JP2014044594A - Affiliate management device, affiliate management method, control program, and recording medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To realize an affiliate management device for identifying an affiliator without using a URL for affiliate.SOLUTION: An affiliate management device 1 according to the present invention includes: an identification information storage unit 30 for storing an affiliator ID and a user ID in association with each other; a purchase information registration unit 21 for acquiring, as a reference source URL, a URL of a Web page through which a communication terminal of a browser has passed immediately before visiting an advertiser site; a user identification unit 22 for identifying a user ID of an affiliator on the basis of the reference source URL; and an affiliator identification unit 23 for identifying an affiliator ID on the basis of the user ID.

Description

  The present invention relates to an affiliate management apparatus that manages information necessary for an affiliate program.

  In recent years, affiliate programs have been used as advertisement distribution methods. In the affiliate program, an affiliater first acquires an advertiser's advertisement from an ASP (affiliate system provider). An affiliator refers to a user who sends an advertisement using an individual or company information transmission medium (Web site, mail magazine, blog, or posted article on a short text posting site such as TWITTER (registered trademark)). The affiliator places the acquired advertisement in the information transmission medium of the affiliator itself, and guides a viewer who browses the information transmission medium to the advertiser's site. When a visitor goes to the advertiser's site via an advertisement placed on the affiliate's information distribution medium and achieves the actions determined by the advertiser (such as purchasing a product, filling in a questionnaire, or registering a member) , Affiliator rewards are generated.

  Only when a visitor visits the advertiser's site and accomplishes the action prescribed by the advertiser, the reward, i.e., the advertisement fee, is paid to the affiliator, so the advertiser does not take any risk when placing the advertisement. Because of these merits, affiliate programs are often used, and various techniques related to affiliate programs are disclosed.

  For example, the following Patent Document 1 discloses a technique for identifying a viewer and an affiliate of a web page when the same viewer accesses an advertiser site using a browser phone, with a web page browsed by a certain browser using a browser. It is disclosed.

  Patent Document 2 below discloses a technique related to an affiliate sales system that can automatically guide a viewer to an advertiser's Web page and that does not cause omission of payment to an affiliate. .

  In conventional affiliate programs, including the inventions disclosed in Patent Documents 1 and 2 below, affiliate URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) are incorporated in advertisements that are placed on their information transmission media. The affiliate URL includes an affiliate ID for identifying the affiliate.

  When the viewer clicks on the advertisement in which the affiliate URL is incorporated, the affiliate URL is stored in the browser of the viewer. When the viewer achieves the action determined by the advertiser, the ASP can acquire the affiliate URL stored in the browser of the viewer via the advertiser's web page. Based on this affiliate URL, it is specified which of the affiliates has introduced the act determined by the introduction of the affiliate.

JP 2006-113884 A (released on April 27, 2006) Japanese Patent No. 4224116 (February 12, 2009)

  As described above, the affiliate URL used in the conventional affiliate program includes an affiliate ID. That is, by looking at the affiliate URL, the viewer can easily determine whether or not the advertisement is an affiliate program.

  However, if the viewer recognizes the advertisement as being affiliated with an affiliate program, the viewer tends to refrain from such advertisement and hesitates to visit the advertiser's site via the advertisement, There was a problem of avoiding it.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object thereof is to realize an affiliate management apparatus and an affiliate management method that can identify an affiliate without using an affiliate URL. .

  In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, the affiliate management apparatus of the present invention provides an affiliate ID for identifying the affiliate and an article posting service provided by the provider for posting an article via the Internet. Immediately before the identification information storage unit that stores the affiliator's user ID in association with each other and the communication terminal device that has executed the process determined by the advertiser via the advertiser's site, accesses the advertiser's site. Based on the reference source URL acquisition unit that acquires the URL of the Web page that has passed through as a reference source URL from the communication terminal device, and the reference source URL acquired by the reference source URL acquisition unit, And the user ID of the affiliate who posted the article containing the link information to the advertiser's site. And user identification means for constant, is characterized in that it comprises a specific to affiliator identify means affiliator ID associated with the user ID specified from the identification information storage unit by the user identifying means.

  According to the above configuration, the affiliate management device manages the correspondence between the affiliate ID and the user ID in the identification information storage unit. The affiliate ID is identification information for the affiliate management device of the present invention to identify a poster (affiliator) who posts an advertisement article using an information transmission medium (blog site, short text posting site, etc.). On the other hand, the user ID is identification information for a provider who provides an information transmission medium (article posting service) to an affiliator to identify a user (including the affiliator and the like) of the service. The user ID is given to each user by the provider of the article posting service, independently of the affiliate management device.

  A viewer browses an article posted by an affiliator using a communication terminal device. A visitor is directed to the article and visits the advertiser's site. Then, it is assumed that the communication terminal device of the viewer has executed processing (site visit, predetermined button click, product purchase, questionnaire entry, etc.) determined by the advertiser via the advertiser's site.

  When the advertiser's purpose is achieved in this way, the referrer URL acquisition means reads the URL (reference source) of the Web page browsed immediately before the advertiser's site by the communication terminal device that executed the above-described processing. URL).

  Then, the user specifying means specifies the user ID based on the acquired reference source URL immediately before. The immediately preceding page is a Web page that guides the communication terminal device to the advertiser's site. If this Web page is related to an article uploaded by the affiliate using the article posting service, the user ID as the user of the article posting service can be specified from the URL (reference source URL) of the Web page. It should be.

  Thus, since the user ID of the poster who contributed to the achievement of the purpose of the advertiser has been identified, finally, the affiliator identifying means refers to the identification information storage unit and determines the affiliator ID corresponding to the user ID. Identify.

  As described above, the affiliate management apparatus of the present invention can identify an affiliate who has achieved results using the reference source URL of the immediately preceding page. That is, even if there is no affiliate URL, it is possible to correctly identify the person to be rewarded based on the referrer URL.

  If the affiliate management apparatus of the present invention is present, the affiliator includes link information (URL of the advertiser's site) for guiding to the advertiser's site when creating the advertisement article, and the own affiliate ID is included. There is no need to use the affiliate URL. The link information of the advertiser's site incorporated into the article by the affiliator may be a URL used when a viewer directly accesses the advertiser's site, that is, a regular URL of the advertiser's site.

  For this reason, even if the viewer sees the link information arranged in the article, since the link information is a regular URL of the advertiser's site, the viewer does not realize that it is an advertisement of an affiliate program. Absent.

  As described above, since the affiliate management apparatus does not need to issue an affiliate URL for each affiliate for each advertiser site, the registration and management processes can be simplified. Further, since the link information of the article is the same as the regular URL, the viewer is not wary of the contents of the article or hesitate to visit the link destination. Therefore, according to the article using the affiliate system of the present invention, a high word-of-mouth effect can be expected.

  The user specifying unit extracts a character string of the user ID from the reference source URL acquired by the reference source URL acquisition unit, or refers to correspondence information indicating a correspondence relationship between the reference source URL and the user ID. Thus, it is assumed that the user ID is specified by detecting the user ID corresponding to the reference source URL acquired by the reference source URL acquisition means from the correspondence information.

  More specifically, the Web page passed immediately before is a Web page that includes a description that causes the communication terminal device to automatically access the advertiser site, and the URL of the Web page is the advertisement. It is an alternative URL converted corresponding to the regular URL of the main site, and the affiliate management device further uses the article posting service to post the article including the alternative URL. A posting information storage unit that stores the user ID and the alternative URL in association with each other, the reference source URL acquisition unit acquires the alternative URL as a reference source URL, and the user identification unit includes the reference source URL. It is conceivable to detect the user ID corresponding to the alternative URL acquired by the acquiring unit from the posted information storage unit.

  According to the above configuration, the referrer URL of the immediately preceding page is an alternative URL corresponding to the regular URL of the advertiser's site. The Web page of this alternative URL includes the regular URL of the advertiser's site, and includes a description that causes the communication terminal device to access the advertiser's site.

  Therefore, it is considered that the user who posted the article in which the alternative URL is arranged has guided the viewer to the advertiser's site, and this user is recognized as the target person of the reward.

