KR100858648B1 - System and method for providing on-line user-assisted web-based advertising - Google Patents

Abstract

A system and method for providing online advertising are provided. An interface is provided to guide the creation of the on-line advertisement. The advertisement includes information describing at least one item generated from stored data and at least one of the user inputs. The ad creative is created in association with the ad and includes a hyperlink reference to the ad. This ad is hosted on-line as a web page and the ad creative is placed on one or more targeted web pages.

Ad creative, ad generation engine, ad creative creator, ad budget specifier, storage.

Description

System and method for providing on-line user-assisted web-based advertising

The present invention relates generally to web-based advertising and, more particularly, to systems and methods for providing on-line user-assisted web-based advertising.

The origin of the Internet dates back to the late 1960s, but the more recently developed worldwide Web ("Web") has revolutionized the performance of access to innumerable amounts of information in electronic form. In particular, the Web offers attractive opportunities for individual advertisers and business owners who want to reach a large audience potentially at low cost.

Efficient on-line advertising over the web requires some form of publication and introduction that describes a product or service sample in a television-like manner. On the web, advertisements may be provided as web pages, which may include hyperlinks to virtual shopping carts, email addresses, and other useful information. However, web-based advertisements, or simply, advertisements, must also be combined with means for driving web traffic through the advertisement. One way to drive web traffic is through the placement of ad creatives on results generated by search engines, web pages targeted by ad engines, and other web pages such as general web content. do. A typical advertising creative, simply “creative”, is a description of a product or service that can be added to an existing web page and potentially include text, images, and other content that directs the user to the web page.

Web-based advertising poses particular problems, especially for individual advertisers. First, it takes considerable time, effort, and skill to create successful advertising creatives that drive web traffic efficiently. The web is primarily a print medium, and creatives often have to be matched within a limited display space, which makes it difficult for newbies to achieve while still providing essential content. In addition, they face the problem of providing prominent and relevant creatives, especially when the creative is displayed with other competing creatives and does not relate to web content but converts.

Web-based advertisements are only efficient when used in a target pool of potential buyers. Web advertising is described in co-transferred US patent application Ser. No. 10 / 676,195, filed September 30, 2003, which is incorporated herein by reference, entitled "System and Method for Automatically Targeting Web-Based Advertisement." By attaching creatives as such, they are targeted to or incorporated into web content. In most cases, however, individual advertisers generally have to specify selection criteria by frequently providing a set of keywords for use in targeting to attract potential buyers. Users may also face the problem of selection of breeders. For example, searching for web content using a query containing the search term "mouse" can generate documents describing long tail small rodents, cartoon characters, and computer pointing devices.

Placing creatives and ads on-line for access by the general web community can cause problems, especially for individual or small advertisers. Ad creatives must be integrated into other web content to drive web traffic efficiently, but advertisers generally cannot unilaterally add creatives to other web pages. There is a need for third-party web content providers, such as search or advertising engines. Small advertisers cannot have an online web presence, so traditional web advertising that drives web traffic to an advertiser's website is not possible.

Therefore, there is a need for a method for providing web-based user-assisted advertising. Such a method requires a user to create advertisements describing samples of goods or services, creatives associated with the advertisement, and advertising budgets. It is preferable to guide. This approach also helps create and host web presence for individuals and other advertisers. This approach also facilitates driving web traffic with hyperlinked advertisements through targeting.

Embodiments are provided for a system and method for providing on-line advertising. An interface is provided to guide the creation of the on-line advertisement. The advertisement includes information describing at least one item generated from stored data and at least one of the user inputs. An ad creative is created in association with the ad and includes a hyperlink reference to the ad. This ad is hosted on-line as a web page and the ad creative is placed on one or more targeted web pages. In another embodiment, an advertising budget is determined that specifies a compensation for the online display of the advertising creative.

Other embodiments of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, illustrating embodiments of the invention illustrating the best mode to be compensated for in order to practice the invention. As will be realized, the invention may be practiced in other and different embodiments, and its several details may be modified in various obvious aspects without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the drawings and detailed description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature and not as restrictive.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a system for providing on-line user assisted web-based advertising in accordance with the present invention.

