WO2009095523A2

WO2009095523A2 - Method for tracking devices which activate an advertising link in a data network and network devices using said method

Info

Publication number: WO2009095523A2
Application number: PCT/ES2009/070011
Authority: WO
Inventors: Álvaro Fernández Gutiérrez
Original assignee: Media Patents, S. L.
Priority date: 2008-01-30
Filing date: 2009-01-28
Publication date: 2009-08-06
Also published as: WO2009095523A3

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for selling products or services with the aid of advertising websites, comprising the following steps in which: a client uses an electronic device in order to activate an advertising website link; the client visits a web page of a vendor's site; the advertising site sends an intermediate system a first item of information relating to the means that the client used to activate the link; the system stores the first item of information together with information identifying the advertising site; the intermediate system uses the stored information to determine first data unique to the client; a second device of a vendor receives second data unique to the client; the second device sends the intermediate system second data unique to the client; and, on the basis of the first and second data, the intermediate system determines the advertising sites that have generated visits from the client's devices.

Description

FOLLOW-UP PROCEDURE FOR EQUIPMENT THAT ACTIVATES AN ADVERTISING LINK IN A DATA NETWORK, AND NETWORK EQUIPMENT THAT USES SUCH

PROCESS

DESCRIPTION

Field of the invention

The invention is in the field of Internet advertising and the monitoring of equipment that activate links to visit web pages in data networks.

More specifically, the invention relates to a procedure for identifying data related to equipment connected to a data network that is used to activate a link and access a web page using the HTTP protocol and the association of this data with Second data related to a purchase made using means that may or may not be connected to a data network.

The invention also relates to network equipment that applies said method.

State of the art

Companies selling products or services that advertise on the Internet ensure that their website is found as easily as possible by a user who browses the network and is interested in such products or services.

A widely used method to attract potential buyers to a website is search engine advertising. This system has the advantage that it allows the advertiser to carry out segmented advertising, so that the advertiser chooses the keywords or "keywords" next to which their ads will appear. When a user makes a search in an Internet search engine and enters a text for the search that includes a keyword selected by one or more advertisers, the search engine shows the advertisements of said advertisers. In these systems, advertisers have tools that help them manage their campaigns. For example Google’s AdWords system allows advertisers to choose the price they want to pay for each click a user makes on their ads based on each keyword chosen and shows them information about the number of times their ad has been shown, the number of clicks, the percentage called "CTR" or "ClickTrought" which is the number of times users click on an ad divided by the number of times the ad has been shown. In the usual online advertising terminology, the number of times an ad is shown on the screen is usually called "number of impressions" although said number has no relation to whether or not the user prints the ad.

AdWords also reports the average position in which each ad appears. This data is relevant because users tend to click more frequently on the ads that appear in the top positions.

Another known method to attract online visitors is to advertise products on content Web pages that attract users interested in a specific topic. These content Web pages can be, for example, thematic pages on video games, movies, music, computer programs, etc. The advertisements are arranged in the form of a link that points to the website of the selling company, so that when a user clicks on one of said links it is redirected to said website of the selling company and it pays to the Web pages of content a retribution based on the number of clicks made on the links. In order for this method to be effective, it is necessary to put the sales companies in contact with the content Web pages and technically organize the way in which they include the link-ads and the way in which the remuneration is made for the clicks made.

A known system that solves this requirement is the "AdSense" system of the Google search engine, described in patent applications US2004 / 0093327 and US2004 / 0059708 and in patent US5948061. This system allows any website to include advertising from advertisers and therefore receive remuneration. Advertisers using this system can advertise on Web pages of the "search network" or the "content network" of the Google search engine. The "search network" is formed by Web pages where the Google search box appears, in the which can be performed in the same way as in the web page of the Google search engine. When performing a search, normal or "organic" results appear and also ads in the form of "sponsored links". The "content network" is made up of Web pages in which ads from advertisers whose products are related to that content appear. The "AdSense" system analyzes the content of the Web pages that want to host ads and decides which are the most appropriate for each ad. The ads contain a link to the advertiser's website. Each time a user clicks on one of these linked ads, the owner of the web page that hosts the ad receives a remuneration from the advertiser.

The described method has the great advantage that it allows companies to advertise on Web pages whose content is related to their products and therefore will be the most visited by users potentially interested in such products. However, it has the disadvantage that it does not effectively prevent fraudulent clicks that occur when the owners of the Web pages that host the ads click on the ads on their own page with the sole purpose of increasing the remuneration that Ie The advertiser will pay. Another form of fraudulent clicks is that a company devotes itself to repeatedly clicking on an advertisement from another company with the sole objective of quickly reaching the maximum budget set for said advertisement and thus causing its automatic deactivation. The problem of fraudulent clicks seriously damages both advertisers, who pay for useless clicks, and the owners of the Web pages that host the ads. Indeed, many advertisers give up this system or are willing to pay very little for the ads. To solve this problem within the "Adsense" system, it would be necessary to detect situations in which a click is repeated several times from the same IP address and provide a procedure to decide whether or not it is fraudulent clicks. Such a solution complicates the operation of the system.