  According to the above configuration, the affiliate management apparatus holds correspondence information as to which user has posted the article including the alternative URL. That is, a post information storage unit that stores the shortened URL and the user ID in association with each other is provided.

  The reference source URL acquisition unit acquires the alternative URL as a reference source URL.

  Therefore, the user specifying means can specify the user ID of the person to be rewarded based on the reference source URL (alternate URL) with reference to the posted information storage unit.

  For example, the alternative URL may be an abbreviated URL assigned to each regular URL of the advertiser site for each affiliate user ID with a smaller number of characters than the regular URL.

  Or, more specifically, the web page that has been passed immediately before is a web page that includes an article that is uploaded by the affiliate using the article posting service and includes link information to the advertiser's site. The reference source URL acquisition unit acquires the URL of the Web page including the user ID of the affiliator who posted the article as a reference source URL, and the user identification unit stores the reference source URL. It is conceivable to extract the user ID from the URL.

  According to the above configuration, the referrer URL of the immediately preceding page indicates the URL of a Web page on which an article including link information to the advertiser's site is posted.

  Therefore, if the article is uploaded by an affiliate using an article posting service, the referrer URL contains the affiliator user ID given by the article posting service provider. include.

  The user specifying means can specify the user ID of the affiliate who posted the article including the link information to the advertiser site by extracting the user ID from the reference source URL. In other words, the user ID extracted here is an affiliator that guides the viewer to the advertiser's site, and is recognized as a reward target person.

  An affiliate management method according to the present invention is an affiliate management method executed by an affiliate management apparatus in order to solve the above-mentioned problem. The affiliate management apparatus includes an affiliate ID for identifying an affiliate and an affiliate that is connected to the Internet. And an identification information storage unit for storing the affiliated user ID given by the provider of the article posting service for posting an article in association with each other, and the affiliate management method is determined by the advertiser The reference terminal URL acquisition that acquires, from the communication terminal apparatus as a reference source URL, the URL of the Web page that was passed immediately before the communication terminal apparatus that executed the process via the advertiser site accessed the advertiser site. Acquired in the step and the reference source URL acquisition step. Based on the source URL, using the article posting service, the user specifying step for specifying the user ID of the affiliate who posted the article including the link information to the advertiser site, and the user specifying step And an affiliator specifying step of specifying the affiliator ID associated with the user ID specified in (2) from the identification information storage unit.

  The affiliate management device may be realized by a computer.In this case, the affiliate management device control program for realizing the affiliate management device by a computer by causing the computer to operate as the respective means, and A computer-readable recording medium on which it is recorded also falls within the scope of the present invention.

  In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, the affiliate management apparatus of the present invention provides an affiliate ID for identifying the affiliate and an article posting service provided by the provider for posting an article via the Internet. Immediately before the identification information storage unit that stores the affiliator's user ID in association with each other and the communication terminal device that has executed the process determined by the advertiser via the advertiser's site, accesses the advertiser's site. Based on the reference source URL acquisition unit that acquires the URL of the Web page that has passed through as a reference source URL from the communication terminal device, and the reference source URL acquired by the reference source URL acquisition unit, the article posting service is used. And the user ID of the affiliate who posted the article containing the link information to the advertiser's site. And user identification means for constant, is characterized in that it comprises a specific to affiliator identify means affiliator ID associated with the user ID specified from the identification information storage unit by the user identifying means.

  An affiliate management method according to the present invention is an affiliate management method executed by an affiliate management apparatus in order to solve the above-mentioned problem. The affiliate management apparatus includes an affiliate ID for identifying an affiliate and an affiliate that is connected to the Internet. And an identification information storage unit for storing the affiliated user ID given by the provider of the article posting service for posting an article in association with each other, and the affiliate management method is determined by the advertiser The reference terminal URL acquisition that acquires, from the communication terminal apparatus as a reference source URL, the URL of the Web page that was passed immediately before the communication terminal apparatus that executed the process via the advertiser site accessed the advertiser site. Acquired in the step and the reference source URL acquisition step. Based on the source URL, using the article posting service, the user specifying step for specifying the user ID of the affiliate who posted the article including the link information to the advertiser site, and the user specifying step And an affiliator specifying step of specifying the affiliator ID associated with the user ID specified in (2) from the identification information storage unit.

  Therefore, the affiliate management apparatus can specify an affiliate without using the affiliate URL, and has the effect of making it possible to construct an affiliate system that is not wary of the viewer.

It is a block diagram which shows the principal part structure of the affiliate management apparatus in embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the structure of the affiliate system in embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the data structure of the affiliator management information memorize | stored in the identification information storage part, and a specific example. It is a figure which shows an example of the screen displayed on a reader's communication terminal device. It is a figure which shows the data structure of the purchase history table memorize | stored in the purchase information storage part, and a specific example at the time of merchandise purchase processing. It is a figure which shows the data structure of the extraction rule information memorize | stored in the extraction rule memory | storage part, and a specific example. It is a figure which shows the specific example of a purchase history table when a user ID is specified by the user specific part. It is a figure which shows the specific example of a purchase history table at the time of an affiliator ID being specified by the affiliator specific part. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of the process which an affiliate management apparatus performs. It is a figure which shows an example of the screen displayed on a reader's communication terminal device. It is a block diagram which shows the principal part structure of the affiliate management apparatus in other embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the data structure of the contribution information table memorize | stored in the contribution information storage part, and a specific example. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of the process which an affiliate management apparatus performs.

Embodiment 1
An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. In this embodiment, as an example, when an affiliator places an advertisement on a post by its own information transmission medium, and a viewer of the information transmission medium purchases a product via the advertisement, a reward to the affiliator A description will be given of an affiliate management apparatus that manages an affiliate system in which a problem occurs.

[Configuration of affiliate system]
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration of the affiliate system 100 in the embodiment of the present invention.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the affiliate system 100 according to the embodiment of the present invention includes at least an affiliate management device 1, a merchandise sales site server 2, an information transmission site server 3, an affiliate communication terminal device 4, and a viewer's A communication terminal device 5 is included. Each device is connected to be communicable with each other via a wide area communication network such as the Internet.

  The product sales company C is a company that sells products through the Internet, and operates a product sales site held in the product sales site server 2. In this embodiment, it is assumed that the merchandise sales company C is also operating an affiliate program. Therefore, the affiliate management device 1 and the product sales site server 2 belong to the product sales company C. The affiliate management device 1 and the merchandise sales site server 2 may be realized as one device in a single housing. Alternatively, the affiliate management apparatus 1 may belong to an organization (such as an advertisement broker) different from the product sales company C. In this case, the affiliate management device 1 of the advertising broker and the product sales site server 2 of the product sales company C are realized in separate casings and are connected to each other via a communication network so as to communicate with each other.

  The affiliate management device 1 is a device that supervises and manages the affiliate system 100. The affiliate management apparatus 1 mainly manages an affiliate and its reward. Details of the affiliate management apparatus 1 will be described later.

  The product sales site held and operated by the product sales site server 2 is a Web site for the product sales company C to sell products through the Internet. A viewer B described below can purchase a desired product from the product sales company C by accessing the product sales site using the communication terminal device 5 and performing a predetermined purchase process.

  First, the affiliate A registers with the affiliate program of the merchandise sales company C, and places the advertisement of the merchandise sales site on its information transmission medium, thereby guiding the viewer B to the merchandise sales site. When the guided viewer B purchases a product at the product sales site, a reward is paid from the product sales company C to the affiliator A. The affiliator A can use, for example, an information transmission site (blog or the like) as the information transmission medium for placing advertisements.

  The site operator D is an individual or a company that operates an information transmission site on the Internet. Therefore, the information transmission site server 3 that holds and operates the information transmission site belongs to the site operator D.