2 is a process flow diagram illustrating the operation followed to generate a web-based advertisement in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

3A-3F illustrate screen hosts showing web pages that provide, for example, an on-line user-assisted web-based advertisement.

4 is a functional block diagram illustrating a user-assisted ad generation engine according to one embodiment.

5 is a functional block diagram illustrating an ad server according to an embodiment.

6 is a flowchart illustrating a method of providing an on-line user-assisted web-based advertisement according to one embodiment.

7 is a flow chart illustrating a routine for guiding a user for use in the method of FIG.

8 is a flow chart showing a routine for generating an advertisement for use in the routine of FIG.

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram illustrating a routine for creating an advertising creative for use in the routine of FIG.

10 is a flowchart showing a routine for specifying an advertising budget for use in the routine of FIG.

System overview

1 is a block diagram illustrating a system 9 for providing on-line user assisted web-based advertising in accordance with the present invention. Multiple personal client computers 12 are communicatively interfaced to server 11 via an internetwork 10 such as the Internet or other form of communication network as is known to those skilled in the art. Personal client computers 12 process requests for web content, advertisements, other types of content, and other operations through their respective client computers 12 as well as described further in connection with FIG. It is operated by users 19 placing web-based advertisements together.

Each client computer 12 may be any form of computing platform capable of connecting to a network, such as the internetwork 10, and interacting with application programs. Examples of personal clients include, but are not limited to, "interfaced with personal computers, personal digital assistants," smart "cellular phones and pagers, lightweight clients, workstations, application servers, as known to those skilled in the art. Dumb "terminals and their various arrangements and configurations. The internetwork 10 includes, without limitation, various topologies, configurations, and arrangements of network interconnection elements arranged to interoperate with corporate and wide area and premises networks, as known to those skilled in the art. Conventional wired, wireless, satellite, optical and equivalent network technologies.

For web content retrieval, each client computer 12 executes a web browser 18 (" browser "). The web content 23 is requested through the web server 20 running on the server 11. In addition, advertisements ("Ads") 24 may be provided with web content 23 and other content 25 via an ad server ("Ad server") 21 that also runs on server 11. Can be provided. Ad server 21 is a co-transferred US patent application Ser. No. 10 / 676,195, filed September 30, 2003, incorporated herein by reference, entitled “System and Method for Automatically Targeting Web-Based Advertisement”. The advertisement 24 may be targeted to or have web content 23 and other content 25 as described above. Other types of server functionality may be provided as known to those skilled in the art. Web browsing and advertising functions can also be implemented separately as standalone applications.

The server 11 maintains an attached storage device 15 in which web content 23, advertisements 24, and other content 25 are stored. Web content 24, advertisement 24, and other content 25 may also be remotely maintained on other web servers (not shown) that are directly or indirectly interconnected via internetwork 10. It may be preferably accessed by each client computer 12.

Search engine 22 runs on server 11 to process queries for web content 23, advertisements 24, and other content 25. Each query means describing or otherwise identifying information that can potentially be retrieved through the web server 20. This information may include other information determined to be relevant to the query. In one embodiment, each query typically provides characteristics expressed as terms, including individual words and compounds. Search engine 22 receives the query, identifies matching web content 23, advertisements 24 and other content 25 and sends back results that match the query preferences. As is known to those skilled in the art, other styles, forms or queries for definitions, query characteristics and associated metadata are possible.

In one embodiment, the search engine 22 is described, for example, in "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Search Engine" (1998) by S.Brin and L.Page, referenced herein, and on September 4, 2001. Using such techniques as described in US Pat. No. 6,285,999 to Page, the web content 23, advertisements 24 and other content 25 to be determined to be highly relevant for a given set of search query terms are determined. To identify. In identifying matching web content 23, advertisements 24, and other content 25, search engine 22 operates on information characteristics that describe potentially searchable content. The functionality provided by web server 20, server 20 including ad server 21, may be provided by a computing configuration that is loosely or tightly coupled, distributed, or parallelized in addition to a uniprocessing environment.

