Paid Search Engine Bid Management
A method and apparatus (information processing system) for overcoming deficiencies and inefficiencies in the current paid search engine keyword bidding market, by providing keyword bidders with information they need to better optimize their use of paid search engines. The system accumulates bid amounts for a plurality of target keywords at one or more paid Internet search engines, and presents the bid amounts to a user, enabling the user to evaluate and optimize bids on those keywords. The system also presents bid amounts for a keyword at one or more paid Internet search engines, in a manner highlighting one or more selected bid amounts of interest to a potential bidder. This permits a bidder to identify the bidder's own bid, and/or to identify a differential in bid amounts that indicates an opportunity for bid optimization. The system further monitors keyword bids at one or more paid Internet search engines to identify bid changes of interest to a potential bidder.
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This Application is a Continuation of application Ser. No. 11/379,897 filed on Apr. 24, 2006, which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 10/324, 802 filed Dec. 20, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,043,450, which is a continuation of PCT Application Serial No. US01/41263 filed Jul. 5, 2001, which is a continuation of U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/215,976, filed Jul. 5, 2000, all entitled “PAID SEARCH ENGINE BID MANAGEMENT”, which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.
FIELD OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention relates to the management of advertising expenses in online media.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONUse of the Internet has expanded at a nearly geometric rate in the most recent few years, both in the number of users online and the number of sites and associated content that content providers have made available online. The increases in both categories have enhanced the importance of so-called “portal” sites, such as large Internet access providers and popular Internet search engines. Statistics indicate that an overwhelming majority of traffic to Internet sites passes through such portal sites.
Until recently, Internet search engines have indexed available Internet sites by a process of search and selection. Professionals employed by the search engine sponsor identify and index Internet sites of potential interest to users. In some cases, this process would be embellished by “spidering” identified sites, i.e., traversing links within the site to accumulate word indexes for all reachable pages at the site. Content providers could participate in this process by submitting links to their site to the search engine, but other than through such submissions, could not influence whether these links would be added to the search engine.
Recently, a new model for a paid Internet search engine has been introduced, best exemplified by the site GoTo.com. In a paid Internet search engine, content providers submit bids for each one or more keywords they desire to associate with their site. The paid search engine will respond to a user's request for sites with one or more keywords, by producing a list of links to those sites that have submitted bids on those keywords. The order in which links are identified is determined by the bid amounts provided by the sites—the site with the largest (cumulative) bid(s) for the keywords(s) identified by the user, appears first in the list of sites presented to the user, followed by the site with the second largest (cumulative) bid(s) and so on. Content providers are invoiced the bid amount each time a link to the provider's site is used by a user to access that site.
As paid search engines become increasingly popular, the rate of change of bid amounts at those sites has increased, a consequence of competition for desirable keywords and relative positions in those keywords. To foster competition, paid search engines have provided facilities for bidders to monitor certain statistics, such as a daily count of “hits” on particular keywords, and reports of current bids on a given single keyword. However, paid search engines have not, to date, made such competitive information readily accessible. For example, a bidder can only view current bid positions of one keyword at a time, and has no mechanism for quickly identifying large gaps in bid amounts indicative of an opportunity for bid optimization. For a content provider managing tens or hundreds of keyword bids, the burden of evaluating each keyword individually can be substantial. The apparent reason for this situation is that paid search engines do not wish to incur the lost revenue that would result were the content providers able to fully optimize their bidding strategies, e.g., by quickly determining whether any current bids for keywords of interests can be lowered, without any or any important change in ranking relative to other bidders. A non-optimal bid on any given keyword, meaning any bid with a difference of greater than one cent from the next lower bid, represents consumer surplus captured by the paid search engine, which the search engine sponsor does not wish to relinquish.
To date, few services have been introduced to aid in bidding on paid search engine keywords. One such service accumulates generic statistics on the bid ranges for particular positions (e.g., 6, 12, etc.) for particular keywords at a paid search engine. This data is useful in selecting keywords on which to bid, but does not provide any assistance in managing bids that have been placed to ensure those bids are optimized and that a desired position has been maintained as competitors change their bids for the selected keywords.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention provides a method and apparatus (information processing system) for overcoming these deficiencies and inefficiencies in the current paid search engine keyword bidding market. Specifically, the present invention provides keyword bidders with information they need to better optimize their use of paid search engines.
