RU2383927C2 - System and method for automatically linking advertiser and consumer through telephone connection - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: physics; communication.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to apparatus for automatically linking an advertiser and a consumer through a telephone connection in a dial-up network. In the method and system, advertisements and telephone numbers of advertisers are stored through a switching subsystem. Search information entered by a consumer is received using a search system and key data formed based on the entered information are sent to the switching subsystem. Stored advertisements are extracted through the switching subsystem based in the key data and the extracted advertisements are sent to the search system. Using the search system, the telephone number of a consumer is sent to the switching subsystem in accordance with the selected advertisement. A telephone connection is established between the consumer and the advertiser through call initiation in a telephone network between telephone numbers of consumers and an advertiser through a telephone subsystem.

EFFECT: possibility of direct telephone connection between an advertiser and a consumer, as well as minimisation of contact data search time in a telephone network.

11 cl, 2 dwg

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to computing and communication networks, and more particularly to a system and method for automatically linking an advertiser and a consumer via a telephone connection.

State of the art

Currently, the world knows and widely disseminates systems for placing contextual advertising on the Internet with payment for switching to the advertiser's website (“ pay-per-click ”). The most famous examples of these systems are Overture (see http://overture.com), Google Adsence / Adwords (see https://adwords.google.com).

Contextual advertising systems, despite the advantages over advertising in the media, have several disadvantages. In particular, the person who visited the Web site does not have direct communication with the advertiser’s employee, which implies the impossibility of influencing the potential consumer’s reaction through personal influence.

Contextual advertising implements a two-stage interaction system, the result of which is the consumer receiving information about the product / service that interests him, which essentially leads the parties to a buying scheme for catalogs (through information available on the advertiser's website).

An alternative to the above contextual advertising systems is “ pay-per-call ” systems that provide a clearer and more transparent payment scheme - for phone contact with an interested consumer. The consumer who left the phone to communicate with the advertiser is a potential buyer, and the success of the sale depends solely on the sales technology and the personal qualities of the advertiser's manager communicating with the consumer. This approach is more preferable for advertisers for whom sales by voice work better than posting any information on a Web site. Such advertisers include almost all companies whose advertisements are already informative enough to immediately place an order, or, conversely, the advertised product is easier to discuss by phone than to study on a Web site.

There are known pay-per-call systems developed by Ingenio (see http://ingenio.com) and Miva (see http://miva.com). For their implementation, it is necessary to create for each advertiser a specially tracked number in the free zone of telephone numbers 1-800, calls to which are recorded and sent to the advertiser. The main disadvantages are that a large number of phone numbers is needed (the number of advertising sites multiplied by the number of ads), and that the consumer needs to switch his attention from the Internet to the phone.

Similar technical solutions are also disclosed in US 5799285, characterized by downloading special software and placing advertisements based on text sent by phone, in US 7,054,857, characterized by the selection of advertisements corresponding to the interests of users, and in RU 2254611, which describes the sending of electronic or SMS messages . Any of these technical solutions is characterized by the absence of a mechanism that provides the ability to automate the connection of the consumer and the advertiser through the telephone network.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An object of the present invention is to provide a system and method for automatically linking an advertiser and a consumer via a telephone connection, which would ensure transparent interaction between the advertiser and the consumer with a minimum of their efforts and efficient spending of money.

To solve the above problem, a system is provided for automatically linking the advertiser and the consumer via a telephone connection, containing a switching subsystem, a search subsystem, and a telephone subsystem connected to a telephone communication network.

The search subsystem is configured to provide the consumer with the ability to enter information intended for the search for advertisements and the telephone number of the consumer;

generation of key data corresponding to the information entered by the consumer intended for the search for advertisements, and transmission of the generated key data to the switching subsystem; receiving advertisements from the switching subsystem and displaying the received advertisements to the consumer; and providing the consumer telephone number with the switching subsystem.