  The information transmission site held and operated by the information transmission site server 3 is a Web site for a user (affiliator A or the like) to transmit information. Each user is authorized to edit each information transmission site, and the user can create his / her information transmission site using the communication terminal device 4. Each user can upload his / her information transmission site to the information transmission site server 3 and transmit arbitrary information to the viewer. That is, it is possible to upload an article recommending a specific product and the advertisement and guide a viewer who browses the product to a product sales site. In the present embodiment, the affiliator A can place an advertisement of a product sales site entrusted by the product sales company C on its own information transmission site and guide the viewer B to the product sales site.

  The browsing person B is a person who uses the communication terminal device 5 to browse various information transmitted via the Internet. In the present embodiment, the viewer B can access the information transmission site server 3 using the communication terminal device 5 and browse the information transmission site of the affiliator A. Then, the merchandise sales site server 2 can be accessed via the advertisement placed by the affiliator A on the information transmission site, and merchandise can be purchased from the merchandise sales company C.

  It is also assumed that there are a plurality of members (or a plurality of organizations) of each of the affiliator A, the viewer B, and the site operator D. In this case, the affiliate system 100 is constructed by the plurality of communication terminal devices 4, the plurality of communication terminal devices 5, and the plurality of information transmission site servers 3 belonging to each of these members.

[Flow of affiliate system 100]
Next, the data flow of the affiliate system 100 will be described with reference to FIG.

  First, Affiliator A registers with the affiliate program of merchandise sales company C when he / she wants to place an advertisement on his / her information transmission site. Specifically, the communication terminal device 4 transmits to the affiliate management device 1 registration information d1 including a user ID given to the affiliate management device 1 in order to use the information transmission site. The user ID is given to each user by the site operator D in order to uniquely identify users (affiliator A) who use the service.

  The registration information d1 may include information (site type) that identifies the site operator D that the affiliator A is receiving services for when there are a plurality of groups of site operators D.

  When the affiliate management apparatus 1 accepts the registration of the affiliate A, the merchandise sales company C entrusts the affiliate A with an advertisement. Specifically, the communication terminal device 4 of the affiliate A downloads the advertisement d2 from the product sales site server 2 or the affiliate management device 1. In the advertisement d2, the URL of the product introduction page (product page URL) is incorporated as link information for guiding to the product introduction page.

  Next, the communication terminal device 4 creates a posted article d3 (article) including the advertisement d2 and transmits it to the information transmission site server 3. Thus, the posted article d3 including the advertisement d2 is uploaded to the information transmission site of the affiliator A. In the information transmission site of Affiliator A, the page of the posted article d3 including the advertisement d2 that leads to the product introduction page is a page that guides the product introduction page. Hereinafter, a page including a posted article d3 in which an advertisement d2 for guiding to a target site is arranged is referred to as a guidance page d4. In this way, the advertisement d2 is opened to many viewers via the guide page d4 of the information transmission site.

  The browsing person B can browse the information transmission site of the affiliator A by using a web browser (hereinafter referred to as a browser) installed in the communication terminal device 5. In other words, the viewer B sees the advertisement d2 that is transmitted by the affiliator A and includes the product page URL on the guide page d4. Here, in the affiliate system 100 of the present invention, the product page URL incorporated in the advertisement d2 does not include information that can be recognized as an affiliate URL such as an affiliate ID. That is, the product page URL is the same as the URL used when the viewer directly visits the product sales site. Therefore, even if the viewer B sees the product page URL incorporated in the advertisement, the viewer B does not recognize that the advertisement is an affiliate program advertisement.

  When the viewer B operates the advertisement d2 via the browser, the communication terminal device 5 browses the product introduction page of the product sales site of the product sales company C using the product page URL embedded in the advertisement d2. Request d5 can be transmitted to the merchandise sales site server 2. As a response, the browser of the communication terminal device 5 can receive the product introduction page d6 of the product sales site from the product sales site server 2 and display it. In this way, the affiliator A can guide the viewer B to the product sales site of the product sales company C. In the request d5, the URL information (so-called referrer) of the reference source page (in this embodiment, the guide page d4) accessed immediately before the browser of the communication terminal device 5 reaches the product introduction page d6. It is included. Therefore, the merchandise sales site server 2 and the affiliate management device 1 can know through which page the communication terminal device 5 of the viewer B has accessed the merchandise sales site.

  In the present embodiment, it is assumed that when the viewer B purchases a product via the product sales site, a reward is generated for the affiliator that has guided the viewer B. That is, when the viewer B proceeds with the product purchase procedure via the browser, a predetermined product purchase process is executed between the communication terminal device 5 and the product sales site server 2. In the present embodiment, specifically, as part of the product purchase process, the product purchase information d7 may be transmitted from the communication terminal device 5 to the product sales site server 2. The affiliate management apparatus 1 recognizes that purchase of a product by the viewer B has occurred based on the product purchase information d7. Then, the purchase history is managed by associating the obtained product purchase information d7 with the URL of the reference source page (hereinafter referred to as reference source URL) acquired from the request d5 from the communication terminal device 5 of the viewer B.

  The affiliate management apparatus 1 may create a payment statement d8 representing a reward based on the purchase history and transmit it to the communication terminal apparatus 4 of the affiliate A. Thus, the merchandise sales company C can pay a legitimate reward to the affiliator A.

  As described above, according to the affiliate system 100 of the present invention, the viewer can purchase a product at the product sales site via the advertisement included in the posted article of the affiliate registered in the affiliate program. At this time, it is not known to the viewer that the advertisement is passed through the affiliate program advertisement. When the purchase of the product is achieved by the viewer, the affiliate management device 1 identifies the affiliate who has guided the viewer, and the reward is correctly paid to the affiliate.

  Below, the structure and operation | movement of the affiliate management apparatus 1 which specifies an affiliate without using URL for affiliates are demonstrated in detail.

[Configuration of Affiliate Management Device 1]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a main configuration of an affiliate management apparatus 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the affiliate management apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment is configured to include at least a communication unit 10, a control unit 11, and a storage unit 12.

  The communication unit 10 is a communication device in which the affiliate management device 1 transmits and receives information to and from external devices. In this embodiment, the communication part 10 communicates with the communication terminal device 4, the communication terminal device 5, or the information transmission site server 3 via wide area communication networks, such as the internet. In addition, when the merchandise sales site server 2 is realized by a housing different from the affiliate management device 1, for example, the communication unit 10 is connected via a local communication network such as a LAN (Local Area Network). You may communicate with the merchandise sales site server 2.

  The storage unit 12 includes (1) a control program executed by the control unit 11 of the affiliate management apparatus 1, (2) an OS program executed by the control unit 11, and (3) various functions that the control unit 11 has in the affiliate management apparatus 1. And (4) various data to be read when executing the application program are stored non-temporarily. For example, the above data (1) to (4) include ROM (read only memory), flash memory, EPROM (Erasable Programmable ROM), EEPROM (registered trademark) (Electrically EPROM), HDD (Hard Disc Drive), etc. Stored in a storage device.

  For example, the storage unit 12 of the present embodiment includes an identification information storage unit 30, a purchase information storage unit 31, and an extraction rule storage unit 32. Details of each storage unit will be described later.

  The affiliate management apparatus 1 may include a temporary storage unit (not shown). The temporary storage unit is a so-called working memory that temporarily stores data used for calculation, calculation results, and the like in the course of various processes executed by the affiliate management apparatus 1, and is a storage device such as a RAM (Random Access Memory). Composed.

  Which data is to be stored in which storage device is appropriately determined from the purpose of use, convenience, cost, physical restrictions, and the like of the affiliate management device 1.

  The control unit 11 performs overall control of each unit included in the affiliate management apparatus 1. The control unit 11 includes, as a functional block, the identification information registration unit 20, purchase information registration, in order for the affiliate management device 1 of the present invention to realize the function of identifying the affiliate A that has placed the advertisement through the viewer B. Unit 21, user specifying unit 22, and affiliator specifying unit 23. The control unit 11 may further include a totaling unit 24 as necessary.

  Each functional block of the control unit 11 described above is stored in, for example, a storage device (storage unit 12) in which a central processing unit (CPU) is realized by a read only memory (ROM), a non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM), or the like. This can be realized by reading the stored program into a RAM (random access memory) (not shown) and executing it.