In accordance with a first aspect, the invention features accumulating bid amounts for a plurality of target keywords at one or more paid Internet search engines, and presenting the bid amounts to a user.
In specific embodiments of this aspect, bid amounts for either a single paid Internet search engine, or multiple paid Internet search engines, may be accumulated and presented. The bids accumulated may be, e.g., the 20 largest bids for each target keyword. Other information accumulated and/or presented may include a statistic or the rate of use of a target keyword by users of a paid search engine, demographics of users of a target keyword, demographics or commercial information regarding bidders for a target keyword, identification of additional keywords used in conjunction with the target keywords of users of a paid Internet search engine, and identification of additional keywords so bid upon by bidders for a target keyword.
In accordance with a second aspect, the invention features presenting bid amounts for a keyword at one or more paid Internet search engines, in a manner highlighting one or more selected bid amounts of interest to a potential bidder.
In specific embodiments of this aspect, the highlighted bid amount is a bid submitted by an identified entity, e.g., the entity to which said bid amounts are presented. Alternatively, or in addition, the highlighted bid amount(s) may be associated with a differential in bid amounts meeting certain criteria. These criteria may include identifying differentials in bid amounts characteristic of an opportunity for bid optimization, such as differentials between bids larger than a minimum currency amount. These criteria may alternatively include identifying differentials between bids of the entity to whom the presentation is made, and bids of other parties.
In accordance with a third aspect, the present invention features monitoring keyword bids at one or more paid Internet search engines to identify bid changes of interest to a potential bidder.
In specific embodiments of this aspect, the identified changes are those which create a differential in bid amounts meeting certain criteria. These criteria may include identifying differentials in bid amounts characteristic of bid optimization opportunities, such as differentials between bids larger than a minimum currency amount. These criteria may alternatively include identifying differentials between bids of the entity to whom the presentation is made, and bids of other parties.
The above and other objects and advantages of the present invention shall be made apparent from the accompanying drawings and the description thereof.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with a general description of the invention given above, and the detailed description of the embodiments given below, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTIONThe foregoing provides an exemplary description of an implementation of principles of the present invention. Referring to
A subscriber to the keyword bid optimization service may manage keywords bids for one or a number of Internet domain names to which that subscriber wishes to direct internet traffic from a paid search engine. The new subscriber information provided by the subscriber, therefore, includes the one or several domain names to which the subscriber wishes to direct internet traffic. These domain names are then used by the system to obtain reports of keyword bids and positions for those domain names.
A final part of the new subscriber information received in step 102 is a user name and password that may be used by the bidder to access the keyword bid optimization service and manage the bidding of keywords through the service. After a subscriber has enrolled, the subscriber may return as seen in step 104 to log into the service and thereby be associated with the previously stored customer information collected in step 102 including the subscribers keywords and domain names as well as other information collected. After a subscriber has completed subscription to the service in step 102, or when a subscriber returns and logs into the service, the subscriber is delivered to a domain directory page in step 106. In the domain directory page, the subscriber is presented with a list of domain names that have been entered by the subscriber. The subscriber can manage keyword bids for each domain name. In the domain directory page, a subscriber selects from among the domains being managed by the subscriber and clicks on that domain name to be delivered to a main menu page of options for managing keyword bids for the selected domain name.
In the main menu page at step 108, the bidder has a number of options to utilize the keyword bid optimization service. A first option is to use a search word suggestion tool proceeding to step 110 to select and/or identify keywords that are of interest to the bidder. This process proceeds by selecting the search term suggestion tool from the menu page in step 112. At the search term suggestion tool page, the bidder may provide keywords or search terms for keywords which are submitted to a paid search engine to identify the current bids for those keywords, such as for example the twenty highest bids for the keywords. In addition, other summary information on the keywords may be provided, such as the number of times the keyword was searched by customer in a recent period, the bidders position and/or the position of competitors of the bidder who have been identified by the bidder in their subscriber information. Demographic information on individuals who have searched for companies or other information using that keyword. Related keywords, i.e., keywords used in conjunction with the identified keyword. The information that is collected is stored and presented to the bidder in an organized format. One example of such a format is shown in
The process described above utilizes a search term suggestion tool to select keywords for bidding. The user may also manually select keywords for bidding in step 119, and similarly proceed to view a keyword bid report, and submit bids in step 116 as described above. Alternatively, in step 120, the user may retrieve previously identified keywords associated with the users account and automatically produce a keyword report on those keywords. Thereafter in step 118, again the keyword report may be analyzed to determine the current bids, positions of those bids and other information of interest.
