A system and method for procuring an ad campaign on behalf of unrelated parties

Abstract

A system aggregates advertising campaign orders to create a single advertising campaign includes a server. The server has a demand side order management system. The order management system receives a number of orders from different entities; each order being to advertise a similar good. The order management system bundles the number of orders into a single order for an ad campaign for the good. A publisher receives the single order and in response thereto solicits bids for publishing the single advertising campaign. A dashboard presents campaign information from the publisher to each of the number of different entities. A billing system communicates with the server, and issues an individualized invoice for the campaign to each entity as a function of a respective order.

Description

A SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROCURING AN AD CAMPAIGN ON BEHALF OF UNRELATED PARTIESCROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

[0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Serial No. 63 / 632,712 filed April 11, 2024, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein as if fully set forth.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0002] The present invention is directed to an infrastructure and a method to enable a number of unrelated parties to collaborate in a programmatic, or server to server, marketing campaign.

[0003] As known in the art, the current real time advertising ecosystem pits parties against each other, even when they have an aligned interest. Reference is made to Fig. 1 wherein an operational diagram of the prior art system and method for creating a co-op ad campaign is provided. By way of non-limiting example, in an ad campaign for mattresses the local retailer 102a, manufacturer 102b and a buying group 102n develop orders for advertising the mattresses using some buying tool. As a result, as known in the art, local retailer 102a submits an ad campaign 104a, manufacturer 102b submits a distinct ad campaign 104b, and buying group 102n submits a distinct ad campaign 104n; all competing with each other for the same audience, and advertising placement of the mattress. As a result, the prior art system suffers from the disadvantage that these multiple campaigns are targeting the same publisher, site or app and audience. They are pitted against each other; all needing to chip in a budget, see reporting and get billed only for their portions of the final overall campaign.

[0004] Additionally, publisher 106 receiving what are treated as three independent campaigns creates three campaigns all competing for audience and scale, pitting the parties against each other for ad campaign price and inventory, costing each co-op buyer more budget in the form of cost per thousand (CPM). The publisher, treating this as distinct campaigns, provides distinct dashboards 108a-108n respectively; tailored for a respective specific party. As a result, the interested parties lose the ability to see a consolidated view (dashboard) of the de facto co-op program.

[0005] Lastly, billing system 110, known in the art, receives the disparate information for each campaign and determines a bill for each program increasing the overall cost for the entire campaign.

[0006] The present invention overcomes the shortcomings of the prior art.SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0007] A system for aggregating advertising campaign orders to create a single advertising campaign includes a server. The server has a demand side order management system. The order management system is enabled to receive a number of orders from different entities; each order being to advertise a similar good. The order management system bundles the number of orders into a single order for an ad campaign for the good. A publisher receives the single order and in response thereto solicits bids for publishing the single advertising campaign. A dashboard is enabled to present campaign information from the publisher to each of the number of different entities. A billing system communicates with the server, and is enabled to issue an individualized invoice for the campaign to each entity as a function of a respective order.BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0008] The features and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent from the following detailed description of the invention in which like elements are labeled similarly and in which:Fig. 1 is an operational diagram showing a system and method of operation for provisioning an advertising campaign in accordance with the prior art;Fig. 2 is a block diagram of a system constructed in accordance with the invention; andFig. 3 is an operational diagram showing a system and method of operation for provisioning an advertising campaign in accordance with the invention.DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0009] Reference is now made to Fig. 2 in which a system 200, constructed in accordance with the invention, for performing the production of a media program, advertising transaction or ad campaign (collectively a campaign) in accordance with invention is provided. A plurality of users 1-N have respective devices 202-210 for inputting order information necessary to create an order for a campaign. Such information includes, but is not limited to, the nature of the good, the desired target audience demographics (age, geography, income, etc.), the percentage of billing responsibility and any other business rules associated with a campaign.

[0010] By way of non-limiting example, devices 202-210 are any digital input device such as a computer, smart phone, tablet or the like capable of communicating with a server 220 in a cloud 226. Server 220 creates a singular billing order as a function of the inputs from users 202-210. As will be described below, server 220 is in communication with a publisher server 228. Server 220 creates an advertising campaign order which is transmitted to the publisher server 228.

[0011] Publisher server 228 creates a campaign as a function of the inputs from server 220 and reports back to server 220. A billing server, either part of server 220 or independently thereof, receives the campaign information and creates bills for each of users 202, in accordance with the billing rules established by server 220 in response to inputs from devices 202-210.

