JP2015156049A - Mail advertisement system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an effective advertisement system using electronic mails.

SOLUTION: An information system cooperates with a standard mailer operating on a client and provides a program for automatically inserting an advertisement according to the purpose of each mail to a mail text, thereby being capable of sending the mail by using the standard mail server as it is.

COPYRIGHT: (C)2015,JPO&INPIT

Description

The present invention relates to an effective advertisement distribution system, method, and computer program utilizing electronic mail.

A technique in which an e-mail service provider inserts an advertisement text in the body of e-mail sent by a user in order to be a revenue source in a free e-mail service provided on the Internet is well known.

Even in a general company, an effective advertisement can be realized by inserting an advertisement text in an email sent by an employee inside or outside the company. Such a technique is disclosed in Patent Document 1, Patent Document 2, and Patent Document 3.

(Problems of conventional technology)
In the above technique, an advertisement text is inserted in the mail server. However, such a system has several problems when a company performs an advertisement using mail.

First, when placing an ad text on a mail server, it is desirable to be able to change the content of the ad text according to the content of the email or other circumstances, or to choose not to post the ad text (for example, Since it is not desirable in social sense to place an ad text in an apology email, it is necessary for the system to ask the user to confirm the ad text, but the mail server side inserts the ad text Therefore, it is necessary to exchange a program running on the mail server with a user operating the client device. In other words, users need to use programs that run outside the standard mailer environment, such as browsers or dedicated programs, to interact with programs running on the mail server, impeding ease of use. The

Second, when inserting an ad text into the mail text, it is necessary to determine the optimal insertion location. However, if the reply / forwarding of the mail continues, insert the ad text at the end of the long mail. However, since there is a high possibility that the advertisement text is not visible to the recipient, it is desirable to insert the advertisement text immediately after the newly input text, not at the end of the mail. At this time, in the method of inserting the advertisement text on the mail server side, the mail body is changed on the mail server, but the change result is accessed by the user to the mail server or the edit result is separately added. If it is not sent from the mail server by e-mail etc., it will not be possible to confirm, and the usability will be hindered. In addition, the need to scan the contents of the mail body for a program running on the mail server is particularly important when the mail server is operated by an external organization. In view of this, it is not preferable.

Third, if the mail server is not under the management of the company and is managed by an external service provider such as an Internet service provider (ISP), an advertisement text insertion function is introduced on the mail server side. It can be difficult. In addition, from a business point of view, companies have a motivation to avoid being locked by a specific ISP and favor the terms of the contract with the ISP, but if a company-specific function is introduced on the mail server side, the company Cannot be easily switched, and there is a risk that such enclosure is promoted.

In addition, there may be considerable differences in the products and services handled by the departments to which the employees of the company belong, so it is desirable to be able to adjust and change the content of the advertisement text inserted by the department, and to send e-mail It is desirable to be able to change the content of the advertisement text to be inserted according to the source and destination in response to the need to change the message to be inserted. Furthermore, when the scale of a company or organization is large, the number of products / services to be handled and the number of messages sent externally increases, so the advertisement text to be inserted and the URLs of products / services included in the advertisement text may vary widely. It is assumed that there should be a mechanism that can weight the ad text candidates to be inserted and adjust the frequency of insertion into the e-mail according to the weighting, but the prior art has not fully addressed these issues It was.

JP 2006-046262 A JP2002-074147 JP 2001-333106 A

Corresponding to the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, in an environment using a standard mail server that does not require special functions, it is linked with a mailer operating on the client device of an e-mail user, and an administrator of a company or the like pre-registers An advertisement system is provided that automatically inserts the advertisement text into an email sent by the user.

The present invention is an advertisement providing system comprising a client device provided with an e-mail transmission means and an advertisement text insertion means, and a server device provided with an advertisement text storage means, an advertisement text selection means, and an advertisement text transmission means. The e-mail transmission means calls the ad text selection means, the ad text selection means selects and reads the ad text from the ad text storage means, and the ad text selection means reads the selected ad text. The above-mentioned problem is solved by providing an advertisement providing system which transmits to an insertion means, and the advertisement text insertion means inserts an advertisement text into an e-mail body.

According to the present invention, an advertisement text is automatically inserted into an electronic mail that is regularly transmitted by a user who is an employee of a company or the like, and a high advertising effect can be achieved with a small burden. In addition, since the user can select the content of the advertisement text from a plurality of candidates or can select not to insert the advertisement text at all, it is possible to eliminate the use form of the advertisement that is not preferable in social common sense. In addition, in-house messages and in-house messages such as slogans can be automatically inserted into e-mails in place of advertisement texts in companies and organizations, so that the awareness of companies and organizations can be improved. Furthermore, since it is not necessary to introduce a special function on the mail server side, the present invention can be applied to many environments including cases where the mail server is not under the management of a company.