Personal computer systems, including server 11 and client computers 12, may include a central processing unit (processors 13 and 16 respectively), random access memory (memory 14 and 17, respectively), a hard drive or General purpose programmed digital computing devices including non-volatile auxiliary storage 15, such as a CD ROM drive, network or wireless interfaces, and peripherals including user interfacing means such as keyboards and displays. Program code, including software programs and data, is loaded into RAM for execution and processing by the CPU and the results are generated for display, output, transmission or storage.

process Flow

2 is a process flow diagram 40 illustrating operations 41 followed to generate a web-based advertisement in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The web page is generated including an advertisement describing the items or services that are the subject of the advertisement (operation 42). While the web page generated in one embodiment is described as including an advertisement, in other embodiments of the invention, the web page does not need to include an " ad " and is, for example, another such as information or content related to the advertiser. May include content or products and services offered by an advertiser. An ad creative is created (operation 43). Payment terms can be specified for display of an advertising creative (act 44). Ads and creatives are hosted online (act 45). Each operation 41 is performed directly by the user 19 or through automated means such as pre-filled data fields, user histories, and default preference settings. Can be performed. Pre-filled data fields include data stored using, for example, cookie-based favorites. In addition, the advertising budget may be generated at any point along one or more of ad generation, ad creative generation, and publication.

In some circumstances, each operation 41 is provided to the user 19 via a web interface. 3A-3E are screen shots illustrating web pages that provide, for example, an on-line user assisted web-based advertisement in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Referring first to FIG. 3A, in one embodiment, a screen shot 50 of a web page is provided showing login to a series of web pages that provide guided user-assisted advertisements. Login is optional, but it provides a convenient starting point when creating an ad. In the described embodiment, statistics for all items currently advertised for sale are listed upon successful completion of login. Login allows the new user to proceed through operations 41 by selecting button 51 or by logging in as an existing advertiser via login prompt 52.

Referring next to FIG. 3B, a screen shot 60 showing a web page for entering product information is provided. Via the product information screen 61, an item to be advertised, such as a sale, license, lease or other disposition, is described (operation 42). Alternatively, the service or combination of goods and services may be described. The user can provide the title 63, product description 64, price 65, and contact email address 66, but all the information fields need not be specified and other information instead of or other than the information described above. May also be requested. The full sized advertisement screen 62 displays the advertisement generated as a web page. In additional embodiments, a user may provide a reference to a directly-accessible stored item description that may extract appropriate content. In yet another additional embodiment, a user may provide a hyperlink to an indirectly-accessible stored item description that may extract appropriate content.

Referring next to FIG. 3C, a screen 70 is provided showing a web page for creating an advertising creative 72 and specifying an advertising budget. Prior to entering into the budget specification screen 71, an ad creative 72 is created and displayed (operation 43). In some circumstances, creative 72 is automatically generated based on the product information provided in act 42. The user can then edit the advertising creative 72 by providing a title 73 and a product description 74, but not all information fields need to be specified and other information may also be requested instead of or in addition to the information described above. Can be. The user may also provide payment terms (act 44). The payment terms define payment agreements between the user placing the advertisement and the third advertiser that will host the advertisement creative 72 on-line. Payment terms include, for example, paying a third party advertiser per impression based on web traffic or per click 75, or per conversion based on a percentage or fixed commission of sale price. For payment models per impression or per click, daily budget 76 may also be specified. Other forms of advertising budgets and payment and advertising referral and compensation agreements are possible.

Referring next to FIG. 3D, a screen shot 80 is provided that shows a web page for formalizing the publication of creatives and advertisements. Through the logon screen 81, the user logs in and implicitly authenticates on-line publishing of creatives and advertisements (operation 45). Alternatively, if the user is new, through sign-up screen 82, the user enters identification and acceptance information to authenticate the on-line publishing of the creative and the advertisement. In one embodiment, the advertisement is hosted if the user 19 does not have a web presence to serve the advertisement as a web pager. Other information (not shown in Figure 3D), such as name, address, age, credit card information, etc., may also be provided by the user or advertiser.

Referring next to FIG. 3E, a screen shot 90 is provided showing a web page displaying an advertisement 91. In this embodiment, the hosted web page is an advertisement 91 that provides a user-specific description of the item being advertised. A separate ad creative 72 (not shown in FIG. 3E) is displayed separately on the web pages served by the web server 20 or to the ad 91 by the ad server 21 which drives web traffic. Is targeted. According to the payment terms, the service provider operating the advertisement server 21 may collect a reward for displaying the advertisement creative in accordance with the payment terms.