A problem that affects both search engine advertising and content network advertising is that there are numerous advertisers competing to show their ads in the top positions and this increases the price of each click on the most relevant keywords that are the most requested by advertisers. The Search engines typically use an online auction system to display the ads of those advertisers who are willing to pay a higher price for each keyword.

Some search engines do not choose the advertisers who pay more for each click, but the advertisers who generate higher revenues since the profitability for the search engine depends not only on the price paid by the advertiser per click, but on the price multiplied by the "CTR" factor, As we have explained above, it is a percentage that is obtained by dividing the number of times an ad is clicked by the number of times that ad has been shown and multiplying the result of this division by 100.

For example, if two advertisers show their ads when a user searches for the word "lawyer" in an Internet search engine under the following conditions

• The advertiser pays 5 Euros per click and has a CTR of 0.1%

• Advertiser2 pays 3 Euros per click and has a CTR of 5%

The internet search engine will enter the following amounts for every 100 times it shows the ads of those advertisers:

search engine revenue = (number of clicks) x (price per click) = (number of impressions) x (CTR) x (price per click)

• Advertiser 1 generates 100 x (0.1%) x 5 Euros = 5 Euros

• Advertiser 2 generates 100 x (5%) x 3 Euros = 15 Euros

Therefore, the advertiser 2 ad will probably appear in front of the advertiser 1 ad because it generates more revenue for the Internet search engine.

In general, the algorithms of the search engines that manage the advertising campaigns have the objective of maximizing the income of the search engines and this creates a problem for the advertisers as the prices they have to pay for the keywords that interest them are too high prices and little competitive. Advertisers must set a budget for their campaigns and manage those campaigns based on the results obtained, that is, the sales they have generated. This is a risk for advertisers since there may be a situation that they lose money with their advertising campaigns if they do not generate enough income, and they will not know the income until they have experience with their advertising campaigns. Therefore advertisers must take a risk with their advertising campaigns.

An alternative system that offers a solution to this problem is the system that uses websites called affiliates or associates, which charge a commission on the sales generated by their clicks. Patents US5991740 and US6029141 describe two such systems in which affiliate sites charge a commission on the sales generated by their visits. In these systems all the risk is assumed by the affiliated site and the advertiser does not run any risk since it only pays a commission for the sales generated by each associated site.

However, these transaction fee systems are only applicable to websites where transactions are made and that are also adapted to work with such systems, such as the virtual store located at the Internet address http: //www.amazon. com. This involves a series of limitations or inconveniences.

A first limitation is that a large percentage of businesses do not have transactional websites that allow their customers to make online purchases. A professional services company, such as a law firm, cannot use such systems to advertise because its website does not normally carry out transactions.

Most businesses currently do not have transactional websites and cannot measure the profitability of their advertisements in this way since the user does not make an online transaction during their visit. In many economic transactions, personal contact and trust between the people who carry out the transaction and online sales systems are not suitable for this type of transaction. economic transactions In general, this type of business usually has a website that does not allow purchase transactions and that serves to offer a first commercial information to its visitors so that they can get in personal contact, by email or email. telephone call or other method, with the company that owns the website. For example, people who buy a house usually want to see it before buying it. Likewise, people who hire a professional services company, such as lawyers or architects, usually have an interview or prior contact before paying for their services.

A second problem is that the majority of transactional websites are not adapted to work with said transaction tracking systems that allow remuneration to the website that has originated a visit to the transactional website that has ended in an online purchase. Banks and airlines are two examples of businesses that usually have websites on which customers can carry out transactions, and yet these websites do not usually include a tracking system for the websites of origin that originated the visit. because there is no standardized system in the market to carry out said tracking of the web of origin and that also allows the website that generates the visit to see the profitability that it is obtaining from the visits it generates.

Therefore, or for other reasons such as that the entire risk is borne by the affiliated site, these transaction fee systems currently have a rather limited diffusion compared to Internet advertising systems that have a much greater diffusion.

There is therefore a problem in online advertising for advertisers who must take a risk in their advertising campaigns because the algorithms used by search engines are designed to maximize the income of the search engine and not the income of the advertiser. A system that solves this problem will benefit both the advertisers and the search engines themselves that can thus obtain greater revenue from their advertisers or even new advertisers.

Figure 1 (PRIOR ART) shows some of the limitations of the current state of the art. In particular, it shows an online advertising system in which a team 152 it uses communication 101 to communicate with an advertiser site 120 by means of the HTTP protocol (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). Normally the http protocol uses several TCP / IP connections over the Internet that are not shown in the figure to simplify it. The device 152 can be a computer, a PDA, a mobile phone with a browser or any other device that allows using an Internet browser.

In the same way, line 102 represents the communication that takes place by means of the http protocol between the computer 152 and an intermediary system 180. The communication 103 shows the communication by means of the http protocol between the computer 152 and a selling website 132.

A website consists of a series of computers connected to the Internet, among which there is a web page server. System 180 is also made up of a set of computers connected to the Internet and can also have a web page server.

