WO2014123505A1

WO2014123505A1 - Method and system for group purchase of on-line advertising

Info

Publication number: WO2014123505A1
Application number: PCT/US2013/024710
Authority: WO
Inventors: C. Lui; Joon Kim
Original assignee: Lui C; Joon Kim
Priority date: 2013-02-05
Filing date: 2013-02-05
Publication date: 2014-08-14

Abstract

A system for Internet group advertising purchasing comprising server that has a memory and storage with instructions executable for a client information media intake module; a database for storing the collected information, multimedia or both information and multimedia; an automatic grouper module and grouper algorithm for automatically creating groups of similar clients; and an advertising website and landing page creation module.

Description

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR GROUP PURCHASE OF ON-LINE ADVERTISING

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0001] This application claims the benefit of United States Provisional Patent

Application No. 61/595,673, titled "Method and System For Group Purchase of On-line Advertising," filed February 6, 2012.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[0002] The present invention relates to Internet advertising systems, more specifically to an Internet advertising system for group advertising that is simple and affordable.

BACKGROUND

[0003] There are many Internet advertising systems available from many different providers, such as, for example, Google, Yahoo and Bing among others. Advantageously, these systems can allow most anyone with some basic knowledge of how these advertising systems work to place and locate advertisements on web pages. However, online advertising is confusing and inaccessible to the normal business owner not skilled in Internet advertisement. Users unfamiliar with the advertisement jargon, like, "pay per click" and "pay per view," can inadvertently spend large amounts of money advertising without receiving any benefit.

[0004] Currently, there are Internet advertising providers that will setup and manage advertising campaigns for business owners. However, this "hands off approach is even more costly and prevents the owner from managing the advertisements in an effective manner. As can be seen in figure 1 , a typical advertising provider, such as, for example, Google® Adwords®, Microsoft® Adcenter®, or Facebook Ads®, receives visits from users on the Internet. Then, the users are redirected into the advertising network when they click on an advertisement, where an advertiser has purchased a position on the web page from the advertising network. Next, when the user selects the advertiser' s advertisement, the user is taken to the advertiser's website. Preferably to a location on the advertisers website that corresponds to a product or service that was advertised. [0005] Additionally, none of the current online advertising systems provided a practical way to split the advertising costs amongst a group of individual advertisers to lower the cost.

[0006] Therefore, there is a need for an Internet advertising system for group advertising that is simple and affordable.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0007] These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with regard to the following description, appended claims, and accompanying figures where:

[0008] Figure 1 is a block diagram of a conventional on-line advertising system;

[0009] Figure 2 is a block diagram of a multi-entity/group on-line advertising purchasing system;

[00010] Figure 3 is a flowchart of a method for group purchasing of on-line advertising according to one embodiment of the present invention;

[00011] Figure 4 is a block diagram of an Internet advertising system for group advertising that is simple and affordable;

[00012] Figure 5 is a system diagram of an Internet advertising system according to one embodiment; and

[00013] Figure 6 is a flowchart diagram of the Internet advertising system of Figure 5. SUMMARY

[00014] The present invention overcomes the limitations of the prior art by providing a system for Internet group advertising purchasing using a server comprising a memory and storage. The server has instructions for operating a client information media intake module and a database for storing information and multimedia that is collected. A grouper module and grouper algorithm automatically creates groups of similar clients that want to purchase advertising. And an advertising website and landing page creation module. The client information media intake module is a form with at least the following fields: the business name; hours of operation; field of the business; advertising budget; goods sold; services provided; sale items; sales information; sale duration; reviews by clients; business description; third party reviews; awards received; certifications; association memberships; address; contact information; history; languages spoken; and general business information.

[00015] In other embodiments, there can be more fields than those listed above to increase the accuracy of the grouping function and grouping algorithm. The grouper module creates a group buy, an auto-generated, consumer facing, website and a landing page that displays the stored client information and multimedia for a particular group. The server also transmits the advertising website and landing page to an advertiser's server for inclusion into advertisements that are served for the duration of the advertising run. The server can also transmit the website and landing page to a client's server for the duration of the advertising run. The grouper function automatically groups businesses together based upon information that is stored in the database. However, one or more businesses can be manually grouped to comply with client requests.