In other embodiments of the invention, the hosted web page is not limited and does not necessarily include an advertisement of the type as described in connection with FIG. 3E. Instead, for example, a landing web page for the ad creative 72, i. E. A conventional product web page that describes in more detail the product or service offered for sale, the web page to which the ad creative 72 is linked. have. The landing web page may also be a web page on a web site operated by the advertiser, in which case the service provider does not need to provide hosting services for the advertiser. The landing web page may also provide additional functionality such as allowing the visitor to complete a purchase by logically clicking on the appropriate buttons or links. Thus, the landing web page may be a shopping web page, and the service provider may host a store for the advertiser and typically in such online stores as a shopping cart, secure login, account management, credit card acceptance and payment processing, etc. It can provide the function provided. Such functionality is well known to those skilled in the art and, for brevity, will not be described herein any further.

Finally, referring to FIG. 3F, a screen 95 or landing web page 91 showing an advertisement creative 72 associated with an advertisement is provided. Ad creative 72 is part of a set of sponsored links 98 included on a web page that includes a set of search results 92 generated by search engine 22 (shown in FIG. 1). Can be provided. By way of example, search results 97 are generated in response to the execution of query 99 including a search condition “powershot”, but other forms of specifying a query or search criteria are possible. The ad server (shown in Figure 5) is a co-transferred US patent application serial number filed on September 30, 2003, referenced herein, entitled "System and Method for Automatically Targeting Web-Based Advertisement". Advertisement 72 and sponsored links 98 may be targeted for inclusion on a web page by matching the search conditions of query 99 to advertisement 91 as described in 10 / 676,195. In an additional embodiment, a category 96 is also provided that is most closely associated with the search results 97. According to one aspect of the invention, the advertiser does not need to specify targeting information such as keywords to trigger delivery of the ad creative 72 to users: instead, targeting is entered by the advertiser or other stored information. It can be done automatically based on the product, service or other information.

Ad generation engine

4 is a functional block diagram 50 illustrating a user-assisted advertisement generation engine 101 according to one embodiment. The ad generation engine 101 provides an interface to guide the on-line ad generation, which may include the ad 107 and the associated ad creative 108. The ad generation engine 101 may also host the ad 107, or other information related to the advertiser, or products or services provided, or even an online online store, such as a webpage, as described above.

The ad generation engine 101 maintains a connection to the storage device 111 that stores the statistics 112. In one embodiment, performance statistics 112 are generated by ad server 21, search engine 22 for existing on-line ads 24. The ad generation engine 101 provides the statistics 112 to the user for considering the statistics 112 while building the ad 107 and the ad creative 107. Other types of information associated with the online advertisement may also be maintained in the storage device 111.

In summary, the ad generation engine 101 supports the user 19 in building the ad 107 and the ad creative 108 based on the user inputs 105 or optionally stored data 106. The ad generation engine 101 may also support the user 19 when specifying the ad budget 110. The ad generation engine 101 includes an ad generator 102, an ad creative generator 103, and an ad budget specifier 104. Ad generator 102 may include user inputs 105 for use in generating advertisements 107 and ad creatives 108 provided as web pages 90 (shown in FIG. 3E), and Optionally collect and assemble the stored data 106. User inputs 105 are provided manually by the user 19 via a web browser 18 or other interface means. In addition, user inputs 60 may be supplemented by pre-filled data fields. Stored data 59 may be stored in other persistently stored content, including other web content, advertisements and web content 23, advertisements 24, and other content 25 stored by server 11 (shown in FIG. 1). In addition to content, it may include excerpts from files, databases, documents, and other sources. Ad generator 102 may store user inputs 105 and, if applicable, stored data in item description 109, which may also store characteristics relating to the item being advertised.