The communications between the different websites and systems of Figure 1 can be made using different technologies or communication protocols such as HTTP ("Hypertext Transfer Protocol"), Web services, SOAP objects ("Simple Object Access Protocol"), TCP / IP connections ("Transmission Control Protocol" / "Internet Protocol") or any other method of communication between networks. The HTTP protocol is the one used by Internet browsers or browsers, while web services are appropriate protocols for establishing communications between applications that communicate over the Internet. Given the wide diffusion of the HTTP protocol, said protocol is also used as a low-level protocol on which some web services work, such as SOAP.

The advertiser website 120 contains a web page 123 with two advertisements or links 121 and 122. When the browser 151 accesses said web page 123 and one of the links 121, 122 is activated, said browser uses the HTTP protocol to access the Ia Web page of the URL associated with the link and show the new web page. In this way the user can navigate between different web pages by clicking on different links, each of which has an associated URL. Link 122 has an associated URL that points to a web page of a virtual store 131 of the seller website 132 where the user using the computer 152 can make an online purchase.

In the current state of the art, the website 132 can detect by means of three different systems which is the reference website 120 that has directed the user to the virtual store and track the user's transaction in the transactional website 132 to remunerate to the reference website 120.

The following explains the three systems used in the state of the current technique to transmit to the seller website 132 an information 129 that identifies which advertiser website 120 has generated the visit.

Since no direct TCP / IP connection is established between the advertiser website 120 and the seller website 132, some indirect mechanism is required to send the information 129 identifying the website 120 to the website 132. The different systems or mechanisms of the Current state of the art uses different properties of the HTTP protocol to transmit said information 129 to the website 132.

A first system is to transmit said information 129 as a parameter of the URL of the link 122 that directs the user of the website 120 to the website 132. The URL 104 containing the information 129 is sent from the website 120 to the browser 151 of the computer 152 and said browser 151 transmits said URL 104 together with said information 129 to website 132 using the HTTP protocol to access said website 132. This system is described in patent US6029141 of J. Bezos et al. and does not use the intermediary system 180. Optionally, the information 129 can also identify which is the advertisement or link in which the user has clicked. In this way, if a user clicks on the advertising of a certain product, the website 132 receives the information that identifies said product and can directly display the information of said product to the user when accessing his website thus avoiding that the user has to navigate on the vendor website 132 to locate said information. A second system is to use an intermediary system 180 that acts as an intermediary between the advertiser website 120 and the seller website 132. When the user clicks on link 121 it is directed to intermediary website 180 and from there is redirected to the website seller 132. Before redirecting the user, the intermediary system stores information 129 in a cookie 105 and sends said cookie 105 to the user's computer. In the virtual store 131 there is a final web page that the user accesses when he finishes making a purchase or transaction online. In said web page a link to the element 189 from the web server of the intermediary site 180 is included. This element can be, for example, an image, a text or even a non-visible image. When the user's browser 151 uses the HTTP protocol to read said final page, it has to access the intermediary site by means of the http protocol to obtain the element 189 and at that time the cookie 105 with the information 129 is sent to the web server of the intermediary site. This system is described in patent US5991740 of D. Messer.

A third system is that described in application US2007 / 0050245 which consists in using a property of browsers consisting of identifying the website of origin when the user visits a website from another website. This system is very simple and does not require further explanation. As explained in the memory of said application, this system works in 95% of browsers.

These three systems of the current state of the art described have the aforementioned drawbacks that they do not allow their use in non-transactional websites and do not allow their use outside the HTTP protocol. Even some of them, for example those based on cookies, only work if the same browser and the same equipment are used to visit the website 123 and the virtual store 131.

Summary of the invention

The purpose of the invention is to provide an improved system for selling products and services over the Internet.

An objective of the invention is to improve the monitoring of the advertising links activated by users on the Internet. Another objective of the invention is to associate information of users who activate links with information of customers who buy products or services.

To this end, a procedure has been developed to sell products or services with the assistance of advertiser websites characterized in that it comprises the following stages:

A customer uses an electronic device to activate a link on a web page of an advertiser site, and: said customer makes a visit to a web page of a seller site, and; said advertiser site or the browser or browser transmits to the intermediary system a first information of some means that said client has used to activate said link, and; - said intermediary system stores said first information together with information that identifies said advertiser site, and; from said stored information, said intermediary system determines first data that is unique to said client, and; A second team from a vendor receives a few second data that is unique to that customer, and; said second equipment transmits second data that is unique to said client to said intermediary system, and; from said first data and said second data that are unique to said client, said intermediary system determines the advertiser sites that have generated visits of said client's equipment to said web page of said seller site.

Preferably said first data and said second data received by said intermediary system are different data and the intermediary system establishes a correspondence between them.

In a preferred embodiment said first data and said second data received by said intermediary system are data that identify the customer. In an advantageous embodiment, said customer makes a purchase to said seller of products or services whose information he has seen on said web page.

The invention also contemplates a method for relating information about a user who communicates in a data network that uses data packets comprising:

a system detects a first information about electronic means used by said user in said communication to send data packets through said data network, and; said system stores a second information about said user in a database, and; The system relates the first information on means used by the client to send data packets with the second information about the user.