[00016] The system also has a billing module to bill the grouped clients for the advertisement purchase and scheduling, a purchasing module for clients to purchase advertising and a management module that provides the client with options to launch, modify and monitor the advertising campaign.

[00017] There is also provided a method for Internet group advertising purchasing comprising the steps of: a) entering business information into a data information entry interface; b) entering the business information into a billing verification module; c) storing the billing information and the client information in a database; d) automatically determining a group of similar clients and advertising goals using grouping factor analysis and a grouping algorithm; e) automatically creating a group of similar clients; f) populating and rendering advertisements for the created group; g) publishing the populated and rendered

advertisements; and h) transmitting a notification to a billing verification module, so that each of the clients in the created group are billed appropriately. The step of populating an advertisement comprises submitting the advertisement to either a third party advertising service or a hosted service. Rendering the advertisements can be automatically output to HTML, CSS, Ajax or any other technology used to display advertisements. Rendering the advertisements can be automatic with the ability to manually edit the rendered advertisements for special client requests. The business information can be entered automatically from publicly available information by a service provider operating the system. [00018] In another embodiment, the method further comprises the steps of: a) generating reports to track the effectiveness of the advertisement; b) transmitting a status notification to the client, the service provider and the third party advertisement website when a user clicks on the published advertisement; c) transmitting a status notification to the client, the service provider and the third party advertisement website when an advertising campaign status update occurs; d) displaying an administration control panel that provides a user interface that is operable to execute instructions in the system to alter the advertisement, purchase more advertisements, edit the client's profile, update or change information so that the clients and the administrators of the service provider can optimize the effectiveness of the advertisements. The grouping factors analysis comprises weighting factors, such as, for example, advertisement volume, advertisement rates, advertisement trends, group size, budget costs, business location, hours of operation, inventory and sale items. The weighting factors, that can be stored in a database, can be changed and adjusted based on previous and ongoing campaign performance. The stored and published factors are used to analyzed, optimize and tune the advertisement campaigns.

[00019] In one embodiment, the grouping algorithm is selected from mixed Gaussian, hierarchical, fuzzy c-means, k-means, centroid based, distribution based or density based algorithms. As will be appreciated by those with skill in the art, other algorithms can be used and the list presented is not meant to limit the invention.

[00020] In another embodiment, there is provided a computer network-based method for group purchase of on-line advertising comprising the steps of: a) soliciting potential client advertisers by a group buy service provider; and b) providing a server with executable instructions. The server is operable to 1) sign up one or more client advertisers to participate in group buy advertising by the group buy service provider; 2) collect client advertiser data from the one or more client advertisers; 3) store the client advertiser data in a client database; 4) automatically organize one or more of the client advertisers into an advertising group; 5) create a group advertisement for the advertising group; 6) automatically create a group buy service provider website; 7) host the group buy service provider website; 8) purchase advertising space for the group advertisement on an advertising network; 9) place the group advertisement on the advertising network; and 10) a web visitor encountering the group advertisement on the advertising network, where the web visitor selects the group advertisement. Optionally, the method further comprises the steps of: 1) directing the web visitor to the group buy service provider website using a link embedded within the group advertisement; 2) selecting, by the web visitor, a second link residing on the group buy service provider website; and 3) directing the web visitor to a website belonging to one of the client advertisers from the second link.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[00021] The present invention overcomes the limitations of the prior art by providing an Internet advertising system for group advertising that is simple and affordable. As can be appreciated, currently available advertising systems are designed to maximize profits for the owners of those systems. The systems are not designed to provide economy of scale to multiple users, but instead are directed to maximize profits for the service provider. The advantages of the invention include:

- Lower advertising costs from a group buy, rather than individual advertisement buys.

- Turnkey marketing solution allows less time spent on managing online advertising, which allows for more time to perform core business functions.

- The advertiser will not need to have technical knowledge to accomplish online advertising.

[00022] Additionally, as a group, clients can purchase more and better advertisements, advertisement placement and clients using the system can bid higher for premium

advertisements by pooling money together. These advantages are not present in current advertisement systems.

[00023] The present invention provides a system and method allowing the user greater freedom in purchasing and selecting their advertising dollar. In one embodiment, the system provides an online software application that receives relevant business description information and multimedia files to be used in the advertising. The system then groups similar businesses together and buys advertisements. The business information will be displayed on an advertising landing page, along with information of the other businesses in the same group. This allows consumers to comparison shop among related businesses.