  The identification information registration unit 20 registers affiliator information. Specifically, the identification information registration unit 20 receives the registration information d1 to the affiliate program from the communication terminal device 4 of the affiliate A via the communication unit 10, and stores the information of the affiliate A in the identification information storage unit. Write to 30 and register. As described above, the registration information d1 includes the user ID given by the site operator D when the affiliator uses the information transmission medium. At this time, it is preferable that the identification information registration unit 20 assigns information (affiliator ID) uniquely identifying the registered affiliator to the registration information d1. Thereby, the affiliate management apparatus 1 can manage each affiliate who commissioned the advertisement.

  The purchase information registration unit 21 registers the viewer who purchased the product of the product sales company C and the purchase history through the product sales site. Specifically, when a predetermined product purchase process is executed between the communication terminal device 5 of the viewer B and the product sales site server 2, the purchase information registration unit 21 receives the product purchase information d7 from the communication terminal device 5. Is written in the purchase information storage unit 31 and the purchase history is registered. Further, the purchase information registration unit 21 registers the reference source URL included in the request d5 acquired from the communication terminal device 5 in association with the product purchase information d7. The referrer URL indicates the URL of the page accessed immediately before the browser of the communication terminal device 5 accesses the product introduction page d6 of the product sales site server 2. In the present embodiment, the immediately preceding page is a guide page d4 that has triggered the viewer B to the product introduction page d6 on which the product purchase process has been executed. That is, the URL of the guide page d4 (hereinafter referred to as the guide URL) is included in the referrer as a reference source URL. The affiliate management apparatus 1 uses the referrer URL to identify an affiliate who has contributed to guiding the viewer B to the product introduction page.

  The user specifying unit 22 specifies a poster (user) of an information transmission medium in which an advertisement that guides the viewer to the product introduction page is arranged based on the reference source URL registered in the purchase information storage unit 31. . In the present embodiment, the browser of the communication terminal device 5 reaches the product introduction page d6 via the guide page d4. Therefore, in this embodiment, the guide page d4 is a reference source page, and the guide URL of the guide page d4 is a reference source URL. Therefore, the user who uploaded this guide page d4 is recognized as a contributor who contributed to the achievement of the product purchase process. The user specifying unit 22 specifies the user ID given to the contributor of the information transmission medium based on the reference source URL (here, the guide URL of the guide page d4), so that the user who becomes a contributor is determined. Can be identified. The user specifying unit 22 adds the specified user ID to the purchase information storage unit 31. The function of the user specifying unit 22 will be described in detail later with reference to another drawing.

  The affiliator specifying unit 23 specifies an affiliator ID managed by the affiliate management apparatus 1 based on the user ID specified by the user specifying unit 22. As described above, the affiliator ID corresponding to the user ID is registered in the identification information storage unit 30 by the identification information registration unit 20. The affiliator specifying unit 23 can specify the affiliator ID by referring to the identification information storage unit 30. In this way, the affiliate management apparatus 1 can identify a contributor who contributes to the achievement of the merchandise purchase process and is a target of reward award. The affiliator specifying unit 23 adds the specified affiliator ID to the purchase information storage unit 31.

  The totaling unit 24 reads the purchase history recorded in the purchase information storage unit 31 and calculates the reward for each affiliate. Remuneration information (for example, payment statement d8) determined by the totaling unit 24 may be transmitted to the communication terminal device 5 of each affiliate through the communication unit 10. In addition, actual transfer of rewards may be realized by bank transfer of the reward amount, etc., independently of transmission / reception of the payment statement d8, or may be realized by mailing of money items. Or the affiliate management apparatus 1 may pay a reward by adding the point which can be exchanged for money goods to the holding point of the affiliate who is a contributor.

[Registration and management of affiliates]
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a data structure and a specific example of the affiliator management information stored in the identification information storage unit 30. In FIG. 3, the affiliator management information is shown in a table format data structure as an example, and the data structure of the affiliator management information is not intended to be limited to the table format. Hereinafter, the same applies to other figures for explaining the data structure.

  The affiliator management information (hereinafter referred to as an identification information table) shown in FIG. 3 has a data structure in which an affiliator ID for identifying an affiliator is associated with each user ID. As described above, the user ID is information included in the registration information d1 transmitted by the affiliate (user) when registering with the affiliate program. The user ID uniquely identifies each user in the information transmission site service operated by the site operator D. Therefore, the identification information registration unit 20 assigns an affiliator ID to the user ID included in the registration information d1 and registers it in the identification information table. In order for the affiliate management device 1 to uniquely identify the affiliate (user) in the affiliate system 100, the affiliate ID is independent of the user ID given by the information transmission site server 3 of the site operator D. This is unique identification information. Here, the affiliate ID is represented by alphanumeric characters, but any character string may be used, and any information can be used as long as the affiliate management apparatus 1 can uniquely identify each affiliate. The user ID is a character string determined by the site operator D that provides the information transmission site service. Therefore, when there are a plurality of groups of site operators D, the identification information registration unit 20 may register the site type for identifying the site operator D and the user ID in association with each other in the identification information table. In this case, the site type is included in the registration information d1. Here, the user ID is represented by alphanumeric characters as in the case of the affiliator ID. However, if the information can uniquely identify each user in the information transmission site server 3 of the site operator D, the user ID is alphanumeric. It is not limited.

  It is assumed that a malicious affiliator requests registration by using the user ID of another person's information transmission site (blog). In order to cope with such impersonation, the affiliator A creates a posted article by adding a predetermined specific keyword at the time of the first posting, or creates a specific URL authentication image as a posted article. It may be pasted. This keyword or authentication image may be any information as long as it can be known only between the affiliator A who is the true registrant and the affiliate management apparatus 1.

[Product purchase processing]
With reference to FIG. 4 and FIG. 5, the merchandise purchase processing in the present embodiment will be described. FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a specific example of a screen displayed on the communication terminal device 5 of the viewer B. FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a data structure and a specific example of product purchase information (hereinafter, purchase history table) stored in the purchase information storage unit 31 when the product purchase process is executed.

  For example, the browsing person B can browse the information transmission site of the affiliator A supplied by the information transmission site server 3 using the communication terminal device 5. For example, the browser of the communication terminal device 5 displays the guide page d4 including the posted article d3 in which the advertisement d2 is arranged in the information transmission site as shown in FIG. In the advertisement d2, the URL of the product introduction page d6 of the recommended product, that is, the product page URL 44 is incorporated. In the present embodiment, the product page URL 44 is a commonly used URL that does not incorporate an affiliator ID. Here, the browsing person B should just click this advertisement d2, if he is interested in the goods recommended by browsing a contribution article. When the viewer B clicks the advertisement d2, the communication terminal device 5 transmits a request d5 requesting the product introduction page d6 to the product sales site server 2 based on the product page URL 44. The header information of the request d5 includes a referer indicating the guide URL 43 of the guide page d4. When the product introduction page d6 is supplied from the product sales site server 2 to the communication terminal device 5 of the viewer B as a response to the request d5, the communication terminal device 5 displays the screen on the product introduction page as shown in FIG. Transition to d6.

  Here, when the viewer B desires to purchase a product introduced by browsing the product introduction page d6, the viewer B may perform an operation on the product introduction page d6 to proceed with the purchase procedure. For example, a “Purchase” button may be clicked as shown in FIG. In this embodiment, when the “Purchase” button is clicked, the sale of the product is established between the viewer B and the product sales company C, and the product is communicated between the communication terminal device 5 and the product sales site server 2. It is assumed that purchase processing is executed.

  As part of the product purchase process, product purchase information d7 is supplied from the communication terminal device 5 to the affiliate management device 1. The product purchase information d7 may include, for example, a browser ID for identifying a viewer in the product sales site server 2, or a device ID for identifying the communication terminal device 5 of the viewer.

  The purchase information registration unit 21 of the affiliate management apparatus 1 that has received the product purchase information d7 from the communication terminal device 5 registers a new record for the established sale in the purchase history table of the purchase information storage unit 31. Then, the reference URL (here, the guidance URL 43) included in the request d5 of the communication terminal device 5 and the product purchase information d7 are stored in the record.