The switching subsystem is made with the possibility of interaction with advertisers in order to receive from each of them and then save the advertisement and telephone number of the advertiser; extracting one or more advertisements from the stored advertisements based on key data received from the search subsystem and transmitting the extracted advertisements to the search subsystem; transmitting to the telephone subsystem the consumer’s telephone number and advertiser’s telephone number received from the search subsystem.

The telephone subsystem is configured to establish a telephone connection between the consumer and the advertiser by initiating a call in the telephone network between the telephone numbers of the consumer and the advertiser received from the switching system.

In a preferred embodiment, the telephone subsystem is further configured to determine the duration of the telephone conversation between the advertiser and the consumer and provide information about the results of determining the switching subsystem, and the switching subsystem is further configured to calculate the cost of the telephone conversation based on the information received from the telephone subsystem.

To solve the above problem is also provided a method for automatically linking the advertiser and the consumer through a telephone connection, performed by the proposed system. According to the method, advertisers and advertisers' phone numbers and numbers are stored by the switching subsystem. The information entered by the consumer intended for the search for advertisements is received, and the key data generated on the basis of this information is transmitted to the switching subsystem via the search subsystem. One or more advertisements are retrieved from the stored advertisements based on key data received from the search subsystem, and the extracted advertisements are transmitted to the search subsystem via the switching subsystem. The consumer’s telephone number is transmitted to the switching subsystem in response to a consumer choosing an advertisement from said extracted advertisements by means of a search subsystem. The telephone subsystem received from the search subsystem transmit the telephone number of the consumer and the telephone number of the advertiser corresponding to the selected advertisement by means of the switching subsystem. A telephone connection is established between the consumer and the advertiser by initiating a call on the telephone network between the telephone numbers of the consumer and the advertiser received from the switching system through the telephone subsystem.

In a preferred embodiment, the duration of the telephone conversation between the advertiser and the consumer is additionally determined and information about the results of determining the switching subsystem by means of the telephone subsystem is provided and the cost of the telephone conversation is calculated based on the information received from the telephone subsystem by means of the switching subsystem.

The present invention allows to implement a multi-stage system that provides the possibility of verbal interaction between the advertiser and the consumer when choosing and buying the advertised products.

For the advertiser, the present invention eliminates the direct use of the Internet and optimizes the cost of paying for communication services, as well as increasing the efficiency of investments in advertising products sold, including the effectiveness of contextual advertising, since it provides the ability to track the effectiveness of the use of funds aimed at advertising products.

The consumer, using the present invention, is able to minimize the effort to find the necessary contact information on the corresponding Web site and get direct contact with a competent employee of the advertiser. To ensure interaction with the advertiser, the consumer, in essence, only performs actions on indicating the phone number used by him for communication.

List of drawings

The above and other features and advantages of the present invention are disclosed in the following description of a preferred embodiment, given with reference to the drawings, in which

FIG. 1 is a general diagram of a system for automatically linking an advertiser and a consumer via a telephone connection according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a method for automatically linking an advertiser and a consumer via a telephone connection according to the present invention.

Description of a preferred embodiment of the invention

The present invention involves the use of a number of approaches implemented in contextual advertising systems, with the subsequent expansion of their functionality. A significant difference from contextual advertising is the approach to the interaction between the advertiser and the consumer, leading to direct communication between the advertiser and the consumer.

Next, with reference to FIG. 1, a general description is given of a system 100 for automatically connecting an advertiser and a consumer via a telephone connection in accordance with the present invention.

As follows from FIG. 1, the system 100 includes a search subsystem 110 , hereinafter referred to as an advertising platform, a switching subsystem 120 and a telephone subsystem 130 .