[00024] Systems, methods and devices that implement the embodiments of the various features of the invention will now be described with reference to the drawings. The drawings and the associated descriptions are provided to illustrate embodiments of the invention and not to limit the scope of the invention. Reference in the specification to "one embodiment" or "an embodiment" is intended to indicate that a particular feature, structure, or

characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least an embodiment of the invention. The appearances of the phrase "in one embodiment" or "an embodiment" in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.

[00025] Throughout the drawings, reference numbers are re-used to indicate correspondence between referenced elements. In addition, the first digit of each reference number indicates the figure where the element first appears.

[00026] All dimensions specified in this disclosure are by way of example only and are not intended to be limiting. Further, the proportions shown in these Figures are not necessarily to scale. As will be understood by those with skill in the art with reference to this disclosure, the actual dimensions and proportions of any system, any device or part of a system or device disclosed in this disclosure will be determined by its intended use.

[00027] As used in this disclosure, except where the context requires otherwise, the term "comprise" and variations of the term, such as "comprising", "comprises" and

"comprised" are not intended to exclude other additives, components, integers or steps.

[00028] In the following description, specific details are given to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments. However, it will be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that the embodiments can be practiced without these specific detail. Well-known circuits, structures and techniques cannot be shown in detail in order not to obscure the embodiments. For example, circuits can be shown in block diagrams in order not to obscure the embodiments in unnecessary detail.

[00029] Also, it is noted that the embodiments can be described as a process that is depicted as a flowchart, a flow diagram, a structure diagram, or a block diagram. Although a flowchart can describe the operations as a sequential process, many of the operations can be performed in parallel or concurrently. In addition, the order of the operations can be rearranged. A process is terminated when its operations are completed. A process can correspond to a method, a function, a procedure, a subroutine, a subprogram, etc. When a process corresponds to a function, its termination corresponds to a return of the function to the calling function or the main function. [00030] Moreover, storage can represent one or more devices for storing data, including read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), magnetic disk storage mediums, optical storage mediums, flash memory devices and/or other machine readable mediums for storing information. The term "machine readable medium" includes, but is not limited to portable or fixed storage devices, optical storage devices, wireless channels and various other mediums capable of storing, containing or carrying instruction(s) and/or data.

[00031] Furthermore, embodiments can be implemented by hardware, software, firmware, middleware, microcode, or a combination thereof. When implemented in software, firmware, middleware or microcode, the program code or code segments to perform the necessary tasks can be stored in a machine -readable medium such as a storage medium or other storage(s). One or more than one processor or microprocessor can perform the necessary tasks in series, distributed, concurrently or in parallel. A code segment can represent a procedure, a function, a subprogram, a program, a routine, a subroutine, a module, a software package, a class, or a combination of instructions, data structures, or program statements. A code segment can be coupled to another code segment or a hardware circuit by passing and/or receiving information, data, arguments, parameters, or memory contents. Information, arguments, parameters, data, etc. can be passed, forwarded, or transmitted through a suitable means including memory sharing, message passing, token passing, network transmission, etc.

[00032] Various embodiments provide an Internet advertising system for group advertising that is simple and affordable. One embodiment of the present invention provides a system comprising one or more computers with executable code to perform the methods disclosed. In another embodiment, there is provided a method for using the system. The system and method will now be disclosed in detail.

[00033] Referring now to Figure 2, there is shown a block diagram of a multi- entity/group on-line advertising purchasing system 200. As can be seen, multiple advertisers 210, 216 and 214 can purchase on-line advertising from a group buy service provider 208. The group buy service provider 208 can purchase on-line advertising from an Internet advertising network 206 or other advertising networks. A web visitor 202 will view a web page 204 containing an advertisement purchased by the advertisers 210, 216 and 214 that was purchased from the advertising network 210, 216 and 214. First, the web visitor 202 clicks on the advertisement displayed on the web page 204. Then, the web visitor 202 is directed to either a group buy service provider's website 216 for more information, or an advertiser's website 218. Preferably, the advertiser's website 218 will display the goods or services offered in the advertisement that the web visitor 202 selected. Alternatively, either the service provider's website 216 or the advertiser's website 218 can include reviews, ratings, biographies, pictures, awards, qualifications, videos, contact information, services provided, products sold, news updates or any information that might help a consumer better understand the service or product advertised. The information can be provided by the advertiser 210, 216 and 214 or obtained via outside research sources or public information. The group buy service provider website 216 can contain links to the websites 218 of one or more of the advertisers 210, 216 and 214. If the web visitor 202 is transferred to the group buy service provider website 216 and clicks on a link to an individual advertiser's website 218, the web visitor 202 can be directed to the individual advertiser's website 218 for more information and/or be presented with the option to purchase the advertiser's 210, 216 and 214 goods or services.

