an advertisement placeholder for the advertisements. In turn, the advertisement placeholder is transmitted to the publisher to render advertisements provided by the advertisement server system.
In some embodiments, the advertisement server system allows a publisher to create accounts that are associated with qualifying philanthropic organizations. In turn, revenue generated by an advertisement placeholder is accumulated in the account and distributed on a regular basis to the philanthropic organization. The advertisement server system allows the publisher to receive detailed reports on the distributed revenue. The advertisement server system allows the publisher to control the ratio of the revenue provided to the philanthropic organization.
In summary, the advertisement server system allows a publisher to direct revenue to a philanthropic organization. The advertisement server system allows the publisher to fully control revenue generated by advertisement placeholders rendered on a web page owned by the publisher. Some portion of the revenue may be distributed to qualified philanthropic organizations. These funds may be recognized as earnings or donations. And the funds may qualify for matching funds as part of a corporate giving campaign. The advertisement server may allow a publisher to register internal or corporate network webs pages to receive an advertisement placeholder and the advertisements for the advertisement placeholder.
The advertisement server system allows advertisers to create the advertisements that are rendered in the advertisement placeholder. The advertisement server system may increase the number of web pages that are available for monetization by an advertiser because very large profit-based entities and non-profit based entities have internal and external web pages that are not monetized with advertisements. These entities may allow the advertisement placeholder to be placed on their web page because any revenue generated by the advertisement placeholder supports a philanthropic organization. The advertiser may be able to monetize support pages, Intranets, forums, blogs, and the like that we previously unmonetized.
The advertisement server system allows the philanthropic organizations to benefit by receiving potential revenue streams and increasing visibility of the philanthropic organizations. The advertisement server system allows a large distributed group of publishers to provide year round charitable donations to the philanthropic organizations.
The foregoing descriptions of the embodiments of the invention are illustrative, and modifications in configuration and implementation are within the scope of the current description. For instance, while the embodiments of the invention are generally described with relation to