  Specifically, the purchase information registration unit 21 adds a new record with a new record number as shown in FIG. Then, the guide URL 43 is stored in the “reference URL” column in association with the record number (No.). Further, the purchase information registration unit 21 associates the “date and time” when the “purchase” button is clicked, the “viewer ID” specifying the purchaser, and the “purchase amount” of the purchased product with the record number. May be further stored. These pieces of information may be included in the product purchase information d7, or may be specified by the purchase information registration unit 21 based on the product purchase information d7. In the purchase history table of FIG. 5, there are other columns of “user ID” and “affiliator ID”, but these columns are blank when the product purchase process is performed.

  Each column shown in FIG. 5 is an example, and the data structure of the purchase history table is not intended to be limited to the contents shown in FIG. For example, if the affiliate program generates a reward for an act that does not involve the exchange of money, such as filling in a questionnaire, instead of purchasing the product, the viewer ID required for managing the purchaser of the product and sending the product, Alternatively, the purchase price column may not be provided.

  In the present embodiment, the purchase information registration unit 21 acquires the referrer URL from the referrer of the HTTP protocol. However, the present invention is not limited to this. The purchase information registration unit 21 may acquire the reference source URL from other information such as cookie information, or the product purchase information d7 transmitted by the communication terminal device 5 of the viewer may include the reference source URL. Good.

[User specific processing]
With reference to FIG. 6 and FIG. 7, the function of the user identification part 22 is demonstrated.

  In the present embodiment, the user specifying unit 22 has a function of extracting a user ID from the guide URL 43 of the guide page d4 that is an opportunity for purchasing the product. The user ID extracted in this way indicates the user who opened the guide page d4 using the information transmission site and led the viewer B to the product introduction page of the product sales site. That is, by referring to the guide URL 43, the user specifying unit 22 can specify the user who has released the guide page d4 that guides the viewer B by the user ID.

  FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a data structure of the extraction rule information stored in the extraction rule storage unit 32 and a specific example. In FIG. 6, the extraction rule information has a data structure in a table format, and is hereinafter referred to as an extraction rule table.

  The extraction rule table shown in FIG. 6 has a data structure for storing an extraction rule for each site type.

  The “extraction rule” column stores an extraction rule that defines which part of the URL character string should be extracted as a user ID by analyzing the format of the reference source URL (guidance URL).

  The format of the guidance URL, the format of the user ID, and how to incorporate the user ID in the guidance URL vary depending on the type (site type) of the site operator D who operates the information transmission site. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 6, it is preferable to store and prepare an extraction rule according to the site type of the information transmission site used by the user in the extraction rule table.

  According to the above configuration, when the user specifying unit 22 extracts the user ID from the guide URL 43, the user ID of the user who created and published the guide page d4 from the character string of the guide URL 43 according to the extraction rule is obtained. It becomes possible to extract accurately.

  For example, in the guidance URL 43 stored in the record “0001” in FIG. 5, the user identifying unit 22 determines the site type of the guidance URL 43 from the character string representing the site operator D described immediately after http: //. Can be specified as "mmmm" (mmmm is some character string that can specify the site operator D, such as the company name of the site operator D).

  For example, when the site type of the information transmission site is “mmmm”, according to the extraction rule table, the extraction rule is defined as “? Uid = [*] &”. This means that an arbitrary number of character strings sandwiched between “? Uid” and “&” among the character strings of the guidance URL 43 are extracted as user IDs. Therefore, the user specifying unit 22 can extract the user ID “m0001” from the guidance URL 43 according to the extraction rule.

  The extraction rule may be manually input in advance by, for example, an operator of the merchandise sales company C. The operator confirms which part is the user ID in the URL of each information transmission site, finds regularity, and defines an extraction rule that matches the regularity found in the column of “extraction rule”. Good.

  The user identification unit 22 stores the user ID extracted according to the extraction rule in the user ID column of the record “0001”. FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a specific example of the purchase history table at the time when the user ID is specified by the user specifying unit 22. As shown in FIG. 7, the user specifying unit 22 stores the user ID extracted from the reference URL (guidance URL) of each record in the column of user ID. For example, no. When a URL character string that does not match any of the extraction rules (a URL of another type having a different format from the guidance URL such as a blog site) is stored in the column of the reference source URL, such as a record “0004” Alternatively, the user identification unit 22 may leave the cell blank, assuming that the user ID cannot be extracted. In such a record, the user ID is not specified, or the user specifying unit 22 may specify the user ID by a method different from the method described in the present embodiment.

[Affiliator specific processing]
The affiliator specifying process will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating a specific example of the purchase history table at the time when the affiliator ID is specified by the affiliator specifying unit 23.

  When the user ID is specified for each record of the purchase history by the user specifying unit 22, the affiliator specifying unit 23 specifies the corresponding affiliator ID based on the user ID.

  When the purchase history table shown in FIG. 7 is obtained, the affiliator specifying unit 23 acquires the user ID from a record in which the affiliator ID is not specified. Then, the affiliator ID corresponding to the acquired user ID is read from the identification information table of FIG. 3 and stored in the affiliator ID column of the purchase history table. That is, the affiliator specifying unit 23 uses the user ID for identifying the affiliator (user) operated by the site operator D to identify each affiliator in the affiliate management apparatus 1 of the present invention. It can be converted into an affiliator ID.

[Process flow]
FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a flow of processing executed by the user specifying unit 22 and the affiliate specifying unit 23 of the affiliate management apparatus 1. Hereinafter, the user specifying process executed by the user specifying unit 22 and the affiliator specifying process executed by the affiliator specifying unit 23 are referred to as an affiliate performance recording process. 9 may be performed at a predetermined timing such as the beginning of the month, or may be performed each time a new record is added in FIG. 5, or may not be performed in FIG. It may be performed when a predetermined number or more of new records of processing are accumulated.

  According to FIG. 9, first, the user specifying unit 22 acquires one unprocessed record from the purchase history table (S200). Specifically, an unprocessed record refers to a record in which an affiliator ID is not stored in FIG. 5 or FIG.

  Next, the user specifying unit 22 determines the site type of the referrer URL (here, the guidance URL) (S201). Specifically, the user specifying unit 22 determines the site type from the character string indicating the site type included in the reference URL of the acquired record. The extraction of the character string indicating the site type may be performed using a character string (such as a domain name) stored in the “site type” column of the extraction rule table as a keyword. Alternatively, a character string (domain name) indicating the site type included in the URL of the information transmission site of any site operator D is registered in advance as a keyword, and the site type is determined using the keyword. Also good.

  Subsequently, the user specifying unit 22 extracts the user ID from the reference source URL (S202). Specifically, the user specifying unit 22 reads out an extraction rule corresponding to the site type determined in S201 from the extraction rule table. Furthermore, a character string corresponding to the user ID is extracted from the reference source URL according to the read extraction rule.

  For example, from the guidance URL 43 stored in the record “0001” in FIG. 5, the site type “mmmm” is first specified by the user specifying unit 22. Next, the user specifying unit 22 reads out the extraction rule “? Uid = [*] &” corresponding to the site type “mmmm” stored in the extraction rule table of FIG. In accordance with this extraction rule, the user specifying unit 22 extracts a character string “m0001” sandwiched between “? Uid =” and “&” as a user ID.

  The user specifying unit 22 stores the extracted user ID in the “user ID” column of the acquired record being processed as shown in FIG.

  Subsequently, the affiliator specifying unit 23 specifies an affiliator ID corresponding to the user ID (S203). Specifically, as shown in FIG. 7, the affiliator specifying unit 23 reads the affiliator ID corresponding to the user ID specified for the acquired record from the identification information table (FIG. 3). For example, according to FIG. 3, since the affiliator ID corresponding to the user ID “m0001” is “A0001”, the affiliator specifying unit 23 reads “A0001”. The affiliator specifying unit 23 stores the affiliator ID specified in S203 in the “affiliator ID” column of the record being processed. For example, “A0001” is written in the affiliator ID column of the record “0001”.