[00034] Additionally, the group buy service provider website 216 can contain information regarding several advertisers 210, 216 and 214 and/or general related information or news. Alternatively, the group buy service provider website 216 can present the web visitor 202 with the option to purchase an advertiser's 210, 216 and 214 goods and/or services directly on the group buy service provider website 216. In this embodiment, the group buy service provider website 216 can contain extra information that can help a consumer better understand the advertiser's 210, 216 and 214 service or a product offered. The information can comprise reviews, ratings, biographies, pictures, awards, qualifications, videos, contact information, services provided, products sold, and/or news updates.

Alternatively, the advertising network website 206 can comprise links to one or more than one advertiser website 218.

[00035] Referring now to Figure 3, there is shown a flowchart of a method for group purchasing of on-line advertising according to one embodiment of the present invention. First, a group buy service provider 208 can solicit new client advertisers 302. Solicitation can be performed in any useful and practical manner, including but not limited to online advertising, telephone solicitation, or print or broadcast media advertising. Next, the group buy service provider 208 can sign up one or more new client advertisers to participate in group buy advertising. Then, the group buy service provider 208 can collect client data and store the client data into a client database 306. The collected data 306 can include information useful for a consumer better understand a service provider or product. The collected data 306 can comprise reviews, ratings, biographies, pictures, awards,

qualifications, videos, contact info, services provided, products sold, and/or news updates. Additionally, the collected data 306 can be provided by the advertiser or obtained via outside research sources or public information. Next, the group buy service provider 208 can organize one or more advertisers into an advertising group 308. Then, the advertising group 308 can be created using one or more criteria common to each member of the advertising group, such as the nature of goods and/or services or geographic location of the advertisers. Next, the group buy service provider 208 can create a group advertisement 310 for the advertising group 308. The advertisement 310 can comprise anything from a contextual advertisement, to banner ads, video advertisement, or any other type of advertisement. The advertisement 310 can describe and/or attract consumers to the service or products being offered. Then, the group buy service provider 208 can create and host a group buy service provider website 312 for the advertising group 308. The group buy service provider website 312 can be hosted on servers managed by the group buy service provider 208 or an affiliate. The group buy service provider website 312 can comprise any content that the client would want on their own website, such as reviews, ratings, biographies, pictures, awards, qualifications, videos, contact info, services provided, products sold, and/or news updates. Next, the group buy service provider 208 can purchase advertising space for the group advertisement 310 on an advertising network 314. Then, the group buy service provider 208 can place the group advertisement 310 on the advertising network 316. Next, the web visitor 202 can encounter the group advertisement 310 on the advertising network 316. Then, the web visitor 202 can click on the group advertisement 320. Next, the web visitor 202 can be directed to the group buy service provider website 322. Then, the group buy service provider website 312 can comprise hyperlinks to the websites of one or more of the individual advertisers 210, 216 and 214. If the group buy service provider website 312 comprises hyperlinks to the websites of one or more of the individual advertisers 210, 216 and 214, then the web visitor 202 can click on a hyperlink to an individual advertiser' s 324 website displayed on the group buy service provider website 312. Next, the web visitor 202 can be directed to the individual advertiser's website 326 for more information and/or to purchase the advertiser's goods or services. Alternatively, the group buy service provider website 312 can provide the web visitor 202 the option to purchase an advertiser' s goods and/or services directly on the group buy service provider website 312.

[00036] Referring now to Figure 4, there is shown a block diagram of a group buy internet advertising system 400 for group advertising that is simple and affordable. The group buy system 400 comprises a group buy servicer provider computer/data processor 416, and input device 420, and output device 422, an Internet/network environment 408, and one or more client advertiser network terminals 402. The system 400 can also comprise a telecommunications network 426, a group buy service provider telecommunications device 424, and one or more client advertiser telecommunications devices 432.