Similarly, creative creator 103 collects and assembles additional user inputs 105 to generate ad creatives 108. Ad generator 103 may also use the item description 109 defined by ad generator 102 as a basis for ad creatives 108. In a further embodiment, the ad creatives are co-transferred United States of America, filed on December 1, 2003, which is incorporated herein by reference and is entitled "System and Method for Providing Text Summarization for Use in Web-Based Content". Automatically generated from structured data including item description 109 as described in patent application serial number 10 / 725,883.

Finally, the advertising budget specifier 104 generates an advertising budget 110, which is used by the advertising engine 21 when displaying the advertising creative 108. The advertising budget specifier 104 collects and assembles additional user inputs 105 and optionally stored data 106 to determine the advertising budget 110.

Ad generator 102 builds ad 107 as a web page using a pre-defined web-based format. Ad generator 102 also generates one or more ad creatives 108 as ad content that can be added to a web page. Each advertisement 107 may include a body containing an item name and an expanded item name, description, price, category name, advertiser contact information, or other content. Each ad creative 108 is an eye-catching image that can assist in driving web traffic to the associated advertisement 107 as well as information associated with the advertisement 107 and extracted from or associated with the item description 109. other information such as image).

In one embodiment, each advertisement 107 is provided as web content that is recorded in an appropriate variant of the hypertext markup language, such as hypertext markup language (HTML). Although described in connection with product offerings, advertisement 107 may also be used to describe a service or samples associated with a product. Thus, the terms "product" and "service" may likewise be applied to one or both of the product and service samples, except as considered compatible and otherwise explicitly provided.

A personal computer system including an advertisement generation engine 101 may include a central processing unit, random access memory, nonvolatile secondary storage device 61, such as a hard drive or CD ROM drive, network or wireless interfaces, and a keyboard and display. A general-purpose programmed digital computing device including peripheral devices including user interfacing means. Program code, including software programs and data, is loaded into RAM for execution and processing by the CPU and the results are generated for display, output, transmission or storage.

Ad server

5 is a functional block diagram 120 illustrating an advertising server 21 according to one embodiment. The ad server 21 logically places the ad creatives 107 associated with the ads 107 on the targeted web pages 125. In summary, the ad server 21 places the ad creatives 108 on targeted web pages 125 for the advertiser based on the specified ad budget 110. Targeted web pages 125 include third party web pages or search results pages that can be identified through advertisement content targeting, as described below.

The ad server 21 maintains a connection to a storage device 111 that stores statistics 112 and optionally web content 123. Statistics 112 are generated by an ad server 21 or search engine 22 (not shown) for existing on-line ads 24. The ad server 21 provides statistics 112 to the advertiser for consideration while generating the ad 107 and the ad creative 107. In one embodiment, the statistics 112 reflect the frequency and the ad creative 108 is shown and selected for the users. Other statistics and types of information about the online advertisement may also be maintained in the storage device 111.

The ad server 21 includes a targeting element 115 that identifies targets, ads 107 for the query 116. In one embodiment, the identified advertisements 107 are filed on September 30, 2003, incorporated herein by reference, and the co-transferred US entitled “System and Method for Automatically Targeting Web-Based Advertisement” It is preferably scored according to the degree of match between the information and characteristics defined in the identified advertisements 107 as described in patent application serial number 10 / 676,195 and the conditions in the query. The numerical score may be transferred to the identified advertisements 107 based on the degree of consistency and the identified advertisements 107 may be ranked by the numerical score. The ad server 21 then provides one or more of the ad creatives 108 associated with the selected and ranked ads 107 as web content included on the targeted web pages 125. Ad server 21 may also pass through non-targeted web pages 126 without adding ad creatives 108. The introduction of advertisement creatives 108 as well as targeting other forms of advertisements 107 is possible as is known to those skilled in the art.

Method outline

6 is a flowchart illustrating a method 130 for providing an on-line user-assisted web-based advertisement according to one embodiment. The method 130 is described as a sequence of process operations or steps that may be executed by the ad generation engine 101, the ad server 121, or other components.

First, user 19 is guided through the creation of advertisement budget 110 (block 131) as well as advertisement 107 and associated creative 108, as described below in connection with FIG. Optionally, advertisement 107 may be hosted on a web page (block 132) by a third party advertiser if user 19 does not have a web presence. Finally, advertisement 107 was filed on September 30, 2003, incorporated herein by reference, and the co-transferred US patent application Ser. No. 10 entitled “System and Method for Automatically Targeting Web-Based Advertisement”. It is targeted to facilitate the drive of web traffic by placing the relevant ad creative 108 on the targeted web pages 125 (block 133) as described in / 676,195. The routine then ends.