1 is an overall configuration diagram of an information system according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a function block diagram of the advertising text server which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is an example of the format of the advertisement related information storage means which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a functional block diagram of the client apparatus which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the process outline | summary at the time of the mail transmission which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is an example of the confirmation message displayed before message insertion on the screen of the client apparatus which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention.

Hereinafter, although the present invention is explained based on an embodiment, referring to an accompanying drawing, the present invention is not limited only to this embodiment.

(Description of components)
FIG. 1 shows an overall configuration diagram of an information system for realizing an electronic mail transmission function according to an embodiment of the present invention. The mail server (101) is a set of computer hardware and computer programs for transmitting electronic mail to a specified destination. Typically, a mail server product using SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), which is an industry standard mail protocol, and Microsoft Exchange, which is a widely used mail server product, are used, but not limited thereto. Since the mail server (101) is a well-known technology whose standardization has progressed, no further explanation will be given. The advertising text server (102) is a set of computer hardware and computer programs for managing the advertising text to be inserted into the mail text. The structure of the advertisement text server (102) will be described later. The client device (103) is one or more devices that are operated by the user and transmit mail, and is typically a personal computer or a smartphone that runs a necessary program, but is not limited thereto. The structure of the client device (103) will be described later. A network (104) is a means for connecting a server and a client device to communicate data such as mail, and is typically the Internet, but is not limited thereto. Note that the mail server (101) and the advertisement server (102) in the present invention are logical existences, and the functions of a plurality of servers may operate on one physical device, These functions may operate on a plurality of physical devices.

FIG. 2 shows a functional configuration of the advertisement text server (102). The ad text server (102) realizes a function that an administrator registers an ad text to be inserted into an e-mail in advance and provides an ad text to a program running on a client device as necessary. Request transmission / reception unit (201), ad text selection processing unit (202), ad text related information storage unit (203), ad text registration processing unit (204), destination group management unit (205), transmission source group management unit (206) ), An in-house domain management unit (207), an advertising text reference processing unit (208), an advertising text insertion frequency recording processing unit (209), and an access recording processing unit (210). The function of each component will be described later.

FIG. 3 shows an example of the format of the advertising text related information storage means used by the advertising text related information storage unit (203). The storage means can be realized using a well-known data storage means such as a DBMS (database management system) or a file. Prior to the use of the information system according to the present invention, the information system manager of the company performs a registration operation for the advertisement text and the advertisement text related information in the advertisement text server (102), thereby storing the advertisement text related information storage means. Prepare the necessary data. In the description of the present invention, the advertisement text includes an in-house slogan, a notification, and the like.

FIG. 4 shows a functional configuration of the client device (103). The mailer (401) is a program for sending and receiving e-mails, and is typically a widely popular product such as Outlook (registered trademark) or Thunderbird (registered trademark). The mailer cooperation unit (402) exchanges commands and information between the mailer (401) and other components described below. Specifically, when the user performs a send operation with the mailer, the operation result is immediately received, the other components of the client device are called, and the advertisement text is inserted into the email body to be sent. To cooperate. It is a well-known technology that widely used mailer products such as Outlook (registered trademark) and Thunderbird (registered trademark) described above provide such linkage functions by providing API (Application Programming Interface), macro language, and script language. It is. The other components of the client device (103) are an ad text receiving unit (403), an ad text insertion processing unit (404), an ad text display unit (405), an ad text reacquisition processing unit (406), an ad text The functions of the insertion cancellation processing unit (407), the advertisement text insertion position determination unit (408), the advertisement text insertion unit (409), and the advertisement text acquisition request transmission unit (410) will be described later.

Functions other than the mailer (401) on the client device (103) can be realized in the form of software such as add-on programs and macros that operate on the client device hardware and operate in cooperation with the mailer.

(Pre-registration process in ad text server)
The processing steps of each function in the advertising text management work performed in advance by the administrator of the information system according to the present invention will be described below.

The ad text registration processing unit (204) of the ad text server (102) is an ad text input by an administrator from an input device (not shown) connected to a computer device on which the ad text server (102) operates. The subject, the text of the advertising text, the destination group, the transmission source group, the weighting coefficient, etc. are registered in the advertising text related information storage unit (203). The advertisement text registration processing unit (204) cooperates with the destination group management unit (205), the transmission source group management unit (206), and the organization domain management unit (207). When specifying the destination group and the transmission source group, it is possible to specify with reference to the contents registered in advance in the destination group management unit (205) and the transmission source group management unit (206).