[0012] Reference is now made to Fig. 3 wherein the operation of the system of Fig. 2 is explained in more detail. Parties 1-N are the counterparties to a single co-op order, advertising transaction or campaign. Each have their own rules and requirements for things such as the percentage of the budget for which they are responsible, if they are a billing party, or only receiving a campaign report, the demographics of the target audience, the desired targeted devices, IP addresses, publishers, apps or more. Devices 202-210 output this respective information to server 220, which in turn, utilizing an order management system (“OMS”) 224, determines a commonality amongst different orders, bundles the different orders and creates a unified order 302 in the form of a document to be authorized by each of parties 1-N. The OMS 224 associates the percentage of ownership of the order 302, advertising transactions or campaign for each party 1-N, the appropriate billing contact for each party 1-N, and the allotted percentage of each campaign bill.

[0013] Server 220 having a demand side platform (“DSP”) then pushes the order, advertising campaign, or campaign shell (collectively order 302) from the OMS 224 to the DSP to manage the real time bidding of the campaign, an ad server to ad server, or other non real time media placement environment for campaign creation and delivery. In a preferred non limiting embodiment, the order management system 224 creates a document, as order 302, to be authorized (signed) by each of participating parties 1-N utilizing devices 202-210. In this way an order 302 for a single campaign 304; optimized based on advertiser set business outcomes and attributions is sent to the publisher server 228.

[0014] The Campaign 304 may include advertiser name, advertiser a-domain or other identifiers for the counterparty names and billing information. It will also include creative information, target audience demographic information which may be any form of 1st, 2ndor 3rdparty audience inclusion or exclusion targeting criteria set with bullion logic as “and” or “or” statements, platform or device type targeting (Connected TV, Phone, Tablet or desktop as examples), geographic targeting, genre, show or channel and site, app or publisher targeting information which will likely include N number of publishers, sites or apps to target, even order value (cpm v. impressions) as discussed above. It is entered from campaign 304 which is a function of order 302. As can be seen from the above the campaign is built and delivered as a single campaign. Publisher and audience server 228 receives the instructions as campaign 304 and delivers the campaign as a function thereof. Publisher and audience server 228 puts campaign 304 out to bid as a single campaign.

[0015] The statistics for the campaign, are gathered as known in the art to create the prior art dashboards. However, in accordance with the invention server 220 receives the data and in accordance with the specifications of the order, creates individualized dashboards 306a, 306b . . N for the respective users 1-N at devices 202-210. In other words, each receives a tailored dashboard as a function of the rules set forth in order 302.

[0016] It is noted that it is well within the scope of the invention for users to input the data directly into publisher and audience server 228 and server 228 reporting directly to devices 202-210. As a result of the structures and operation above, a system and method are provided for automatically making multiple campaigns from multiple parties as a single coop order with their respective shares of budget, audience and creative all to funnel into one co-op campaign. This works with server to server direct ad delivery and programmatic ad delivery. As a result, one campaign is executed amongst multiple interests and parties, so that the members of the coop do not competeor overpay in CPM for the inventory. The structure allows for one consolidated campaign, campaign report with different levels of access for reporting and a single pipe for billing from the OMS to the billing system with multiple invoices sent; each with the proper budget per counter party.

[0017] It will thus be seen that the objects set forth above, among those made apparent from the preceding description, are efficiently attained and, since certain changes may be made in carrying out the above method and in the construction set forth without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, it is intended that all matter contained in the above description and shown in the accompanying drawings shall be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.

[0018] It is also to be understood that the following claims are intended to cover all of the generic and specific features of the invention herein described, and all statements of the scope of the invention which, as a matter of language, might be said to fall there between.

Claims

CLAIMS1. A system for aggregating advertising campaign orders to create a single advertising campaign comprising: a server, the server configured to have a demand side order management system, the demand side order management system being configured to receive a number of orders for an advertising campaign from two or more respective different entities; each order being to advertise a similar good; the demand side order management system bundling the number of orders into a single order for a single ad campaign for the good; at least one of a publisher, a site, an ad app and an ad server enabled to receive the single order and in response thereto, and as function thereof solicit bids for publishing the single advertising campaign; a dashboard receiving a campaign information from the publisher and enabled to present the campaign information from the publisher to each of the two or more different entities; and a billing system communicating with the server, and enabled to issue an individualized invoice for the campaign to each entity as a function of a respective order.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein each order comprises information necessary to create an order for the advertising campaign.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the information includes at least one of the nature of the good, the desired target audience demographics, the percentage of billing responsibility for each entity, and entity based business rules associated with a campaign.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising two or more digital input devices, each respective order from the two or more respective entities being input to the server by a respective one of the two or more digital input devices.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the campaign includes one or more of an advertiser name, an advertiser a-domain, other identifiers for each party and billing information.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the demand side order management system is configured to bundle the number of orders by determining a commonality amongst the number of orders, bundling the number of orders as function of the commonality and create an order for a single advertising campaign.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the demand side order management system is configured to associate a percentage of ownership of the order for each of the different entities.

8. The system of claim 1, the server further comprising a demand side platform, the demand side platform being configured to receive the order and mange real time bidding for the order.

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