[00037] The group buy service provider computer/data processor 416 can further comprise a machine readable storage memory 410 that can store group buy software instructions and applications 412 designed and configured to execute instructions that perform the group buy method, a group buy database 414 designed and configured to store information necessary to perform the group buy method, and a digital processor 418 designed and configured to execute the group buy software applications 412. The group buy service provider computer/data processor 416 can be designed and configured to interface with the Internet and/or a network environment 408. The input device 420 can be a keyboard, a data storage medium, a data transmission device, or other useful and practical input means. The output device 422 can be a printer, a display, a data storage medium, a data transmission device, or other useful and practical output means.

[00038] The Internet and/or network environment 408 can host a group buy service provider 216 designed and configured to interface with client advertisers, an advertising network 430 that can host group advertisements, a group website 404 to which a web visitor can be directed when the web visitor clicks on a group advertisement, and, optionally, one or more individual advertiser websites 428 where a web visitor can be directed when the web visitor clicks on a link to the individual advertiser website 428, the link being hosted on the group website 404.

[00039] Alternatively, the group buy method can be practiced on a computer network system other than the Internet. Further, the group website 404 and the group buy service provider 216 can be hosted on the group buy service provider's servers, and the individual advertiser websites 428 can be hosted on the client advertisers' servers. [00040] The client advertiser network terminal 402 can be designed and configured to interface with the Internet and/or network environment 408, and to perform the group buy method. The client network terminal 402 can be a personal computer, a computer network terminal, or other useful and practical means of interfacing with the Internet/network environment 408 and performing the group buy method.

[00041] Alternatively, one or more of the elements of the group buy method can be performed by means of the telecommunications network 426. The group buy service provider telecommunications device 424 and the client advertiser telecommunications device 432 can be a telephone, a smart phone, or other device configured and designed to interface with the telecommunications network 426.

[00042] In another embodiment, the system 400 is configured to interface and operate with pay- per-click (PPC) advertising, cost per thousand impressions (CPM) advertising, cost per acquisition (CPA) advertising, and any other type of Internet advertising.

[00043] Referring now to Figure 5, there is shown a system 500 for an Internet advertising system for group advertising that is simple and affordable. The system 500 comprises a client information and/or media intake module 508, a database 514 for storing the collected information and/or media; instructions executed on a server 512 to perform an automatic "grouper" module and algorithm that automatically groups similar clients together for a group buy, an auto-generated, consumer facing, website and/or landing page that displays the stored client information and/or media of a particular group. Using an Internet connected device 502, 504 and 506, a user accesses the client information and/or media intake module 508. The client fills out the information on the form that includes: the business name, hours of operation, field of the business, advertising budget, goods sold, services provided, sale items, sales information, sale duration among other information relevant to an advertisement. Then, the server 512 processes the information from the client information and/or media intake module 508 and stores the information in the database 514. Then, the server 514, executes instructions that automatically group similar clients together, based on the information stored in the database 514, using a grouper function and algorithm. Next, the server 514, executes instructions to create and advertising/landing page of the grouped clients and transmits that advertising/landing page to either the advertisers server for inclusion into ads that are served, or to a server generated landing page/website for the duration of the advertising run. [00044] The grouper function pulls from the database. The grouper function automatically groups of businesses together based upon the information that was entered into the database. Optionally, one or more businesses can be manually grouped. Then, that information is used to populate the landing page/website. Once the "Grouper function" has populated the landing page/website, an instruction is executed to the billing module to bill the grouped clients for the ad purchase and scheduling.

[00045] The system 500 further comprises a billing module to bill the clients for the advertising; a purchasing module for clients to purchase advertising; a management module that provides the client with options to launch and monitoring of the advertising campaign.