Preferably said information on electronic means used by the client includes information on the IP address used to send data packets by the client in said communication.

In an advantageous embodiment of said method for relating information about a user who communicates in a data network that uses data packets, said user is a customer and the second information contains data about purchases made by said customer.

Preferably said communication in a data network that uses data packets is a communication using voice over IP (VoIP) technology or an email communication.

The invention also relates to said method for relating information about a user who communicates in a data network when he also performs the following actions:

said user visits a web page of an advertiser and activates a link from an ad that directs you to another web page of a selling website, and; said system stores a third information on electronic means used by said user to activate said link, and; said system relates said third information to any of the previous first and second information of said user.

An advantageous development of the invention contemplates a procedure for selling products or services characterized in that:

A customer uses an electronic device to activate a link on a web page of an advertiser site, and: said advertiser site receives compensation from each intermediary system for each activated link, and; said customer makes a visit to a website of a seller site that shows information about a seller's products or services, and; - said customer makes a purchase from said seller, and; said seller pays a commission on the purchase to said intermediary system.

The invention also relates to a method for selling products or services characterized in that: - A customer uses electronic equipment to activate a link in an advertisement of a web page of an advertiser site, and: said advertiser site receives from an intermediary system a compensation for each ad shown, and; said customer makes a visit to a website of a seller site that shows information about a seller's products or services, and; said customer makes a purchase to said seller, and; said seller pays a commission on the purchase to said intermediary system.

The invention also contemplates a procedure for mediating the profitability of advertisements on advertiser websites comprising:

A user uses electronic equipment to activate a link to a web page of an advertiser site, and: that user makes a visit to a web page of a selling site, and; said advertiser site or the browser or browser transmits to the intermediary system a first information of some means that said user has used to activate said link, and; said intermediary system stores said first information together with information that identifies said advertiser site, and; from said stored information, said intermediary system determines first data that is unique to said user, and; A second team from a vendor receives a few second data that is unique to each of its customers, and; - said second equipment transmits second data that is unique to each intermediary system for each client, and; from said first data that are unique to each user and said second data that are unique to said customer, said intermediary system determines the advertising sites that have generated visits of said customers' equipment to said web page of said selling site, and; said intermediary system determines which are the advertising links of said advertiser sites that have generated visits to said website of users whose first data does not correspond to the second data of any client.

Brief description of the drawings

Other advantages and characteristics of the invention can be seen from the following description in which, without any limitation, some preferred embodiments of the invention are mentioned, mentioning the accompanying drawings.

Fig. 1 (PRIOR ART) shows an example of the current state of the art.

Fig. 2 shows the problem solved by a specific embodiment of the invention that allows monitoring in a purchase made using means not connected to the Internet.

Fig. 3 shows the operation of the present invention when online means of communication between the customer and the seller are used. Fig. 4 shows the operation of the present invention applied to an online purchase made in a virtual store

Detailed description of some embodiments of the invention

The present invention extends the tracking of advertising links activated on the Internet allowing a much broader tracking of user transactions and not restricted to the HTTP protocol

The following example, very simple, shows how the present invention involves a significant change with the state of the art by extending the monitoring of the activated links that generate purchases. The example is as follows: a user uses a browser on a computer to consult a web page for information on a product or an Internet service offered by a particular company. The user has accessed said website of said company through a link in an internet ad. Once the user has read the information on the website and has decided on the product or service that he wishes to buy, the user makes an "offline" purchase without using equipment connected to the Internet. For example, you use your mobile phone and place an order by phone for a product or service. The present invention allows to detect which was the advertisement with the link that said user activated to see said web page even if the purchase is made offline, for example by telephone, by fax or even by visiting a store.

In this way, the present invention differs from the current state of the art systems in the way of identifying the advertisement that contains the activated link to visit the website.

The current state of the art systems allow the transmission of information 129 that identifies the advertiser site using two characteristics. The first feature is that they are based on using properties of the HTTP protocol, which is the protocol used by browsers to access web pages. The second characteristic is that the user equipment 152 stores the information 129 provisionally. In some cases to send said information to website 132 and in another case to send said information to intermediary site 180 when a sale has occurred. Therefore, the current state of the art systems have some limitations and disadvantages that we summarize below.

A first problem is that these systems only work on transactional websites. They are not useful for businesses whose websites are informative. For example, it may take several months for a service company to bill a user who has visited their website.

A second problem is that current systems do not allow to detect the advertiser site if the purchase is made offline, such as in purchases or commercial transactions made by phone, fax, e-mail or by personally visiting the business premises of the selling website. Nor do they allow the reference site to be detected if the user makes the purchase from another device other than the one used to access the reference site or even from the same device but using another browser.

Another problem with current systems is that transactional websites must be adapted to use the same transaction tracking system used by each advertiser site and there is no standard on how to perform this process.

The present invention solves all these inconveniences.