Advertising platform 110 is intended for direct interaction with the consumer and, in essence, is a regular Internet server connected to the Internet, which hosts the website of the advertising platform, providing a textual or preferably graphical interface for interacting with the consumer, including receiving from the consumer the information entered by him and the presentation of certain results to him, according to the present invention. Physically, the Web server can be a separate computer server, composed of software and hardware components known to those skilled in the art, or a combination of such server computers combined to jointly implement the prescribed functionality. To interact with the advertising platform 110, the consumer can use any known terminal equipment that supports the ability to access Web sites via the Internet (for example, through a web browser running on this equipment). Such equipment may be, for example, a suitably configured personal / laptop / handheld computer, a mobile terminal, etc. The interaction between the terminal equipment and the advertising platform 110 is carried out in a well-known manner based on the protocol stack http / tcp / ip, and this stack should not be considered as a limiting example.

The telephone subsystem 130 is designed to establish a telephone connection between two subscribers, to provide the possibility of initiating such connections on demand and to ensure the calculation of their statistics. This subsystem is a specialized server (s), the basic layout of which is much similar to the layout of the server advertising platform 110 . This server, in addition to conventional network interfaces, is additionally equipped with specialized hardware and software interfaces for connecting to providers of access to telephone communication systems. In addition, the mentioned server provides specialized software for processing requests for establishing / initiating telephone connections and processing such connections themselves. The preferred implementation is ip-telephony or traditional digital telephony, and in the first case, the mentioned connection is based on such communication protocols as H.323, SIP or the like.

The switching subsystem 120 plays a key role in the present invention and interacts directly with the advertising platform 110 and the telephone subsystem 130 . The switching subsystem 120 is intended for direct interaction with advertisers in order to receive and subsequently save advertisements, to extract advertisements from saved advertisements based on information received from the advertising platform 110 and to transmit the extracted advertisements to the advertising platform 110 , and to request from the telephone subsystem 130 establishing a telephone connection between the consumer and the advertiser.

The technical implementation of the switching subsystem 120 is largely similar to the server implementation of the advertising platform 110 , while the switching subsystem 120 additionally provides specialized software to perform the functions described above.

The interaction between the switching subsystem 120 and each of the advertising platform 110 and the telephone subsystem 130 is carried out via the Internet based on a protocol stack, preferably secure, http / tcp / ip, which is known to those skilled in the art.

The interaction of the advertiser with the switching subsystem 120 is implemented similarly to the above-described interaction of the consumer with the advertising platform 110 , i.e. by contacting the advertiser through a Web browser on their terminal equipment to the corresponding Web site provided by the switching subsystem 120 .

Advertisements in the switching subsystem 120 are preferably stored in a database, the main operations in relation to which (placement / retrieval / retrieval of information) are implemented by known software technologies for working with databases. The database itself can be both part of the switching subsystem 120 , and can be located separately from it with the ability to exchange data with it.

Next, with reference to FIG. 2, a method for automatically linking an advertiser and a consumer via a telephone connection according to the present invention implemented by the above system will be described. According to the description below, one advertiser and one consumer are connected, however, as it should be obvious to a person skilled in the art, the proposed system provides the possibility of pairwise linking of many advertisers with many consumers.

At step 210, the advertiser, through a Web browser on his terminal equipment, accesses the Web site of the switching subsystem 120 and places advertisements using it. Each ad is associated with keywords corresponding to the subject of the ad, and these keywords can be entered manually by the advertiser, or generated automatically in the switching subsystem 120 , for example, by means of software-parsed ads.

When placing an advertisement, the advertiser has the opportunity to specify additional attributes of the advertisement - a phone number and the maximum cost of connecting with a consumer.

Before placing an ad in the database, it undergoes moderation, in which the correspondence of keywords specified by the advertiser with the subject of the ad is checked. Moderation is carried out in accordance with formalized requirements programmatically automatically with the possibility of subsequent monitoring by a person.

Finally, the advertisements submitted by the applicant and the additional information associated with them are added to the database.