User Guide Routines

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram illustrating a routine 136 for guiding a user 19 for use in the method of FIG. One purpose of this routine is to guide the user in the creation of an advertisement describing a sample of goods or services, a creative 108 associated with the advertisement 107, and an advertising budget 110.

First, the item to be advertised in the advertisement 107 for goods or services is described as described below in connection with FIG. 8 (block 137). Next, the ad creative 108 is created as described below in connection with FIG. 9 (block 138). Finally, the sales budget 110 is specified as described below with respect to FIG. 10 (block 137). The routine then returns.

Ad generation routines

8 is a flow diagram illustrating a routine 104 for generating an advertisement 107 for use in the routine 136 of FIG. One purpose of this routine is to build an item description 109 for use in the advertisement 107.

If item description 109 is based on user inputs (block 141), user inputs 105 are received as item description 19 from user 19, such as via product information screen 61 (shown in FIG. 3B). (Block 142). Alternatively, if the item description 109 is based on stored information that can be accessed directly, that is, continuously stored as the stored data 106 (block 143) (block 141), the stored data 106 is the item description 109. Open as block (144). Based on the stored information that the item information 109 can be accessed indirectly, i.e., provided as a hyperlinked web page (block 143) (block 141), the hyperlinked web page is retrieved as an item description 109. (Block 145). If necessary, item description 109 is filed on September 30, 2003, incorporated herein by reference, to co-transferred US patent application Ser. No. 60 / 507,617, entitled "System and Methods for Information Extraction." Extracted as described (block 146). Finally, a web page that includes item description 109 is generated as advertisement 107 (block 147). This routine is then returned.

Advertising Creative  Generation routines

9 is a flow diagram illustrating a routine 150 for creating an advertising creative for use with the routine 136 of FIG. One purpose of this routine is to create an advertising creative 108.

In one embodiment, the ad creative 108 is co-transferred with the pending invention filed on Dec. 1, 2003, referenced herein, "System and Method for Providing Text Summarization for Use in Web-Based Content". Can be automatically generated from item description 109 as described in US patent application Ser. No. 10 / 725,883. Alternatively, if the ad creative 108 is based on user inputs 105 (block 151), the user inputs 105 may be placed on the user via a budget specification screen 71 (shown in FIG. 3C). Received as advertisement creative 108 from 19 (block 152). Alternatively, if the advertising creative 108 is directly accessible, ie based on the stored information that is continuously stored as the stored data 106 (block 151), this stored data 106 is opened as the advertising creative 108. (Block 154). Finally, if item information 109 is indirectly accessible, ie based on stored information provided as a hyperlinked web page (block 151), the hyperlinked web page is retrieved as advertisement creative 108 (block 155). If necessary, item description 109 is filed on September 30, 2003, incorporated herein by reference, to co-transferred US patent application Ser. No. 60 / 507,617, entitled "System and Methods for Information Extraction." Extracted as described (block 146). Web content including the ad creative 108 is generated from the item description 109 (block 157). Finally, the user 19 can optionally edit the advertising creative 108 (block 158). The routine then returns.

Ad budget spec routine

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating a routine 160 for specifying an advertising budget 110 for use in the routine 136 of FIG. One purpose of this routine is to define payment arrangements between the user 19 and a third party advertiser. Advertising budgets include, for example, paying a third party advertiser per impression based on web traffic or per click, a percentage of sale price or a conversion based on a fixed commission. Other forms of advertising budgets are possible.

Thus, if the user 19 represents the cost per impression through the advertising budget specification interface 92 (block 161), the cost per impression 97 is obtained (block 162). Similarly, if user 19 represents an unfair cost per click (block 163), the cost per click 99 is obtained (block 164). If the user 19 represents the cost per conversion (block 165), then the cost per conversion 101 is obtained (block 166). If the user 199 exhibits a cost per other type of cost (block 167), this cost is obtained (block 168). The total cost that the user 19 can bear is calculated (block 169) and the routine returns.