Figure 2 shows the operation of the present invention. Figure 2 shows different equipment and systems of a seller 240 and a customer 250 that can be used to perform an online or offline transaction between the seller and the customer.

Seller 240 has 260 means not connected to the Internet, which we will call offline media in the following. Such offline means include a fax 261, a telephone 262 and a mobile telephone 263.

The vendor 240 also has means connected to a data network 245, for example an ethernet network, which is connected to a router 242. Said router 242 has several network interfaces 241, 243 and 244. The network interface 243 connect the network 245 data with the router. The network interface 241 connects the router with an external data network 200, for example the Internet.

There are other equipment connected to said network 245 of the seller, such as a computer 246, a voice over IP system 247, which allows telephone communications to be established in the external data network 200 and which in the following we will call VoIP system, an email application 248 which allows sending and receiving emails and an application server 249.

Said application server 249 includes a CRM 2493 ("Customer Relationship Management") application, an ERP 2492 ("Enterprise Resource Planning") application and an API 2491 ("Application Program Interface") whose operation is explained below.

The seller website 230 is shown outside the set of offline and online means of the seller 240 because it is common for companies to hire external web servers for their websites. However, other configurations are also possible, for example that the selling website 230 is within 240 or that router 233 is connected to router 242.

The client 250 also has offline means 270 that include a fax 271, a telephone 272 and a mobile telephone 273. The client 250 also has a data network 255 connected to the Internet 200 via a router 252. Said data network 255 It has other connected devices: a computer 298 with a browser 251, another computer 256, a VoIP system 257 and an email system 258 that allows sending and receiving emails.

When the user of the equipment 298 uses the browser 251 to visit the web page 223 of the advertiser website 220 and activates the link 221 it is directed to the seller website 230 and at the same time the advertiser site 220 or the equipment 298 sends information 229,259 to the intermediary system 280. To this end, the advertising website 220 or the browser or browser 251 can, for example, execute a javascript program or code that performs said functions when the client 250 activates said link 221. The communication between the different equipment or components of the system described in Figure 2 through the Internet can be done through communications 201, 202, 203, 204 and 208. The intermediary system can receive the data containing the information 229 and the information 259 through communication 203 or through communication 208, depending on where the javascript code is executed.

Information 229 received by intermediary system 280 contains:

• A unique identifier of the advertiser site 220 • A "TimeStamp" field that indicates the exact time (day, hour, minute, second and fraction of a second) at which the client 250 clicked on link 221.

• An "AdvertisementID" field that identifies the ad that was clicked. From this identifier, the intermediary system 280 knows the advertiser 220 and the advertised product.

The information 259 received by the intermediary system 280 contains information on means used by the client 250 to access the web page 223. For example, the information 259 may include the IP address and the port of the TCP / IP connection used by the browser to access the web page 223. If router 252 includes features called NAT ("Network Address Translation") or NAPT ("Network Address Port Translation"), which serve to exchange the internal IP addresses of the network 255 with IP addresses public data usable in the data network 200, then the IP address that is sent in the information 259 is that of the public IP.

In this way, the client has visited the website 231 of the seller using the browser 251 and information 259 related to means used by the client 250 has been sent to the intermediary system 280 together with other information 229 that identifies the advertiser site 220 and link 221 activated by the user on said advertiser site.

The information 259 that the advertising website 220 or the browser or browser 251 sends to the intermediary system 280 allows said intermediary system to detect who is the client to which said means used to access the website 223 belong. For this, the intermediary system 280 transmits said data 259 to an identifier system 210 by means of communication 215 and receives data 219 that are unique to said client 250. Later we explain in detail how the identifier system 210 knows data 219 that are unique to said customer 250.

Subsequently, the customer makes a commercial transaction with the seller. This transaction can be done through online media or offline media. We will first describe the operation of the system when the customer makes a purchase using offline media.

The offline transaction or purchase has been represented by the line 205 that communicates the offline means 270 of the customer with the offline means 260 of the seller. It can be a purchase made by phone, by fax or even a visit to a store. When making said purchase offline, the client transmits some 279 data offline to the seller so that he can issue the invoice corresponding to the services or products purchased by the customer.

Normally the data 279 that is used to issue invoices is data that uniquely identifies the customer. These data usually contain the name, address, telephone number, zip code and population of the client, so that the client is perfectly identified with the data set.

Sometimes an alphanumeric data is included in the invoices that uniquely identifies the customer only. For example, in Europe the code called "VAT number" or "Valué Added Tax number" is used. The first two letters of the VAT number indicate the European country to which the customer belongs and the rest of the VAT number code is a code that uniquely identifies each customer within each European country. For example, in Spain, the rest of the VAT number is called CIF or "Tax Identification Code" and is a code that within Spain is different for each company and for each person.

Whether or not the data 279 includes an alphanumeric code that identifies the customer alone or not, the data 279 uniquely identifies the customer 250. In the first case it is so because said alphanumeric codes are designed for that purpose. At The second case also uniquely identifies the client 250 because it is almost entirely unlikely that two people or companies that are called the same have the same address, population, zip code, etc. It can be the coincidence that some people or companies are called exactly the same and several companies or people can have exactly the same address. But the probability that both factors happen at the same time is practically nil. In this way the data 279 allows the unique identification of the customer 250.