In the designation of the destination group, it is possible to designate the entire outside of the company and the organization and the entire inside of the company and the organization. With this function, for example, it is possible to specify that a specific advertisement is inserted into all e-mails sent to external business partners or a specific company slogan is inserted into in-house e-mails.

Furthermore, the designation of the transmission source group has a function that allows designation of the entire inside of the company and organization by cooperating with the in-house domain management unit (207). With this function, e-mails sent from within the company can be specified to insert a specific advertisement text, regardless of the department of the sender.

The ad text display processing unit (208) displays the ad text and related information registered in the ad text related information storage unit (203) on an output device (not shown) connected to a computer device on which the ad text server operates. Individual display or list display.

A destination group management unit (205) registers an email address, a mail address domain, or a combination thereof as a destination group for a destination to which a company employee transmits an email. It is desirable that the destination group is given a name and can be easily referred to when registering the advertisement text.

The transmission source group management unit (206) registers the email address, email address domain, or a combination of employees of the company as a transmission source group. It is desirable that the sender group is given a name and can be easily referred to when registering the advertisement text.

The organization domain management unit (207) manages the mail address domain of a company or organization. The e-mail address domain is used when an advertisement text is to be transmitted to the entire organization or transmitted from the entire organization. Specifically, when registering an advertisement text, the mail address domain can be designated as an advertisement text transmission source group or destination group.

(Processing steps when sending email)
Hereinafter, the flow of processing steps of each function at the time of mail transmission by the user will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

The mailer (401) operating on the client device (103) calls the advertisement text acquisition request transmission unit (410) via the mailer cooperation unit (402), triggered by the user's email transmission operation, as a communication network. The advertising text request is transmitted to the advertising text request transmission / reception unit (201) on the advertising text server (102) via (104). The advertisement text request is, for example, an HTTP / HTTPS request format, and includes transmission source information and destination information of the e-mail. Further, the advertisement text request at the time of message reacquisition includes the ID of the advertisement text obtained by the latest advertisement text request.

The ad text request transmission / reception unit (201) of the ad text server (102) that has received the ad text request calls the ad text selection processing unit (202), and the ad text selection processing unit (202) responds to the ad text request. Based on the transmission source information and destination information included, the advertisement text stored in the advertisement text related information storage unit (203) is searched, and when there are a plurality of corresponding advertisement texts, a selection is made from them. . Note that if the ad text request includes the ad text ID of the most recent ad text request, the ad text corresponding to the ID is excluded from the selection process (this process is not shown).

The selection of the advertising text by the advertising text selection processing unit (202) is preferably performed using a weighted round robin or a weighted random logic with reference to the weighting coefficient registered as part of the advertising text related information. By selecting the advertisement text in consideration of this weighting, the organization using the present invention can insert the advertisement text into the outgoing mail at a frequency according to the importance.

Further, in the selection of the advertising text by the advertising text selection processing unit (202), it is registered as a part of the advertising text related information in cooperation with the destination group management unit (205) and the transmission source group management unit (206). The selection is made with reference to the destination group and the source group. For example, when the destination information is not an external business partner but an internal department, the advertising text selection processing unit (202) does not provide an advertising text for products / services provided by the company but an internal guidance or slogan. Can be inserted.

When the ad text selection processing unit (202) performs the ad text selection process, the ad text request transmission / reception unit (201) is called, and the ad text request transmission / reception unit (201) sends the selected ad text to the communication network (104). To the advertisement text receiving unit (403) of the client device. Here, if there is no selectable advertisement text, a message including an error code indicating that fact is transmitted to the advertisement text receiving unit (403).

The ad text receiving unit (403) that has received the ad text from the ad text server (102) calls the ad text insertion processing unit (404). The ad text insertion processing unit (404) includes an ad text display unit (405), an ad text reacquisition processing unit (406), an ad text insertion stop processing unit (407), an ad text insertion position determination unit (408), an ad text When called from the advertisement text receiving section (403) including the insertion section (409), the advertisement text display section (405) is called.

The advertisement text display unit (405) sends a request to the mailer (401) and displays a pop-up message as shown in FIG. 6 on the screen of the client device (103). Here, the advertisement text received by the advertisement text receiving unit (403) is displayed in a pop-up message, and the user is asked to confirm the content to be inserted before sending the e-mail.