  Here, the user specifying unit 22 determines whether there is an unprocessed record (S204). Specifically, the user specifying unit 22 determines whether data is stored in the “affiliator ID” column of each record. If there is an unprocessed record (YES in S204), the user specifying unit 22 and the affiliate specifying unit 23 repeat a series of affiliate performance recording processes from S200. On the other hand, when the identification of the affiliate ID has been completed for all the records (NO in S204), the user identification unit 22 and the affiliator identification unit 23 end the affiliate performance recording process.

  According to the above method, the affiliate management apparatus 1 of the present embodiment refers to the correspondence between the user ID and the affiliate ID stored in the identification information table (FIG. 3) at the time of affiliate program registration, and from the user ID An affiliator ID can be specified.

  On the other hand, the affiliate management device 1 stores the reference source URL (guidance URL) in the purchase history table when the product is purchased by the viewer B, and can extract the user ID from the guidance URL.

  Therefore, the affiliate management apparatus 1 can identify the affiliate A who has contributed to the product purchase action of the viewer B based on the guide URL of the guide page on which the advertisement passed by the viewer B is placed.

  As described above, the affiliate management apparatus 1 can specify the affiliate ID using the user ID included in the reference source URL. Therefore, the affiliate A does not use the advertisement in which the affiliate URL is incorporated, and arranges the advertisement in which the same URL as that in the case where the viewer B directly accesses is placed in the posted article d3, and the viewer B All you need to do is guide the product to the product sales site. The user ID is identification information given so that the affiliate can be uniquely identified by the publisher D when using the service of the publisher D, and is a character string unrelated to the affiliate program. is there.

  Therefore, even when the posted article d3 is browsed, the viewer B does not notice that the link information arranged there is the advertisement d2 based on the affiliate program. As a result, it is possible to realize the affiliate system 100 and the affiliate management apparatus 1 that can identify the affiliate that has contributed without using the affiliate URL.

  In the flowchart of FIG. 9, the procedure is such that the user ID and the affiliator ID are stored for each record. However, the present invention is not limited to this. First, the user specifying unit 22 summarizes a plurality of unprocessed records. After the user ID is stored, the affiliator specifying unit 23 may store the affiliator ID for the records.

[Reward aggregation processing]
After the affiliate performance recording process is completed, the totaling unit 24 can perform a reward totaling process for determining a reward for each affiliate. For example, the aggregation unit 24 extracts records from the purchase history table using the affiliator ID as a key, and according to the numerical value (that is, sales) stored in the “purchase amount” column of each record, Confirm the reward. The totaling unit 24 creates a payment statement d8 reflecting the confirmed reward information, and transmits this to the communication terminal device 4 of each affiliator via the communication unit 10.

  In the present embodiment, a system has been described in which a reward is generated for an affiliator when a viewer purchases a product (when “buy” is clicked). However, it may be a mechanism in which a reward is generated when the viewer visits the product introduction page d6. In other words, a mechanism may be used in which a reward is determined according to the number of visitor clicks on the advertisement d2. In this case, it is not necessary to manage the viewer ID and the purchase amount in the purchase history table.

<< Embodiment 2 >>
Another embodiment relating to the affiliate management apparatus of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. For convenience of explanation, members having the same functions as those in the drawings described in the first embodiment are denoted by the same reference numerals and description thereof is omitted.

  With reference to FIG. 2 and FIG. 10, in the present embodiment, a short text posting site such as TWITTER (registered trademark) is assumed as the information transmission site operated by the information transmission site server 3 of the site operator D. The service of the information transmission site in the present embodiment can be used when the user performs member registration on the information transmission site server 3. The user who becomes a member (affiliator A side) transmits his / her own information to the viewer by uploading a short article d3 to the information transmission site server 3 using the communication terminal device 4. be able to. On the other hand, the user who has become a member (the viewer B side) can use the communication terminal device 5 to set which user's posted article d3 is to be browsed to the information transmission site server 3. Then, as shown in FIG. 10, the user (viewer B) browses the communication terminal device 5 by displaying a page dedicated to himself / herself, in which the short posted articles d3 posted by each desired user are arranged in time series. It is a mechanism that can. That is, in this embodiment, the short text post article browsing page dedicated to the viewer B is the guide page d4 including the post article d3 with advertisement of the affiliate A. That is, when the viewer B registers for the information transmission site and makes a setting for displaying the posting of the affiliator A, the affiliator that arranges the link information to the product introduction page d6 for the first time is displayed. A posted article d3 of A will be in contact with the viewer B. In this way, the affiliator A can guide the viewer B to the product sales site of the product sales company C. The mechanism of the short text posting site in the present embodiment is an example, and is not intended to be limited to the above example.

  In the present embodiment, the number of characters in posting is limited on the short text posting site. For this reason, when link information (particularly, the character string itself of the product page URL 44) is included in the posted article, the product page URL 44 is generally converted to a shortened URL 52 with a small number of characters and displayed. In the present embodiment, the information transmission site server 3 manages the shortened URL 52 and the regular product page URL 44 in association with each other.

  When the viewer B clicks on the shortened URL 52, the request is first transmitted to the information transmission site server 3. As a response, the information transmission site server 3 supplies a reference source page 53 corresponding to the clicked shortened URL 52 to the communication terminal device 5. The reference source page 53 is a page for calling the communication terminal device 5 for the product introduction page d6 of the regular product page URL 44 corresponding to the shortened URL 52. The communication terminal device 5 can display the product introduction page d6 operated by the product sales site server 2 based on the product page URL 44 incorporated in the supplied reference source page 53.

  As described above, in the present embodiment, it is the reference source page 53 corresponding to the shortened URL 52 that the communication terminal device 5 of the viewer B passes immediately before reaching the product introduction page d6. Therefore, in this embodiment, the reference source URL is not the guide URL of the guide page d4 (the page for browsing the short text article of the viewer B in FIG. 10) to which the advertisement is pasted, but the shortened URL 52 of the reference source page 53. It becomes. When the communication terminal device 5 requests the product sales site server 2 for the product introduction page d6 in accordance with the command statement of the reference source page 53, the communication terminal device 5 transmits the request d5 including the shortened URL 52 of the reference source page 53.

  In the present embodiment, the user specifying unit 22 uses the shortened URL 52 instead of the guide URL of the guide page d4, and the user who contributed to the product purchase (that is, the contributor who posted the short posted article d3 including the shortened URL 52). It is the structure which specifies.

  FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating a main configuration of the affiliate management apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment.

  In the affiliate management apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment, the difference from the configuration of the affiliate management apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment is that the storage unit 12 includes a shortened feature storage unit 33 instead of the extraction rule storage unit 32, and is newly added. The post information storage unit 34 is provided.

  The shortened feature storage unit 33 stores the features of the shortened URL. The shortened URL is different from the regular URL and has some features. Specifically, “characteristic character string (for example, tttt) is included immediately after http: ///” or “the number of characters is equal to or less than a certain number (for example, 16 characters)”. It is a feature. The user specifying unit 22 refers to the feature of the shortened URL stored in the shortened feature storage unit 33. When a URL that matches the above-described feature is stored in the “reference source URL” column in the purchase history table of FIG. 5, it can be determined that the URL is a shortened URL.

  The posted information storage unit 34 stores information related to a short posted article of the affiliator. Specifically, in the posted information storage unit 34, posted information about an article in which a shortened URL instead of an advertisement is embedded among posted articles d3 published by the user via an information transmission site (short text posting site). Stored for each user. The data structure and specific example of the posted information stored in the posted information storage unit 34 will be described later.

  Similar to the first embodiment, the purchase information registration unit 21 receives the product purchase information d7 from the communication terminal device 5 of the viewer B when the product purchase process occurs. In the present embodiment, the request d5 includes the shortened URL 52 corresponding to the reference source page 53 instead of the guide URL 43 of the guide page d4. Therefore, in this embodiment, the purchase information registration unit 21 stores a shortened URL 52 in the column of “reference source URL” as shown in FIG. For example, record No. “0004”).