At step 220, the consumer, through a Web browser on his terminal equipment, accesses the specific Web page of the Web site of the advertising platform 110 in order to obtain the advertisements of interest to him. With this appeal, keywords are generated in the advertising platform 110 . Keywords are generated either on the basis of a search query entered by the consumer, or on the basis of the subject of the page, which is analyzed automatically by the software of advertising platform 110 . It is also possible to specify keywords for each Web page manually or use other sources of keywords. The generated keywords are transmitted by the advertising platform 110 to the switching subsystem 120 .

At step 230, the switching subsystem 120 generates a response to the advertising platform 110 using a selection from the database of relevant announcements and associated additional information, the ads for which the keywords correspond to the keywords transmitted by the site are sampled. These ads form an ad unit intended for presentation to the consumer. Ads in an ad unit may be sorted in some way.

For advertisements with the filled-in attribute “telephone number”, the switching subsystem 120 includes an additional program code in the generated response to the advertising platform 110 , which is designed to generate a form for entering the telephone number for the consumer when executed in the advertising platform 110 .

At step 240, the switching subsystem 120 transmits the generated response to the advertising platform 110 .

Upon receipt of a response from the switching subsystem 120 at step 250, the advertising platform 110 displays to the consumer an ad unit from the response by including it in a web page. Next to the ads that have the attribute “phone number”, an icon (or indication / message otherwise presented) appears, indicating that under this announcement the consumer can contact the advertiser by phone. Advertisements for which the “phone number” attribute is empty are displayed in the standard way.

At step 260, the consumer, in case of interest in the services of the advertiser, activates the icon, for example, using the mouse. As a result, the aforementioned program code is called, which generates an input form on the displayed Web page for the consumer to enter his phone number. Next, the consumer enters his phone number into the input form, and the advertising platform sends the entered phone number to the switching subsystem 120 at step 270 .

At step 280, the switching subsystem 120 receives from the advertising platform 110 the telephone number of the consumer entered in the input form and sends the given telephone number and the corresponding telephone number of the advertiser to the telephone subsystem 130 in a connection request.

Upon receipt of the request at step 290, the telephone subsystem 130 checks whether the presented telephone numbers are correct, whether communication with them is possible, and whether restrictions on the cost of a minute are violated. If the test fails, at step 300, the telephone subsystem 130 sends an error message to the switching subsystem 120 , otherwise at step 310, the telephone subsystem 130 attempts to initiate a telephone connection between the consumer and the advertiser using access providers in the appropriate directions.

Initiating a telephone connection, the telephone subsystem 130 performs as follows. A phone call is initiated to the advertiser. After connecting to the line, a message is played, notifying the advertiser that the call came from the telephone subsystem 130 , with a request to wait for a connection with the consumer. Next, a telephone call is initiated to the consumer. Upon successful connection establishment, the call duration charging starts. A reverse interaction scheme is also possible, in which a call is first initiated to the consumer, and then to the advertiser.

Upon termination of a call in step 320, a telephone subsystem 130 sends to the switch subsystem 120 Statistics compound (in particular, call duration) for calculating the value of a call which is executed switching subsystem 120 at step 330.

The payment for the services rendered can be calculated for the fact of the connection, for the temporary maintenance of the connection, or jointly from the cost of the connection and the temporary service of the connection. Payment by the advertiser of the consumed services can be made both on the basis of an advance payment with its further decrease by the cost of the services rendered, and upon the provision of services. Charging takes place using known means of payment including, but not limited to, non-cash means of payment, cash.

The invention has been disclosed above with reference to a specific embodiment. For specialists in this field of technology may be obvious and other embodiments of the invention, not changing its essence, as it is disclosed in the present description. Accordingly, the invention should be considered limited in scope only by the following claims.

