DYNAMIC ELECTRONIC ADVERTISING
FIELD OF INVENTION
[001] The present invention relates to a system and method for integrating
demographic, interest and budget based advertising with any search engine when
accessing computer networks, such as the Internet.
BACKGROUND
[002] Computer networks, including the Internet, provide access to a wealth of
information without the obstacle of a physical or geographic boundary. The
overwhelming amount of available information often makes it unusable absent a
method for finding information of particular interest to a user.
[003] As such, a number of search engines have been developed to discover new
information available on the network and index the information using key words
or search terms so that the information can be located and retrieved by users.
Depending upon the particular methods used to discover new information and
catagorize it within a searchable database, different search engines may provide
varying results for the same or similar search terms.
[004] Providers of products and services typically attempt to target their advertising to
reach those users most likely to make a purchase. Advertising is an important tool
to sustain a growing economy. Many forms of advertising are employed every
day. Specifically, electronic advertisements associated with webpages, data
communication, and various electronic media are viewed by users around the
world.
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[005] A number of websites and internet search engines provide targeted advertising
by displaying banner ads based on search terms entered by a user. Because users
typically visit or “click-through” to only a few of the search results, vendors seek
to be listed at or near the top of the results listing. As such, some websites and
search engines allow advertisers to pay to be listed on the first page of the search
results for particular search terms. While these strategies help advertisers to
reach their targeted audience, advertisers have no feedback with respect to which
users are clicking-through or visiting their website, i.e. the user profile or
demographic information of the user.
[006] Another increasingly popular method for advertisers of electronic advertising is
through email. However, the enormous increase in unsolicited email, also
referred to as spam, has reduced its effectiveness with consumers. Furthermore,
email lists may be unreliable in terms of the target market because email
addresses are often collected and distributed without the user's knowledge. In
addition, the recent spread of computer viruses via email has made many user's
suspicious of opening any unsolicited email which does not come from a
recognized source.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
[007] It is an object of the present invention to provide a system and method
for advertising or marketing based on user interests, budget, demographics and
search history.
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[008] Another object of the present invention is to provide a system and method for
supplying advertisers with information on demographics, interests, search history
for users who respond to an advertisement.
[009] An additional object of the present invention is to provide advertisers with
detailed statistics based on demographic information of users who respond to a
particular advertising campaign.
[0010] In carrying out the above objects, and other objects, features, and advantages of
the present invention a method for electronic advertising includes collecting
demographic information from users while registering to become a member, and
associating the demographic information with an advertisement when a user
responds to the advertisement. The method may also include providing
advertisers with statistical information relative to user demographics for users
who responded to a particular advertisement. In one embodiment, the member
demographics may be used by advertisers to target particular advertising
campaigns to members based on member demographic information. Likewise,
demographic information entered by advertisers may be used by the
administrator or other advertisers to target advertising information to those
advertisers.
[0011] The present invention provides a number of advantages. For example, the present
invention provides advertisers with demographic statistics relative to users who
respond to a particular advertisement. As such, the present invention provides for
more targeted advertising so resources can be allocated to those campaigns
which reach the intended recipients who respond to the advertisement.
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[0012] The above advantages and other advantages, objects, and features of the present
invention are readily apparent from the following description of the invention.
BENEFITS OF THE INVENTION
[0013] The present invention enables the advertisers to show relevant advertisements
and base their advertising and marketing campaigns on the basis of budget,
interest and demographics of the users.
[0014] The users are able to see content and advertisement which would be useful to
them and they are more likely to respond to such content and advertisements.
[0015] Users are able to see relevant products which are available for sale through
various online channels. Users are more likely to purchase items which are
relevant to them instead of items which are currently presented to them based
on the keywords they entered.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
[0016] The following description of illustrative embodiments is better understood when
read in conjunction with the appended drawings. For the purpose of illustrating
the present disclosure, exemplary constructions of the disclosure are shown in
the drawings:
[0017] Fig. 1 depicts a typical selection and filtering form for the advertisers in
accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; and
[0018] Fig. 2 depicts a step-wise process of dynamic advertising method in accordance
with an embodiment of the present invention.
