METHOD FOR DYNAMICALLY PRICING ADVERTISEMENTS IN DATA TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS
DESCRIPTION
FIELD OF INVENTION
The present invention is related to methods for managing advertisement presentation in data transmission systems and, more specifically, to a method to effectively and dynamically determine advertisement pricing parameters in a data transmission system such as internet and other data transmission system.
BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
Technologies related to advertising in data transmission system are available in the art. With the emerging and spreading of communication networks, many new technologies came to supply the demands of activities performed in network environments. Following this trend, scientific, commercial and advertising activities, among others, became real, at least in part, within the scope of big communication networks, through data transmission systems.
Accordingly, technologies are constantly developed to meet market needs and overcome the technical obstacles related to advertisement presentation in data transmission systems. US Patent No. 6,075,617, for example, describes an advertisement detection and fitting system comprising an image controller device to be presented in a screen, which comprises, essentially, a data input device, a memory coupled to this device and a detection device, connected to the memory, to detect advertisement size. The invention disclosed on US Patent No. 6,075,617 made possible to overcome the problem related to advertisement presentation in many devices, such as monitors, i.e., the same advertisement, comprising a defined data set, can be suitably presented in different monitors, no matter the size of the monitors and/or its resolution.
Other technologies related to advertisement presentation in data transmission systems are available. US Patent No. 6,009,410, for example, describes a custom advertisement presentation system and method to an internet user. Such method comprises the receiving of a page presentation demand from the user's navigation
software and the following identifying the user whom has demanded it. After user identification the dynamic creation of an information set comprising a plurality of elements related to several pages or hyperlinks begins, in accordance to data which characterizes the user's profile. This enables, for example, the sending the user advertisement having parameters used in the user's profile characterization, such as recently visited sites and other information. In this way, the referred method enables the sending of personalized advertisement to each user, improving the efficiency of the same and decreases the sending of advertisement to users who do not fit certain parameters.
US Patent No. 5,960,409 describes a statistics evaluation method and system of users connected to a communication network. Through this method, it is possible to evaluate the number of hits in a specific advertisement, so that the users can automatically redirect the referred advertisement links based in statistical hits parameters. Furthermore, it is also possible to make statistical data, such as the number of clicks in a specific advertisement and the presentation site, available, in a tabulated form, to the advertisement user and/or server. Likewise, US Patent No. 6,141,010 presents a method that makes possible the presentation of advertisement in a directed way to computer users connected to communication networks.
The above-mentioned technologies solve technical problems related to presentation and the lack of selectivity of the presented advertisement in communication systems. Unfortunately, users, remarkably that of small and medium capacity sites, still face the difficulty of not having access to the advertising market to present advertisement spaces. Reasons such as lack of domestic structure focused in publicity, lack of resources to develop advertising campaigns, lack of traffic volume, besides the lack of pricing methods considering the real-time demand, has generated demand for a method that overcome all this problems and facilitates user advertisement presentation in a cheaper and more efficient way.
SUMMARY OF INVENTION
The mentioned problems are solved through the present method, developed by the inventors, comprising a technological platform operating in communication systems, focused in advertisement presentation between companies. Therefore, it is an object of the invention providing a method for dynamically pricing advertisements in communication
systems to enable the advertisement buy-and-sell agreement, through a compensation stock market, aiming the elimination of great investments of a traditional online campaign. A further object of this invention is providing a clearance process, enabling the materialization of virtual credits generated from negotiation of advertising space. Yet another object of the invention is the development of detailed profiles of each site, in order to facilitate the segmentation of advertising campaigns. Also an object x>f the present invention is to provide of tracking and audit tools enabling an interactive, real-time, return, which enables performance monitoring and refinements during advertising campaigns. An additional object of the present invention is to provide an integrated tool for planning, monitoring and checking of online advertising campaign results.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE DRAWINGS
Figure 1 illustrates the registration step of the present invention.
Figure 2 illustrates the advertisement stock market step of the present invention. Figure 3 illustrates the credit stock market (virtual purchase) step of the present invention.