  In the present embodiment, the user specifying unit 22 arranges an advertisement (here, link information of the shortened URL 52) that guides the viewer B to the product introduction page based on the shortened URL registered in the purchase information storage unit 31. Identify the contributor (user) of the short post. In the present embodiment, as described above, the user specifying unit 22 first determines the shortened URL stored in the column of the reference source URL with reference to the feature stored in the shortened feature storage unit 33.

  Subsequently, the user ID can be specified from the posted information stored in the posted information storage unit 34 using the determined shortened URL.

[Product purchase processing]
Again, with reference to FIG. 10, the merchandise purchase processing in the present embodiment will be described.

  The browsing person B displays his browsing site (guidance page d4) on the communication terminal device 5 and browses the posted article d3 of each desired user. Further, the link information of the advertisement included in the posted article d3 of each user is displayed as a shortened URL 52.

  Here, it is assumed that the viewer B is interested in the product recommended in the posted article d3 of the user (user ID: t5678) and clicks the shortened URL 52 included in the posted article. The information transmission site server 3 knows that the clicked shortened URL 52 corresponds to the product page URL 44 of the product introduction page d6 of the product sales site. Then, the information transmission site server 3 supplies the reference terminal page 53 of the shortened URL 52 to the communication terminal device 5. The reference source page 53 includes a product page URL 44 for guiding the browser of the communication terminal device 5 to the product introduction page d6. Since the reference source page 53 is a pseudo page for causing the communication terminal device 5 to display the product introduction page d6, the communication terminal device 5 passes through the reference source page 53, and the reference source page 53 is displayed on the screen. There is no need to display it. That is, when viewed from the viewer B, it seems that the screen has transitioned from the guide page d4 to the product introduction page d6 by clicking the shortened URL 52 of the viewer B. The communication terminal device 5 holds the URL of the reference source page 53 (that is, the shortened URL 52) as information of the reference source URL as a page that passes immediately before the product introduction page d6. Including them and transmitting them to the product sales site server 2.

  Thereafter, similarly to the first embodiment, when the viewer B performs an operation of purchasing a product, the communication terminal device 5 supplies the product purchase information d7 to the affiliate management device 1.

  Upon receiving the product purchase information d7 from the communication terminal device 5, the purchase information registration unit 21 of the affiliate management device 1 stores it in the purchase history table of the purchase information storage unit 31. At this time, as described above, the purchase information registration unit 21 stores the shortened URL 52 included in the request d5 received from the communication terminal device 5 in the column of the reference source URL.

  In the present embodiment, in the affiliate system 100, the information transmission site server 3 manages the regular site URL and the shortened URL in association with each other, but the present invention is not limited to this. The affiliator A may arrange a shortened URL provided by an organization or an individual different from the site operator D in the short posted article d3.

  In addition, when a short URL of the product introduction page of the product is assigned to the short article posted by Affiliator A who tweeted the topic of the product first, even if it is retweeted by another affiliate, The same shortened URL as described above is arranged in an article posted by another affiliate. In this case, it is possible to construct an affiliate system 100 in which reward management is performed so as to be the affiliation of the first tweeter Affiliator A, regardless of which retweet article induces the viewer.

  On the other hand, a shortened URL may be determined every time a topic is retweeted by another affiliator, that is, for each contributor, even if the topic is the same product. In this case, it is possible to construct an affiliate system 100 in which reward management is performed so that it becomes a measure of a contributor (affiliator) of a posted article that directly contributes to the viewer's guidance.

[User specific processing]
With reference to FIG. 5, FIG. 7, and FIG. 12, the function of the user identification part 22 of this embodiment is demonstrated.

  In the present embodiment, the user specifying unit 22 has a function of specifying the user ID from the shortened URL 52 of the reference source page 53 that the communication terminal device 5 passes immediately before the product introduction page d6. The user ID specified in this manner indicates a user who has published the shortened URL 52 using the short posted article d3 and led the viewer B to the product introduction page of the product sales site. That is, the user specifying unit 22 specifies the user who has contributed to the product purchase from the shortened URL 52.

  As illustrated in FIG. 5, when a new record is added as the product purchase process occurs, the user specifying unit 22 acquires a character string stored in the column of the referrer URL. In the present embodiment, the user specifying unit 22 determines that the shortened URL is stored in the column of the reference source URL of the record “0004” according to the feature of the shortened URL stored in the shortened feature storage unit 33. To do. In the present embodiment, when a URL having a format different from the shortened URL (for example, the guidance URL of the first embodiment) is stored in the column of the reference source URL, the user specifying unit 22 cannot specify the user ID. The cell may be left blank. Alternatively, the user ID may be specified by the same method as described in the first embodiment.

  Next, the user specifying unit 22 refers to the posting information table stored in the posting information storage unit 34.

  FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating a data structure and a specific example of post information (hereinafter, post information table) stored in the post information storage unit 34.

  As illustrated in FIG. 12, the posting information table is a data structure that holds one record for one posted article by one user, and includes a user ID, a posting date and time, and a posted article indicating the user who made the posting. Has a data structure including a column of shortened URLs. Note that the posting information is limited to articles posted by users registered in the identification information storage unit 30 as affiliators. In other words, only articles posted by affiliates managed by the affiliate management apparatus 1 and having a shortened URL arranged in the article need only be registered in the posting information table.

  Posting article registration is assumed to be executed by a posting article registration unit (not shown). The posted article registration unit (article information collection means) monitors the information transmission site server 3, for example. When a posted article whose user ID registered in the identification information storage unit 30 is the posting subject and the shortened URL is included is uploaded, the user of the posting subject of the posted article is uploaded. A new record including an ID, a posting date and a shortened URL arranged in the posted article is registered in the posted information table.

  By referring to this posting information table, the user specifying unit 22 can grasp which user has released which shortened URL when.

  When acquiring the shortened URL included in the unprocessed record in the purchase history table of FIG. 5, the user specifying unit 22 refers to the posting information table and specifies the user who posted the acquired shortened URL. . For example, the record “0004” in the purchase history table stores the shortened URL “http: // tttt / 11111”. According to the posting information table of FIG. 12, the user specifying unit 22 can specify that the shortened URL is posted by the user having the user ID “t5678”.

[Process flow]
FIG. 13 is a flowchart showing the flow of affiliate performance recording processing executed by the affiliate management apparatus 1.

  According to FIG. 13, first, the user specifying unit 22 acquires one unprocessed record from the purchase history table (S300). For example, a record “0004” is acquired from the purchase history table shown in FIG.

  Next, the user specifying unit 22 determines that the reference source URL of the acquired record is a shortened URL (S301). For example, if “http: // tttt / 1111” matches the feature stored in the shortened feature storage unit 33, the user specifying unit 22 can determine that it is a shortened URL.

  Subsequently, the user specifying unit 22 searches the posted information table of FIG. 12 for a record that matches the shortened URL (S302). For example, the user specifying unit 22 detects the record “0002” that matches the shortened URL “http: // tttt / 1111” from the posting information table shown in FIG.

  Subsequently, the user ID of the detected record is specified as the user ID of the user who posted the shortened URL (S303). Specifically, the user specifying unit 22 specifies the user ID “t5678” stored in the record “0002” of the posting information table. The user specifying unit 22 stores “t5678” in the user ID column of the record “0004” in the purchase history table of FIG.

  Subsequently, the affiliator specifying unit 23 specifies an affiliator ID corresponding to the user ID (S304). Specifically, the affiliator specifying unit 23 specifies the affiliator ID “A0003” corresponding to the user ID “t5678” with reference to the identification information table of FIG. The affiliator specifying unit 23 stores the specified affiliator ID in the affiliator ID column of the record “0004” in the purchase history table of FIG.

  The user specifying unit 22 and the affiliator specifying unit 23 repeat the above-described series of processing until there is no unprocessed record (YES in S305).

  According to the above method, the affiliate management device 1 according to the present embodiment, based on the shortened URL obtained as the referrer URL and the correspondence between the user and the shortened URL stored in the posting information table, The user ID of (the person who contributed to the purchase) can be specified. Then, the affiliator specifying unit 23 specifies the affiliator ID using the user ID specified by the user specifying unit 22. The shortened URL is a URL that is independently managed by the site operator D for a short article posted, and is a character string that is unrelated to the affiliate program.