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DESCRIPTION
[0019] The invention is described below with reference to several embodiments and
examples. Such discussion is for purposes of illustration only. Modifications to
examples within the spirit and scope of the present invention, will be readily
apparent to one of skilled in the art. Terminology used throughout the
specification herein is given its ordinary meaning as supplemented by the
discussion immediately below. As used in the specification, the singular forms “a”,
“an” and “the” include plural references unless the context clearly dictates
otherwise.
[0020] The present system and method of advertising targets internet users for
electronic advertising. Users will be able to see advertisements which are relevant
to them on the basis of their interest, budget, search history and demography. By
way of example, a certain product or service may be relevant to a professional but
not to a student. Further, a student would not be the target audience for an
expensive product or service but the typical advertising methods are not able to
distinguish the users based on such criteria and work only on the basis of
keywords entered.
[0021] Unlike the existing systems of advertising which use keywords and demographics
to target end users, the disclosed system will utilize a number of criteria to target
users such as budget, community, sub-community and user type for display of
advertisements.
[0022] The disclosed system and method envisages display of dynamic advertisements
to users wherein the users will be able to see relevant advertisement irrespective
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of what page they are visiting i.e. the advertisement would not be defined by the
keywords of the page but on the basis of interest, budget, demographics etc.
which the user would have shared at the time of registration. For example, an
advertisement which has been published for a particular professional, say, a
doctor, even if he visits any other page on the website he will see advertisement
relevant and related to him.
[0023] Time Frame means when, at what time of the day and at what frequency the
advertisement will be shown to every user.
[0024] In an embodiment of the present invention, at the time of registration a user gets
the option of choosing a user or industry type, based on the user or industry type
selected, user can select an industry, profession or education based community.
When the user enters his or her community he has to choose a sub community
according to his/her work profile.
[0025] The disclosed method envisages that the user type could be student, professional,
job seeker, freelancer, businessperson or business entity. At second level i.e.
community level, a user could select the topics and professions which are relevant
to him/her, for example, teaching, engineering etc. At third level i.e subcommunity
level, the user can select specific field such maths, electronics, java,
android etc. The system also envisages that a user could enter multiple countries,
states and cities which are relevant to him/her.
[0026] An example of the user registration details will be as follows:
a. User Type: Healthcare
b. Community: Doctor / Lab Technician / Medical Shop Owner
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c. Sub-community: Anesthesiologist / Cardiologist / Oncologist
[0027] An advertiser would be able to select the criteria for showcasing his
advertisement to a select group of users based on what is relevant to those users.
Filtering options can be presented to advertisers based on which they would
decide their target users in consonance with the marketing strategy of the
advertiser. Advertiser also has the option to filter target users on the basis of
demographics such as company name, industry of user, community or sub
community or profession etc. Advertiser can choose user type and also decide
user school and college and gender and their Income group or budget.
[0028] In an embodiment of the present invention, the advertiser can decide the time
frame for display of an advertisement. This gives control to the advertiser and
enables him to decide on duration during which time advertisement will be
displayed to the end users. Further, the advertiser can also decide the number of
times an advertisement will be shown to the end user and also the time of the day
when the advertisement will be displayed.
[0029] When a user, who has registered himself to the present system as disclosed, visits
any website or search anything on a search engine with which the disclosed
system of dynamic advertising has been integrated, he will see advertisements
relevant to him in accordance with his user type, community, sub-community,
budget, interest, age, profession, demography etc. unlike the present state of the
art by virtue of which the user views advertisement on the basis of pages he/she
is visiting which may not be related to his/her requirement or profile.
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[0030] The disclosed system of dynamic advertising will show advertisement related to
particular user type. An advertiser would be able to select a number of user types
which are relevant to his marketing campaign. The present system envisages
display of relevant advertisements to users even when they are not logged on to
the system but have registered with the system.