Figure 4 illustrates the credit stock market (virtual sale) step of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The present invention can be understood by the skilled in the art as a detailed description of the steps involved and the performed operations, reported in the following pages together with the respective figures. First, the user must be registered by filling personal/company information in a survey comprising fields and sub-fields of market classification, types of advertisement to be presented. After registration, the user automatically receives a virtual credit, used as a pricing method in exchanges involving credits. The virtual credits are used in a advertisement stock market, not only for the acquisition of advertising spaces but also for the offer, by the user, of accumulated virtual credits for buy-and-sell in a credit stock market. Each user has the option to buy and sell advertising space in virtual credits or in real money. Therefore, a great interest in negotiating the advertising space in virtual credits increases the accumulation of virtual credits, allowing these to be used in self-campaign and/or future negotiations in a credit
stock market. The method also enables the definition of the advertising campaign value by the user, dates of start and finish, fields of action and territories aimed by the campaign. It can also define campaign trends, i.e., provide optimized standards based in the number of exhibitions, distributions or by performance. All the informations related to advertisement available for negotiation and informations about related campaigns are displayed instantaneously at the advertisement stock market. Example
The following example illustrates details of the invention, but is not intended to limit the scope of the inventive concept. Any user, as for example a specific new electronic address or site already registered in a communication system which uses the method described here, after registering his personal information and the available advertising spaces (Figure 1), automatically receives a credit of, for example, 10.000,00 $V, i.e., a certain amount of virtual credits. With this credit, the user decides to advertise. In order to do it, the user uses a tool which comprises a group of operations that will set the desired advertising segmentation characteristics, the number of hits and dates parameters through the search in registered addresses databases. The tool asks the user how much virtual credits he is willing to pay to the advertising campaign and if he will consider advertising on sites which accepts payment in virtual and/or real cash. The tool not only verifies the available advertising spaces databases at each site, but also verifies the advertisement stock market (Figure 2) to track the promotions available at the moment. As soon as an advertising campaign proposition is created, the tool send the informations related to costs and appearance times to the user authorized for approval. The user can also customize so the final version of the campaign according to his ideas/interests.
If, for example, the advertising campaign is more expensive than the number of credits received at first, the user can, through a credit stock market, offer to buy, from another user, the amount of virtual credits needed for performing the advertising campaign (Figure 3), in order to find a better exchange rate between virtual and real credits available at the credit stock market. The credit stock market is configured in such a way that it is listed, in one side, all credit sale offers (Figure 4) and the offered discounts, and, in the other side, all credit buy offers with the corresponding discounts, so as to fit the values and offered quantities. The concept of discount can be understood in the following terms: 1 virtual credit can conceptually attributed is equivalent to 1 dollar. In this way, a CPM
advertisement fee (a value charged for each 1000 advertisement presentations or any other advertising element on the internet) of 30 dollars for cash payment is initially equivalent to 30 virtuals. However, many sites price the advertisement without taking into account factors of offer and demand, since no market clearance mechanism reflecting offer/demand variations was available prior to this invention. Accordingly, for the first time, with the development of a credit stock market, this problem had been solved, allowing site owners to determine a favorable exchange rate in which virtual credits are converted in real credits and vice-versa. As many sites are created each day, offer bigger than demand is highly desirable. Therefore, to fulfill the existing advertisement stocks, the real price by CPM will fall and this can be obtained through discounts each agent decides to invest for the conversion of real money into virtual credits.
The user has still another option to finance his advertising campaign: by using the advertisement stock market and offering the lowering of the CPM fee that must be paid for his own advertisement stocks, because the CPM fee can be the same in virtual credits and real money. This thrusts the buying from other sites and also the suggestions of the previously described tool, which always verifies the best offers available. The virtual credits can only be exchanged for real money at the credits stock market if both interested parts settle a price.
With these steps the advertising campaign is defined and detailed. Next, is necessary to receive the new user's advertisement and put it into proper sites at the proper moments. These procedures are accomplished by other tool, which gives the user the option to monitor, in real-time, the impact of his campaign. This second tool provides important statistical information about the number of site visitors (or pageviews), number of clicks, etc, in order to offer the condition of identifying which sites show better campaign results. This feature can also be used by the sites to strengthen the collaborations with other complementary sites, as for example, content exchange. The campaign results are tabled to provide the user all the relevant information about the advertising campaign.