Claims (11)

1. A method for automatically linking an advertiser and a consumer via a telephone connection, performed by a network system including interconnected switching subsystem, search subsystem and telephone subsystem, comprising the steps of:
accept, through the switching subsystem, advertisers and advertisers phone numbers from advertisers;
by means of the switching subsystem, they save received advertisements and telephone numbers of advertisers;
by means of a search subsystem, information entered by the consumer for searching advertisements is received;
generate key data through the search subsystem based on the received information;
transmit the generated key data to the switching subsystem through the search subsystem;
retrieving through the switching subsystem one or more of the stored advertisements based on key data received from the search subsystem;
transmit, through the switching subsystem, the extracted advertisements to the search subsystem;
transmit by means of a search subsystem to the switching subsystem the consumer’s telephone number corresponding to the advertisement selected by the consumer from said extracted advertisements;
transmit by means of the switching subsystem to the telephone subsystem the telephone number of the consumer received from the search subsystem and the telephone number of the advertiser corresponding to the selected advertisement;
establish, by means of the telephone subsystem, an automatic telephone connection between the consumer and the advertiser by initiating a call in the telephone network between the telephone numbers of the consumer and the advertiser received from the switching system. 2. The method according to claim 1, additionally containing stages in which:
determine, by means of the telephone subsystem, the duration of the telephone conversation between the advertiser and the consumer;
provide, via the telephone subsystem, information about the results of this definition to the switching subsystem and
calculate, by means of the switching subsystem, the cost of a telephone conversation based on the information received from the telephone subsystem. 3. The method according to claim 1, in which at the stage of generating key data, manually associated keywords associated with said announcements are entered as said key data. 4. The method according to claim 1, in which, at the stage of generating key data, keywords associated with said ads are entered as said key data automatically by generating parsing of ads using a software program implemented in the search subsystem. 5. The method according to claim 1, in which at the stage of establishing an automatic telephone connection, a telephone call is first initiated to the advertiser, after connecting to the line, a message is received about a call from the telephone subsystem asking to wait for a connection with the consumer, and a telephone call is initiated to the consumer. 6. The method according to claim 1, in which at the stage of establishing an automatic telephone connection, a telephone call is first initiated to the consumer, and then a telephone call is initiated to the advertiser. 7. A system for automatically linking an advertiser and a consumer through a telephone connection, containing an interconnected switching subsystem, a search subsystem and a telephone subsystem,
the search subsystem is configured to:
providing the consumer with the ability to enter information intended for the search for advertisements and the telephone number of the consumer;
generating key data corresponding to the search information entered by the consumer, and transmitting the generated key data to the switching subsystem;
receiving advertisements from the switching subsystem and displaying received advertisements to the consumer and
providing the switching subsystem with the consumer phone number;
the switching subsystem is configured to:
interaction with advertisers in order to receive from each of them and then save the advertisement and the advertiser's phone number;
extracting one or more of the saved advertisements based on key data received from the search subsystem and transmitting the extracted advertisements to the search subsystem;
transmitting to the telephone subsystem the consumer’s telephone number and advertiser’s telephone number received from the search subsystem;
the telephone subsystem is configured to: establish an automatic telephone connection between the consumer and the advertiser by initiating a call in the telephone network between the telephone numbers of the consumer and the advertiser received from the switching system. 8. The system according to claim 7, in which the telephone subsystem is additionally configured to determine the duration of the telephone conversation between the advertiser and the consumer and provide information about the results of determining the switching subsystem, and the switching subsystem is further configured to calculate the cost of the telephone conversation based on the information received from the telephone subsystem. 9. The system of claim 7, wherein the search subsystem is further programmed to automatically parse ads to identify keywords and to associate identified keywords with these ads as said key data. 10. The system according to claim 7, in which the telephone subsystem is additionally configured to establish an automatic telephone connection by initiating a telephone call to the advertiser, after connecting to the play line, a message is received informing you to wait for a connection with the consumer, and initiating a telephone call to the consumer. 11. The system of claim 7, wherein the telephone subsystem is further configured to establish an automatic telephone connection by initiating a telephone call to a consumer and then initiating a telephone call to the advertiser.

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