Vendor 240 has an application server 249 that runs CRM 2493 and ERP 2492 applications that it uses to issue an invoice to customer 250. Data 279 of customer 250 is entered into said ERP 2492 and CRM 2493 systems and such information is stored in database 265. The CRM and ERP systems are described very briefly below.

CRM or "Customer Relationship Management" systems are used to manage customer relationships. Among its basic functions are: to store the information of the clients and the communications with the clients, for example telephone calls sent and received from the clients, to follow up the offers to the clients and to manage the "leads" or opportunities of sale.

ERP or "Enterprise Resource Planning" systems are systems that manage all the resources of a company such as workers, warehouses, parts, inventories, invoices, etc.

The functionality of a CRM can be superimposed on that of an ERP, since the dividing line of its functionalities is not very clear. For example, an invoice to a customer can be made with a CRM or with an ERP. There are programs on the market that incorporate both functionalities in a single program and other systems where the CRM is a module and the ERP is another module and both are integrated.

For a few years, CRM and ERP systems are available that do not run on the client's computers but are installed on external servers and the client uses them online through a browser or browser and pays a monthly fee for their use . The best known company that offers this service is SalesForce, available at the Internet address http://www.salesforce.com. These systems that can be used on the Internet avoid all the work related to the installation, configuration and maintenance of said systems. In Figure 2, the ERP 2492 and CRM 2493 applications are run on an application server connected to the vendor's internal network. However other configurations are possible. For example, ERP 2492 and CRM 2493 can run on external servers and communicate with API 2491 over the Internet.

In said application server 249 an API application 2491 is executed that can communicate with said ERP 2492 and CRM 2493 systems and has access to the database 265. The API application accesses the data 279 that uniquely identifies the client 250 and sends data 289 that are unique to the customer 250 to the intermediary system 280. The data 289 also includes information regarding the purchase made by the customer, such as the total amount of the purchase or information on the items purchased.

We use this distinction between identification and uniqueness to contemplate confidentiality problems. When we use the expression "data that identifies the customer" we mean data that is intelligible, that is, a person who reads such data can identify who is the customer 250. For example, the data 279 supplied by the customer to the seller are data that identifies the client since they are intelligible.

When we use the expression "data that is unique to the customer" we mean data that is unique to customer 250 and therefore no other customer can correspond to that data 289. The data that is unique to the customer can be intelligible or not intelligible. An example of a data that is unique to a customer and that is not intelligible is a Hash obtained from the data that uniquely identifies the customer. A Hash refers to a function or method to generate keys or keys that represent an almost univocal way to a document, record, file, etc., to identify a data through probability, using a hash function or hash algorithm. A hash is the result of that function or algorithm.

The data that uniquely identifies the customer is also data that is unique to the customer and is also intelligible. In many countries, for example in those of the European Union, there are laws that limit the transmission of personal data and it is therefore convenient that the present invention can work with data that is unique to customers but that does not identify customers, using example, hash functions for each of the client's data: name, address, population, etc.

The intermediary system thus has first data 219 that are unique to customer 250 or that identify customer 250 sent by identifier system 210 and second data 289 that are unique to customer 250 or that identify customer 250 sent by Ia API 2491.

When data 219 and 289 are intelligible data that uniquely identifies the customer with his name, address or even with a VAT number type code, the intermediary system searches for matches between said data to establish that the customer, identified in data 289, that has purchased an item or service from seller 240 is the same customer that activated link 221, identified by data 219 obtained from the identifier system from data 259 related to equipment used by the customer to activate said link. To establish such a match, it is not necessary to match all the fields and the intermediary system can establish that match from only some fields, for example, only with the VAT number.

Preferably, the present invention normalizes the addresses of the customers to perform the comparison. For this, it has a database of countries, towns and streets and in this way avoids the frequent errors that occur when addresses are entered manually. Such normalization can take place in the applications of the server 249, in the identifier system 210 or in the intermediary site 280 itself.

In this way, the intermediary system establishes that the client 250 that has made an offline purchase is the same as the client 250 that has a series of means that were used to activate the link 221 and can send said information to both the advertiser site and the seller site with several purposes, such as that the seller compensates the advertiser site for the sale that has been made thanks to a link activated on the advertiser site. Such compensation can be done, for example, through the intermediary system. Other applications of the present invention are explained below.

The identifier system 210, which knows the identity of the client 250, can be, for example, the telecommunications company that allows Internet access to the client 250. Said telecommunications company has systems 21 1 that know the data of each client, They allow access to the Internet and store information about the client 250 in a database 212. For example, the system 21 1 may include an AAA server ("Authentication, Authorization an Accounting") for example RADIUS, which controls access to Internet of each of its clients and store this information in a database 212 that is also used to bill the services of which the telecommunications company provides the client.

From said system 21 1 to control the Internet access of its customers, the telecommunications company knows what are the means used by the client 250 to access the internet, for example the public IP address of each client at any time.