[00046] Referring now to Figure 6, there is shown a flowchart diagram 600 of the Internet advertising system of Figure 5. First, a client 602 enters business information into a data/information entry interface. Optionally, the business information can be entered automatically from publically available information 604 by a service provider that is operating the system 500. Then, the information is also entered into a billing verification module 608. Next, the billing information and the client information are stored in a database 610. Then, a group of similar clients and advertising goals is automatically determined and a group is created 618. Then, advertisements are populated and rendered 620 for the created group 618. Populating an advertisement comprises submitting the advertisement to either a third party advertising service, a hosted service from the group creator or the individual client's websites; where the individual client's website is hosted by the hosted service, not the individual client's websites. Advertisers are listed on a group advertising landing page. This page is hosted by the advertising service provider. The landing page may or may not link to the individual client' s website. The individual client website can be hosted by the service provider or by the client. The hosted service can comprise links to the individual client's website from a displayed landing page. Rendering the advertisements can be automatically output to HTML or alternatively automatically created and manually edited for special client requests. As will be understood by those with skill in the art with reference to this disclosure, other current and future methods of display can also be used to render the advertisements, such as, for example, HTML5, javascript, ajax, ess, etc. Next, the advertisements are published 622. Once the advertisements have been published 622, a notification is sent back to the billing verification module 624 so that each of the clients in the created group 618 are billed appropriately. Additionally, reports can be generated for both the advertisers and the service providers to track the effectiveness of the advertisement. If a user clicks on the published advertisement 622, a status notification 628 is sent to the client, the service provider and optionally to the third party advertisement website. The status notifications 628 can be sent at various milestones during the advertisement campaign lifecycle. The milestones can be determined by the client, the service provider or the third party

advertisement website. An administration control panel 630 provides a user interface that is operable to execute instructions in the system to alter the advertisement, purchase more advertisements, edit the client's profile, set or update milestones, update or change information so that the clients and the administrators of the service provider can optimize the effectiveness of the advertisements.

[00047] In one embodiment, the grouping factors analysis comprises weighting factors. These weighting factors can comprise ad volume, ad rates, advertisement trends, group size, budget and costs among other factors. Additionally, business location, hours of operation, inventory, sale items and the like can also comprise weighting factors for the group creation 618. The weighting factors can be changed and adjusted based on previous and ongoing campaign performance. For example, in on advertisement campaign it may be found that the location factor performs better than the client office hour's factor. This threshold would be analyzed to give that factor a higher weight. All of the stored and published factors are analyzed to optimize and tune the advertisement campaigns.

[00048] In one embodiment, the grouping algorithm 614 can be selected from the group consisting of but not limited to mixed Gaussian, hierarchical, fuzzy c-means, k-means, centroid based, distribution based and density based. As will be understood by those with skill in the art, other algorithms can be used to perform the grouping function. This disclosure should not be used in a limiting sense.

[00049] The optional manual grouping/selection 616 entry provides the instructions executable by a processor in the system to adjust the factors for generating groups. This provides flexibility to the system and allows individual preferences of the clients to have a greater weight than what is automatically determined by the system.

[00050] What has been described is a new and improved Internet advertising system for group advertising that is simple and affordable, overcoming the limitations and disadvantages inherent in the related art. [00051] Although the present invention has been described with a degree of particularity, it is understood that the present disclosure has been made by way of example and that other versions are possible. As various changes could be made in the above description without departing from the scope of the invention, it is intended that all matter contained in the above description or shown in the accompanying drawings shall be illustrative and not used in a limiting sense. The spirit and scope of the appended claims should not be limited to the description of the preferred versions contained in this disclosure.

[00052] All features disclosed in the specification, including the claims, abstracts, and drawings, and all the steps in any method or process disclosed, can be combined in any combination, except combinations where at least some of such features and/or steps are mutually exclusive. Each feature disclosed in the specification, including the claims, abstract, and drawings, can be replaced by alternative features serving the same, equivalent or similar purpose, unless expressly stated otherwise. Thus, unless expressly stated otherwise, each feature disclosed is one example only of a generic series of equivalent or similar features.

[00053] Any element in a claim that does not explicitly state "means" for performing a specified function or "step" for performing a specified function should not be interpreted as a "means" or "step" clause as specified in 35 U.S.C. § 112.

Claims

CLAIMS What is claimed is:

1. A system for Internet group advertising purchasing comprising:

a) a server comprising a memory and storage with instructions executable for:

1) a client information media intake module;

2) a database for storing the collected information, multimedia or both information and multimedia;

3) an automatic grouper module and grouper algorithm for automatically creating groups of similar clients; and

4) an advertising website and landing page creation module.

