Audience Definition via URL Expressions for Cross-Channel Retargeting
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional online advertising systems cannot effectively target specific audiences based on user browsing activities across different advertising channels, limiting advertisers' ability to retarget users who have previously interacted with their websites but did not complete a purchase.
Innovation Solution
An ad facilitation server that allows advertisers to define audiences using uniform resource locator (URL) expressions, enabling the identification and targeting of users who have visited specific pages, with a tracking script to monitor visits and add users to audiences across various ad publishers, regardless of the advertising channel.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If term-based advertising is used to target users based on search queries, then advertisers can target users searching for specific terms, but advertisers cannot target users based on prior browsing actions on their website
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the audience definition into multiple independent components: URL expressions defining target pages, visitor identification through tracking scripts, and audience list management. This allows the system to handle complex retargeting requirements by breaking them into manageable segments that can be configured independently.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary audience management system that bridges the gap between website browsing behavior and advertising delivery. The system uses tracking scripts as intermediaries to capture visitor information, stores visitor identifiers in audience lists, and enables ad publishers to access these lists for targeted advertising, thus connecting website analytics with ad serving without requiring direct integration between all components.
2Adaptability or versatility
If advertisers want to target specific user groups across multiple ad publishers, then retargeting capability is improved, but integration complexity across different advertising channels increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal audience definition system using URL expressions that can match any webpage URL pattern. This universal matching mechanism works across all ad publishers and advertising channels, allowing a single audience definition to serve multiple purposes and channels without requiring channel-specific configurations.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses parameter-based audience definition through URL expressions and tracking script parameters. By changing the URL pattern parameters in the expression, the same system infrastructure can target different audience segments across various channels, eliminating the need for separate integration systems for each channel.
3Measurement precision
If conventional term-based advertising is used, then simple keyword targeting is achieved, but the ability to track and retarget users who browsed products without purchasing is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary tracking action by placing tracking scripts on website pages before the advertising campaign begins. These scripts proactively capture visitor information and add them to audience lists in advance, enabling precise retargeting of users who browsed without purchasing. The tracking occurs automatically as users visit pages, eliminating the need for manual user identification.
Data Source
AI summary
An ad facilitation server receives a definition of an audience from an advertiser, the definition expressed in terms of a URL that audience members have visited, such as a regular expression for URLs. Upon receiving a URL corresponding to a visit of a visitor to a page of the advertiser, the ad facilitation server determines whether the URL matches the audience definition provided earlier; if so, the ad facilitation server sends a request to a number of different ad publishers, requesting them to add the visitor to an associated audience. When an ad impression opportunity occurs on a particular ad publisher, the publisher considers bids previously submitted by the advertiser for the audience when selecting an ad for the ad impression opportunity. Thus, advertisers are enabled to bid on specific audiences defined by prior page visits, across a number of different ad publishers constituting different advertising channels.