The identifier system 210 receives information 259 from the intermediary system that includes information on means used by the client, such as the IP address used by the client and sends to the intermediary system data 219 that identifies the client or, in case the information is sent confidential information, 219 data that is unique to the client.

The present invention can also work with data 219 and 289 that are unique to the customer and that do not identify the customer intelligibly. To do this, just normalize each of the fields that identify the customer and apply a hash function to each field.

Figure 2 shows the identifier system 210 separated from the intermediate system 280, however other configurations are possible. For example, said systems can be a single system. This allows for example that a company, which functions as an intermediary system and as an identifier system, offers its clients access Free Internet in exchange for charging a commission on purchases made by these customers in businesses in which they have visited their website using the Internet connection provided by that company. This system allows customers to offer free Internet access, that is, paid through advertising.

The present invention allows monitoring of the advertiser sites much wider than the current state of the art systems. In this way, all the limitations of the monitoring of advertiser sites in the current state of the art are eliminated.

Although the present invention can work with an offline purchase as explained in Figure 2, it can also improve the identification of the client by taking advantage of the online communications that can be made between the client and the seller. These improvements are explained below: Figure 3 shows the operation of the present invention when there is online communication between the customer and the seller and Figure 4 shows the operation when the customer makes the purchase in an online store.

The operation of Figure 3 is similar to the one explained above but Figure 3 includes a new communication 306 between the client 350 and the seller 340 that takes place through the data network 300 which can be, for example, the Internet.

Figure 3 shows how both the seller and the customer have equipment connected to the 345 and 355 networks respectively and said equipment can be used to communicate over the Internet. In particular, the seller 340 has a voice over IP (VoIP) system 347 and an email system 348. The customer 350 also has a VoIP system 357 and an email system 358.

Said communication 306 between the seller and the customer can be, for example, a telephone conversation using the VoIP technology of the VoIP systems 347 and 357 of the seller and the customer respectively. It can also be an email communication between the email systems 348 and 358 of the seller and the customer respectively. Communication via email between sellers and customers is quite common. As the telephony systems evolve, communication via VoIP systems will also be frequent.

In addition to the evolution of the IPv4 protocol to the IPv6 protocol, there will be no shortage of IP addresses assignable to the users and each team of each user will have their own IPv6 address that will uniquely identify the communications of each team.

In both cases, when a direct communication 306 is established between the vendor's equipment 340 and the customer's equipment 350, the API 3491 receives information 369 regarding the means used by the customer in said communication 306, such as the IP address used by the customer 350. For this purpose, API 3491 receives such information.

369 of VoIP system 347 or of email system 348 and stores said information 369 in database 365 so that it is accessible to CRM 3493 and ERP 3492.

However in Figure 3 the purchase is not made in an online store. The purchase can be made through online communications 306, for example an email or a purchase by phone using VoIP, or through offline communications 305

In this way the CRM 3493 and ERP 3492 have stored in the database 365 together with the customer information other information 369 related to electronic media and equipment used by each customer.

API 3491 sends to the intermediary system the information 389 that is unique for the client 350 from said information 369 on means used by the client 350 in the communication 306. For example, the IP address used by the client.

The intermediary system thus receives information related to equipment used by the customer both from the advertiser site (data 359 related to means used to activate a link 321) and from the seller (data 389 related to means of a client that has used in an online communication 306) and this facilitates the intermediary system to establish the correspondence between the equipment used to activate the link 321 and the equipment used by the client in its communications with the seller without the need to request data 319 from the identification system 310 and even if the equipment is different or the means of communication are different. In this way the intermediary system 380 determines whether the customer 350 that has made a purchase at the seller 340 has previously activated link 321.

In the event that the client 350 uses an external email server, API 3491 can discover the client's IP address by sending an email to the client that contains an http link to a web page, for example containing an invoice, and monitoring which is the IP address used by the browser that accesses said web page that contains said invoice. The web server that shows said web page can be, for example, the application 3494 running on the server 349.

In this way the invention allows to establish the coincidence between the client that has activated link 321 and the client that has made the purchase from a telephone call using VoIP technology, or an email or from any other online communication between the customer and the seller and without the need for the seller to have a virtual store, which as we explained above is not useful for selling many types of services.

The present invention is also applicable when the purchase is made online on the transactional website of the seller although said website does not have a tracking system for advertiser sites based on the http protocol as the current state of the art systems described above. In this case, the invention is useful because said monitoring systems based on the http protocol are not standardized and are not very widespread.

The procedure explained in Figure 3 is compatible with that explained in Figure 2. The same is true in Figure 4. Therefore, Figures 3 and 4 show an identifying system.

Figure 4 shows said operation that is similar to that explained in Figure 2 except that in Figure 4 the offline media has been suppressed and the customer 450 makes an online purchase in the virtual store 431 of the seller website 430. The virtual store 431 detects information on technical means used by the customer to make the purchase, such as its IP address, and sends information 499 to API 4491 of seller 440 by means of communication 407.