As shown in FIG. 6, a message insertion (“insert and send”) button is provided in the popup. When the user presses the button, the advertising text display unit (405) calls the advertising text insertion processing unit (404). After the insertion processing is completed, the mailer (401) is sent via the mailer cooperation unit (402). Call and request to send an email with ad text inserted. Upon receiving the request, the mailer (401) transmits the e-mail to the destination via the mail server (101) in accordance with a well-known communication protocol for e-mail transmission.

Here, the advertisement insertion position determining unit (408) determines that the e-mail that the user is trying to send is a newly created e-mail that is not a reply / forward to the e-mail received before the e-mail is created. If a message is inserted at the bottom of the email body and the email that the user is trying to send is a reply / forward to an email received before the creation of the email, it is subject to reply / forwarding It is desirable to insert it immediately before the received mail (that is, immediately after the newly created part of the electronic mail). This is because if you simply add an ad text at the end of the email, if the body of one or more reply / forward emails lasts long and the entire email gets longer, the ad text will be noticed by the recipient of the email. Because it disappears.

The received mail text that is the subject of the reply / forwarding is determined by inserting the text automatically inserted by the mailer (401) when replying / forwarding (for example, --- Original Message ---) 408) can be realized by searching. In general mailers (401) such as Thunderbird (registered trademark), such text can be set in advance. When the text appears multiple times in the body of the email to be transmitted, it is desirable to regard the portion immediately before the text in the forefront as the insertion point of the advertisement text. In addition, in Outlook (registered trademark), it is possible to set an indent in the reply / forwarding unit, so the advertisement insertion position determining unit (408) is the same by inserting an ad text immediately before the indented part. The objective can be achieved.

Here, as shown in FIG. 6, it is desirable to provide a button (“Acquire another advertisement text”) for acquiring another advertisement text in the pop-up. When the user presses the button, the ad text insertion processing unit (404) calls the ad text reacquisition processing unit (406), and the ad text reacquisition processing unit (406) Is again transmitted to the advertising text request transmission / reception unit (201) of the advertising text server (102). As a result, the above described ad text selection process is repeated in the ad text server (102), and another ad text is returned from the ad text request transmission / reception unit (201) to the ad text reception unit (403) (this process is Not shown). The advertisement part display part (405) replaces the content of the message displayed in the mailer pop-up using the returned advertisement text. Thereby, the user can select another advertising text when the selected advertising text is not what he / she desires.

Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 6, it is desirable to provide a button (“send without insertion”) for transmitting the mail as it is without inserting the advertisement text. When the user presses the button, the advertising text insertion processing unit (404) calls the advertising text insertion cancellation processing unit (406), and the advertising text insertion cancellation processing unit (406) Via e-mail, a request is made to send an e-mail to the mailer (401). That is, the mail is transmitted as it is without changing the body of the electronic mail. This function is useful when the content of the mail is not suitable for insertion of an advertisement text (for example, an apology mail or a condolence mail).

Also, as shown in FIG. 6, it is desirable to provide a cancel button for returning to the e-mail creation screen without inserting an advertisement text or sending an e-mail. When the user presses the button, the advertisement text insertion processing unit (404) calls the advertisement text insertion cancellation processing unit (407), and the advertisement text insertion cancellation processing unit (407) is the mailer cooperation unit (402). The mailer (401) is called via, and the pop-up displayed by the mailer is closed. That is, the screen returns to the e-mail creation screen (this process is not shown).

(Explanation of statistical information management)
As an additional function, the advertisement text server (102) preferably records the statistical information of the used advertisement text and provides a function to be analyzed. For example, the ad text insertion processing unit (404) transmits the identifier of the actually inserted ad text to the ad text request transmission unit (201), and the ad text insertion count recording processing unit (209) uses it for each ad text. It is desirable to record the number of times.

Also, if the ad text contains a URL and the URL contains a tracking code, the access record processing unit (210) manages the number of accesses for each tracking code in the web server (not shown). It is desirable to be able to calculate the advertising effect (such as the ratio of the actual number of accesses to the number of displays (click-through rate)).

Claims (1)

An advertisement providing system comprising a client device provided with an e-mail transmission means and an advertisement text insertion means, and an advertisement text storage means, an advertisement text selection means, and a server device provided with an advertisement text transmission means,
The e-mail transmission means calls the ad text selection means, the ad text selection means selects and reads an ad text from the ad text storage means, and the ad text selection means inserts the ad text into the ad text selection means The advertisement providing system is characterized in that the advertisement text inserting means inserts the advertisement text into the e-mail body.

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