While the present invention has been shown and described in particular with respect to always-on embodiments, those skilled in the art will understand that changes may be made to the above without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

Claims (35)

delete In a system for providing on-line advertising, An advertising creative interface that defines the appearance and content of an advertising creative using at least one of user inputs and stored data, the advertising creative including a hyperlink reference to a web page; An indexer for identifying one or more advertisements related to a query, wherein the identified advertisements describe characteristics related to at least one item; A scorer for scoring the advertisements based on the degree of matching between the query and the characteristics of the identified advertisements; And, And a targeting element for presenting the advertising creative associated with at least one corresponding advertisement as web-based content on one or more targeted web pages. The method of claim 2, At least some of the identified advertisements are ranked by numerical score. The method of claim 2, At least some of the advertisements are provided as the web-based content in response to selection of a hyperlink reference of the associated advertisement creative. The method of claim 2, And the advertising creative is targeted by associating the item description with one or more query conditions. delete delete The method of claim 2, And an advertising budget interface for determining an advertising budget that specifies a reward associated with the advertising creative. The method of claim 8, The advertising budget includes a budgeted amount of compensation per unit of time, on-line advertising providing system. The method of claim 8, Rewards are collected for on-line publishing of the advertising creative in accordance with the advertising budget. The method of claim 8, Wherein the advertising budget is based on at least one of per impression of the formatted advertisement, per click of the formatted advertisement, and per conversion of the at least one item. The method of claim 2, The item description includes at least one of text, an image, a price, contact information, and payment information. The method of claim 2, The stored data comprises at least one of directly accessible data and a hyperlinked web page. delete In the method for providing on-line advertising, Generating an appearance and content for an advertising creative via an advertising creative interface using at least one of user inputs and stored data, the advertising creative comprising a hyperlink reference to a web page; Identifying one or more advertisements related to the query, wherein the identified advertisements describe characteristics relating to at least one item; Scoring the advertisements based on the degree of matching between the query and the characteristics of the identified advertisements; And, Providing on the one or more targeted web pages advertising creative associated with at least one such advertisement as web-based content. The method of claim 15, Ranking at least some of the identified advertisements by the numerical score. The method of claim 15, Providing at least some of the advertisements as the web-based content in response to selecting a hyperlink reference of the associated advertisement creative. The method of claim 15, Targeting the advertisement creative by associating the item description with one or more query conditions. delete delete The method of claim 15, Determining an advertising budget that specifies a reward associated with the advertising creative. The method of claim 21, The advertising budget includes a budgeted amount of compensation per unit of time, on-line advertising providing method. The method of claim 21, Collecting rewards for on-line publishing of the advertising creative in accordance with the advertising budget. The method of claim 21, Wherein the advertising budget is based on at least one of per impression of the formatted advertisement, per click of the formatted advertisement, and per conversion of the at least one item. The method of claim 15, And the item description comprises at least one of text, image, price, contact information, and payment information. The method of claim 15, And the stored data comprises at least one of directly accessible data and a hyperlinked web page. A computer-readable storage medium containing code for performing a method according to claim 15. delete An apparatus for providing on-line advertising, Means for defining the appearance and content of an advertising creative using at least one of user inputs and stored data, the advertising creative including a hyperlink reference to a web page; Means for identifying one or more advertisements related to the query, wherein the identified advertisements describe characteristics relating to at least one item; Means for scoring the advertisements based on a degree of matching between the query and the characteristics of the identified advertisements; And, Means for providing the advertising creative associated with at least one corresponding advertisement as web-based content on one or more targeted web pages. The method of claim 2, And an advertising interface for generating, from at least one of the user inputs and the stored data, an advertisement comprising information describing at least one item. The method of claim 30, At least some of the information is included in the advertising creative. The method of claim 30, And an advertising creative generator for automatically generating the advertising creative from the information. The method of claim 15, Generating from the at least one of the user inputs and the stored data an advertisement comprising information describing the at least one item. The method of claim 33, wherein And including at least a portion of the information in the advertising creative. The method of claim 33, wherein Automatically generating the advertising creative from the information.

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