[0031] In an embodiment of the present invention, the viewing user is shown
advertisements relevant to him based on his profile i.e. user type, community and
sub-community, on any page he visits instead of advertisements based on the
pages he visits which is the present state of the art.
[0032] By way of example, an advertiser may consider selecting users for display of
advertisement in the manner that the user should be
 in the age group of 23-34, 34-44;
 having professional qualifications;
 in the income bracket of 5-10 lacs / year;
 residing or working in India;
 in the states of either Haryana, Punjab or Uttar Pradesh;
 in the cities of Hisar, Gurgaon, Jalandhar, Chandigarh or Noida.
[0033] The advertisers also have the option to use filtering and make his advertising more
specific, such as, by selecting users from a specific company (example, Tata
Consultancy Services); specific industry (example, Information Technology); any
professional sub-community (example, Java Developers); specific school, college,
gender, relationship status etc.
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[0034] Further, advertisers can also select the time frames and durations for which the
advertisement will be displayed. The advertisements will then be displayed to the
users visiting any website with which the present system of advertisement has
been integrated.
[0035] The relevant advertisements are displayed to the user by placing a cookie and/or
pixel tag in the browser of the user which stores information about the industry,
community and sub-community of the user. Whenever the user is surfing the web
relevant advertisements are then displayed to the user based on registration
information collected and stored in the cookie placed in browser.
[0036] Referring now to the figures, Figure 1 depicts an end user selection and filtering
criteria page in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The
advertiser has the option to make selection of users to whom his advertising shall
be targeted on the basis of his marketing requirements. Selection and filtering can
be done as explained above.
[0037] Figure 2 depicts the work flow of the system in accordance with the present
embodiment.
[0038] At step 1, the advertiser selects and filters the end users to whom his
advertisement is to be targeted. The advertiser then submits his advertisement
for approval with the administrator of the system. The administrator may approve
the advertisement or suggest changes to content;
[0039] At step 2, the administrator approves the advertisement for display to end users;
[0040] At step 3, the advertisement will be published to the end user based on the
selection criteria of the advertiser.
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[0041] Having thus described a few particular embodiments of the invention, various
alterations, modifications, and improvements will readily occur to those skilled in
the art. Such alteration, modifications, and improvements as are made obvious
by this disclosure are intended to be part of this description though not expressly
stated herein, and are intended to be within the spirit and scope of the invention.
Accordingly, the foregoing description is by way of example only, and not limiting.

I claim:
1. Method of online advertising comprising the steps of:
a. registering the user on the system;
b. collecting information about the specific type of user;
c. collecting information about the community and sub-community of the
user;
d. collecting information about the user pertaining to interests and
demographics;
e. displaying advertisements to the user on webpages / websites the user
visits which are relevant to the user based on information collected at
registration i.e. user type, community and sub-community of the user;
2. Method of online advertising as claimed in claim 1, further comprising the steps
of:
a. submitting the advertisement by advertiser to be displayed for approval
by system administration;
b. approving the advertisement by the system administrator for display
c. selecting of criteria by the advertiser on the basis of user type,
community and sub-community of user for display of advertisement;
d. filtering of selected user group on the basis of interests and
demographics;
e. selecting of time frame within which the advertisement is to be displayed
f. selecting the duration for which the advertisement is to be displayed
3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein only the information about the
specific sub-community of the user is collected and information about the
community and type of the user is automatically incorporated in the system
based on the provided sub-community;
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4. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising the step of supplying
advertisers with information on demographics, interests, search history for users
who respond to an advertisement and statistics based on demographic
information of users who respond to a particular advertising campaign.
5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein a cookie and/or a pixel tag is
generated and placed on the web browser of the user comprising information
on the user type, community and sub-community and the web pages / websites
the user visits;
Further wherein, when the user is surfing the web, relevant advertisements are
displayed to the user based on the user registration details of user type,
community and sub-community and other basic details stored in the cookie and
placed in his browser.
6. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the advertisements are displayed on
web pages for the user on the basis of user profile i.e. user type, community and
sub-community of the user and not on the basis of page being visited.