2. The system of claim 1, where the client information media intake module comprises a form, where the form comprises:

the business name;

hours of operation;

field of the business;

advertising budget;

goods sold;

services provided;

sale items;

sales information;

sale duration;

reviews by clients;

business description;

third party reviews;

awards received;

certifications;

association memberships;

address;

contact information;

history;

languages spoken; and general business information.

3. The system of claim 1, where the grouper module comprises executable instructions to create a group buy, an auto-generated, consumer facing, website and a landing page that displays the stored client information and multimedia for a particular group.

4. The system of claim 1 , where the sever transmits the advertising website and landing page to an advertiser' s server for inclusion into advertisements that are served for the duration of the advertising run.

5. The system of claim 1, where the sever transmits the advertising website and landing page to a client' s server for the duration of the advertising run.

6. The system of claim 1 , where the grouper function automatically groups of businesses together based upon information that is stored in the database.

7. The system of claim 1, where one or more businesses can be manually grouped.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprises:

a) a billing module to bill the grouped clients for the advertisements purchase and scheduling.

b) a purchasing module for clients to purchase advertising; and

c) a management module that provides the client with options to launch, modify, launch and modify, and monitoring of the advertising campaign.

9. A method for Internet group advertising purchasing, the method comprising the steps of:

a) entering business information into a data information entry interface;

b) entering the business information into a billing verification module;

c) storing the billing information and the client information in a database; d) automatically determining a group of similar clients and advertising goals using grouping factor analysis and a grouping algorithm;

e) automatically creating a group of similar clients;

f) populating and rendering advertisements for the created group;

g) publishing the populated and rendered advertisements; and

h) transmitting a notification to a billing verification module, so that each of the clients in the created group are billed appropriately.

10. The method of claim 9, where the step of populating an advertisement comprises submitting the advertisement to either a third party advertising service or a hosted service.

11. The method of claim 9, where the step of rendering the advertisements can be automatically output to HTML.

12. The method of claim 9, where the step of rendering the advertisements can be automatically created and manually edited for special client requests.

13. The method of claim 9, where the business information can be entered automatically from publicly available information by a service provider that is operating the system.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprises the steps of:

a) generating reports to track the effectiveness of the advertisement;

b) transmitting a status notification to the client, the service provider and the third party advertisement website when a user clicks on the published advertisement;

c) transmitting a status notification to the client, the service provider and the third party advertisement website when an advertising campaign status update occurs; and d) displaying an administration control panel that provides a user interface that is operable to execute instructions in the system to alter the advertisement, purchase more advertisements, edit the client's profile, update or change information so that the clients and the administrators of the service provider can optimize the effectiveness of the

advertisements.

15. The method of claim 9, where the grouping factors analysis comprises weighting factors.

16. The method of claim 15, where the weighting factors can comprise: advertisement volume, advertisement rates, advertisement trends, group size, budget costs, business location, hours of operation, inventory and sale items.

17. The method of claim 16, where the weighting factors can be changed and adjusted based on previous and ongoing campaign performance.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising the step of storing the weighting factors in a database.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising the step using stored and published factors are analyzed, optimize and tune the advertisement campaigns.

20. The method of claim 9, where the grouping algorithm can be selected from the group consisting of mixed Gaussian, hierarchical, fuzzy c-means, k-means, centroid based, distribution based or density based.

21. A computer network-based method for group purchase of on-line advertising, the method comprising the steps of:

a) soliciting potential client advertisers by a group buy service provider; and b) providing a server with executable instructions for:

1) signing up one or more client advertisers to participate in group buy advertising by the group buy service provider;

2) collecting client advertiser data from the one or more client advertisers;

3) storing the client advertiser data in a client database;

4) automatically organizing one or more of the client advertisers into an advertising group;

5) creating a group advertisement for the advertising group;

6) automatically creating a group buy service provider website; 7) hosting the group buy service provider website;

8) purchasing advertising space for the group advertisement on an advertising network;

9) placing the group advertisement on the advertising network; and

10) a web visitor encountering the group advertisement on the advertising network, where the web visitor selects the group advertisement.

The method of claim 21 further comprising the steps of:

1) directing the web visitor to the group buy service provider website using a link embedded within the group advertisement;

2) selecting, by the web visitor, a second link residing on the group buy service provider website; and

3) directing the web visitor to a website belonging to one of the client advertisers from the second link.