Said information 499 includes a detailed description of the purchase made by the customer together with information on technical means used by the customer when making said purchase in the virtual store. API 4491 stores said information in database 465.

Subsequently, API 4491 sends information 489, which is unique to client 450, to intermediary system 480. The intermediary system has also received information 459 from the advertising website about means used by client 450 to activate link 421. Of this In this way, the intermediary system can establish the links 421 that the client 450 has activated to go to the virtual store 431 where the online purchase has been made, although the client 450 uses a different computer to activate the link 421 and to make the purchase in the virtual store. For example, client 450 can use computer 498 to activate link 421 and a few days later use computer 456 to make the purchase in virtual store 431.

Both in Figure 2, as in 3 and 4, the intermediary system establishes time limits associated with each link. Said time limits are used to establish the correspondence between activated links and purchases made. For example, it can be established that there is a correspondence between link 221 and a purchase of a product advertised on web 231 if said purchase is made within three months of the activation of the link.

The present invention allows other applications apart from the aforementioned Ia to give back to the advertising sites for the sales generated by their visits to web pages.

A second application of the present invention is its use in an online advertising system not based on commissions but on pay per click or pay per impression. Through the present invention sellers who advertise online can make a follow-up of the sales generated by each activated advertising link and measure in this way the profitability of your advertising campaigns in a more detailed way than with the current state of the art systems.

A third application of the present invention is a combination of the previous two: a seller pays for its ads a commission on sales made and an advertiser site charges a price for each activated ad. For this, the intermediary system has the statistical information that allows you to relate the activation of advertising links with the sales made and establish the payment per click or the payment per impression of each advertising link in each advertising site depending on the sales generated by each link of each advertiser site.

Claims

1.- Procedure to sell products or services with the assistance of advertiser websites characterized in that it comprises the following stages:

A customer uses an electronic device to activate a link on a web page of an advertiser site, and: said customer makes a visit to a web page of a seller site, and; said advertiser site transmits to the intermediary system a first information of means that said client has used to activate said link, and; said intermediary system stores said first information together with information that identifies said advertiser site, and; from said stored information, said intermediary system determines first data that is unique to said client, and; - a second team from a vendor receives a few second data that is unique to that customer, and said second equipment transmits second data that is unique to said client to said intermediary system, and; from said first data and said second data that are unique to said client, said intermediary system determines the advertiser sites that have generated visits of said client's equipment to said web page of said seller site.

2. Procedure according to claim 1 when said first data and said second data received by said intermediary system are different data and the intermediary system establishes a correspondence between them.

3. Procedure according to claim 1 when said first data and said second data received by said intermediary system are data that identify the customer.

4. Procedure according to any of claims 1, 2 and 3 when said customer makes a purchase to said seller of products or services whose information has been seen on said website.

5.- Procedure for relating information about a user who makes a communication in a data network that uses data packets comprising: a system detects a first information about electronic means used by said user in said communication to send data packets through of said data network, and; said system stores a second information about said user in a database, and; The system relates the first information on means used by the client to send data packets with the second information about the user.

6. Procedure according to claim 5 when the information on electronic means used by the client includes information on the IP address used by the client in said communication to send data packets.

7 ^' .- Procedure according to any of claims 5 and 6 when said user is a customer and the second information contains data on purchases made by said customer.

8. Method according to any of claims 5, 6 and 7 when said communication is a communication using voice over IP (VoIP) technology.

9. Method according to any of claims 5, 6 and 7 when said communication is an email.

10. Method according to any of claims 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 when also performing the following actions:

1 1.- Procedure to sell products or services characterized by:

A customer uses electronic equipment to activate a link on a web page of an advertiser site, and: - said advertiser site receives compensation from each intermediary system for each activated link, and; said customer makes a visit to a website of a seller site that shows information about a seller's products or services, and; said customer makes a purchase to said seller, and; - said seller pays a commission on the purchase to said intermediary system.

12.- Procedure to sell products or services characterized by:

A customer uses an electronic device to activate a link in an ad on a web page of an advertiser site, and: - said advertiser site receives compensation from each intermediary system for each ad shown, and; said customer makes a visit to a website of a seller site that shows information about a seller's products or services, and; said customer makes a purchase to said seller, and; - said seller pays a commission on the purchase to said intermediary system.

13.- Procedure to mediate the profitability of some advertisements on advertiser websites comprising:

- A user uses an electronic device to activate a link on a web page of an advertiser site, and: that user makes a visit to a web page of a selling site, and; said advertiser site transmits to the intermediary system a first information of means that said user has used to activate said link, and; - said intermediary system stores said first information together with information that identifies said advertiser site, and; from said stored information, said intermediary system determines first data that is unique to said user, and; A second team from a vendor receives a few second data that is unique to each of its customers, and; said second equipment transmits second data that is unique to each intermediary system for each client, and; from said first data that are unique to each user and said second data that are unique to said customer, said intermediary system determines the advertising sites that have generated visits of said customers' equipment to said web page of said selling site and ,: said intermediary system determines which are the advertising links of said advertiser sites that have generated visits to said website of users whose first data does not correspond to the second data of any client.