  Therefore, even if the short posted article d3 is browsed, the viewer B does not notice that the link information (abbreviated URL) arranged there is the advertisement d2 based on the affiliate program.

  Thus, the affiliator can guide the viewer B to the merchandise sales site without using the affiliator URL for the posted article. On the other hand, the affiliate management apparatus 1 can identify the affiliate A who has guided the viewer B based on the shortened URL.

  As a result, it is possible to realize the affiliate system 100 and the affiliate management apparatus 1 that can identify the affiliate that has contributed without using the affiliate URL.

  As described above, the information processing apparatus (affiliate management apparatus 1) described here refers to a logical collection of functional modules that realize a specific function, and each functional module is in a single casing. It does not matter whether or not.

  That is, in each embodiment described above, each functional block of the control unit 11 and various storage units of the storage unit 12 constituting the affiliate management apparatus 1 may be realized by cloud computing.

  The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications are possible within the scope shown in the claims, and embodiments obtained by appropriately combining technical means disclosed in different embodiments. Is also included in the technical scope of the present invention.

[Example of software implementation]
Finally, each block of the affiliate management device 1, particularly the identification information registration unit 20, the purchase information registration unit 21, the user identification unit 22, the affiliator identification unit 23, and the aggregation unit 24 are formed on an integrated circuit (IC chip). It may be realized by hardware using a logic circuit that has been configured, or may be realized by software using a CPU (Central Processing Unit).

  In the latter case, the affiliate management device 1 includes a CPU that executes instructions of a program that realizes each function, a ROM (Read Only Memory) that stores the program, a RAM (Random Access Memory) that expands the program, the program, and A storage device (recording medium) such as a memory for storing various data is provided. An object of the present invention is to provide a recording medium in which a program code (execution format program, intermediate code program, source program) of a control program of the affiliate management apparatus 1 which is software for realizing the above-described functions is recorded so as to be readable by a computer. This can also be achieved by supplying to the affiliate management apparatus 1 and reading and executing the program code recorded on the recording medium by the computer (or CPU or MPU).

  Examples of the recording medium include non-transitory tangible medium, such as magnetic tape and cassette tape, magnetic disk such as floppy (registered trademark) disk / hard disk, and CD-ROM / MO. Discs including optical discs such as / MD / DVD / CD-R, cards such as IC cards (including memory cards) / optical cards, semiconductor memories such as mask ROM / EPROM / EEPROM (registered trademark) / flash ROM Alternatively, logic circuits such as PLD (Programmable Logic Device) and FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) can be used.

  Further, the affiliate management device 1 may be configured to be connectable to a communication network, and the program code may be supplied via the communication network. The communication network is not particularly limited as long as it can transmit the program code. For example, the Internet, intranet, extranet, LAN, ISDN, VAN, CATV communication network, virtual private network, telephone line network, mobile communication network, satellite communication network, and the like can be used. The transmission medium constituting the communication network may be any medium that can transmit the program code, and is not limited to a specific configuration or type. For example, even with wired lines such as IEEE 1394, USB, power line carrier, cable TV line, telephone line, ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) line, infrared rays such as IrDA and remote control, Bluetooth (registered trademark), IEEE 802.11 wireless, HDR ( It can also be used by radio such as High Data Rate (NFC), Near Field Communication (NFC), Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), mobile phone network, satellite line, and digital terrestrial network. The present invention can also be realized in the form of a computer data signal embedded in a carrier wave in which the program code is embodied by electronic transmission.

  In an affiliate system in which a reward is generated for an affiliate when an affiliate places an advertisement on an article posted via an information transmission medium and the viewer achieves an action determined by the advertiser via the advertisement, The affiliate management apparatus of this invention can be used conveniently.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Affiliate management apparatus 2 Merchandise sales site server 3 Information dispatch site server 4 Communication terminal apparatus 5 Communication terminal apparatus 10 Communication part 11 Control part 12 Storage part 20 Identification information registration part (identification information registration means)
21 Purchase information registration unit (referrer URL acquisition means)
22 User identification part (user identification means)
23 Affiliator identification part (affiliator identification means)
24 tabulation section (counting means)
30 Identification information storage unit 31 Purchase information storage unit 32 Extraction rule storage unit 33 Abbreviated feature storage unit 34 Posting information storage unit 43 Guide URL (reference source URL)
44 Product page URL (regular URL of the advertiser's site)
52 Abbreviated URL (Reference URL / Alternate URL)
53 Referrer page (Web page)
100 Affiliate System A Affiliator B Viewer C Product Sales Company (Advertiser)
D Site operator (article posting service provider)
d1 Registration information d2 Advertisement d3 Posted article (article)
d4 Guide page (Web page)
d5 Request d6 Product introduction page (advertiser's site)
d7 Product purchase information d8 Payment statement

Claims (8)

An identification information storage unit that associates and stores an affiliator ID for identifying an affiliator and a user ID of the affiliator assigned by a provider of an article posting service for the affiliator to post an article via the Internet. When,
The communication terminal device that has executed the processing determined by the advertiser via the advertiser's site acquires the URL of the Web page that was passed immediately before accessing the advertiser's site as the reference URL from the communication terminal device. A referrer URL acquisition means for
Based on the referrer URL acquired by the referrer URL acquiring means, the user ID of the affiliate who posted the article including the link information to the advertiser's site is specified using the article posting service. User identification means for
An affiliate management device comprising: an affiliate specification unit that specifies from the identification information storage unit an affiliate ID associated with the user ID specified by the user specification unit. The user specifying means is:
Extracting the character string of the user ID from the reference source URL acquired by the reference source URL acquisition means, or
Detecting the user ID corresponding to the reference source URL acquired by the reference source URL acquisition means from the correspondence information with reference to the correspondence information indicating the correspondence between the reference source URL and the user ID;
The affiliate management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a user ID is specified by: The web page passed immediately before is a web page that includes a description that causes the communication terminal device to automatically access the advertiser's site, and the URL of the web page is the normal URL of the advertiser's site. It is an alternative URL converted corresponding to the URL,
The above affiliate management device further includes:
A post information storage unit that stores the user ID of the affiliator who posted the article including the alternative URL in association with the alternative URL using the article posting service,
The reference source URL acquisition means
Obtain the alternative URL as a reference source URL,
The user specifying means is:
3. The affiliate management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a user ID corresponding to the alternative URL acquired by the reference source URL acquisition unit is detected from the posted information storage unit. 4. The alternative URL is
4. The affiliate URL according to claim 3, wherein each affiliate user ID is a shortened URL assigned to the regular URL of the advertiser's site with a smaller number of characters than the number of characters of the regular URL. Management device. The web page passed immediately before is a web page including an article that is uploaded by an affiliate using the article posting service and includes link information to the advertiser's site.
The reference source URL acquisition means
The URL of the Web page that includes the user ID of the affiliate who posted the article is acquired as a reference URL,
The user specifying means is:
3. The affiliate management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the user ID is extracted from the reference source URL. An affiliate management method executed by an affiliate management device, wherein the affiliate management device includes an affiliate ID for identifying the affiliate and an article posting service provider for the affiliate to post an article via the Internet. An identification information storage unit that stores the associated user ID of the affiliator in association with each other;
The above affiliate management method is
The communication terminal device that has executed the processing determined by the advertiser via the advertiser's site acquires the URL of the Web page that was passed immediately before accessing the advertiser's site as the reference URL from the communication terminal device. A referrer URL acquisition step,
Based on the reference source URL acquired in the reference source URL acquisition step, the user ID of the affiliate who posted the article including the link information to the advertiser's site using the article posting service is set. A user identification step to identify;
The affiliate management method characterized by including the affiliate specification step which specifies from the said identification information memory | storage part the affiliate ID matched with the user ID specified at the said user specific step.   The control program for functioning a computer as each means of the affiliate management apparatus of any one of Claim 1-5.   A computer-readable recording medium on which the control program according to claim 7 is recorded.

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