Referring to
Referring now to
While the present invention has been illustrated by a description of various embodiments and while these embodiments have been described in considerable detail, it is not the intention of the applicants to restrict or in any way limit the scope of the appended claims to such detail. Additional advantages and modifications will readily appear to those skilled in the art. The invention in its broader aspects is therefore not limited to the specific details, representative apparatus and method, and illustrative example shown and described. Accordingly, departures may be made from such details without departing from the spirit or scope of applicant's general inventive concept.
Claims
1. A method of managing a first advertiser's offer for a keyword made to a search engine, said offer identifying a monetary amount the first advertiser will pay upon a use of a hyperlink associated with the first advertiser when located using the keyword, comprising
- receiving an authorization from the first advertiser,
- after receipt of said authorization, using the monetary amount a second advertiser is willing to pay upon a use of a hyperlink associated with the second advertiser when located using the keyword to identify a reduced amount the first advertiser will pay for use of a hyperlink associated with the first advertiser when located using the keyword, and
- offering said reduced amount for use of a hyperlink associated with the first advertiser on behalf of said first advertiser based upon the previously received authorization and the monetary amount the second advertiser is willing to pay without further intervention of said first advertiser.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the reduced amount creates a differential in the monetary amounts of offers meeting certain criteria.
3. The method of claim 2 wherein said criteria identify differentials in the monetary amounts of the first advertiser and second advertiser that are characteristic of optimization opportunities.
4. The method of claim 3 wherein the criteria identify differentials between the monetary amounts larger than a minimum currency amount.
5. The method of claim 2 wherein the criteria identify differentials between the monetary amounts of the reduced amount offered by the first advertiser and offers of other parties.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein the reduced amount is sufficient to maintain a rank position.
7. The method of claim 1 wherein the reduced amount reduces a gap between the first advertiser's offered monetary amount and a lower offer.
8. The method of claim 1 wherein the reduced amount is identified as a result of an increase or decrease in the use of a keyword by searchers of the search engine.
9. The method of claim 1 wherein the reduced amount is identified as a result of a change in an offer of another party.
10. The method of claim 1 wherein the reduced amount is generated in response to offered monetary amounts and other data.
11. A method that manages pay-per-click search advertising, by determining an amount an advertiser will be charged upon a click of a hyperlink associated with the advertiser, wherein two or more advertisers have offered to pay a monetary amount upon the use of a hyperlink associated with the advertiser when that hyperlink is located with the keyword and presented with a hyperlink associated with another advertiser, comprising
- accessing with a computer processor, particular amounts that the first and second advertisers are willing to pay for a click of a hyperlink, when the hyperlink is located using the keyword, a first particular amount being associated with the first advertiser, and a second particular amount being associated with the second advertiser,
- accessing with a computer processor, rankings of the first and second advertisers, and
- without intervention by the first advertiser, with a computer processor, determining an amount, other than the particular amount, to be charged to the first advertiser for a click of a hyperlink associated with the first advertiser, based upon at least the second particular amount,
- wherein the amount to be charged to the first advertiser is selected to preserve the ranking of the first advertiser relative to the second advertiser.
12. The method of claim 11 wherein the first and second advertisers are adjacently ranked.
13. The method of claim 11 wherein the first advertiser is ranked higher than the second advertiser.
14. The method of claim 11 wherein the amount to be charged to the first advertiser is determined based upon a minimum currency amount and the second particular amount.
15. The method of claim 11 further comprising accessing with a computer processor, statistic information related to the keyword, the first advertiser and/or the second advertiser.
Type: Application
Filed: Jul 1, 2011
Publication Date: Oct 27, 2011
Applicant: PAID SEARCH ENGINE TOOLS LLC (Hamilton, OH)
Inventors: Juan C. Vélez (Guaynabo, PR), Daren Murrer (Hamilton, OH)
Application Number: 13/175,591