Method and apparatus to provide pay-per-call performance based advertising
View Patent ↗In one embodiment, the invention provides a method. The method includes assigning a unique telephone number to an advertiser; providing an advertisement on a media channel on behalf of the advertiser, the advertisement including one of the unique telephone number and a reference to the unique telephone number; monitoring telephone calls to the unique telephone number; and billing the advertiser for telephone calls to the unique telephone number in accordance with a predefined model.
1. A method, comprising:
assigning a real-time communication reference to be included in an advertisement, the real-time communication reference to be used to communicate with an advertiser via a non-web based communication;
monitoring communications to the advertiser via the communication reference; and
billing the advertiser a predetermined fee for the advertisement in response to an initiation of the communication connected to the advertiser via the communication reference.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
providing the advertisement on at least one of: a web-based channel, a telephone-based advertising service, an email channel, an instant message channel, and an online chat channel.
3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising providing an interface to facilitate creation of the advertisement.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the interface is web-based.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the communication reference comprises a telephone number; and the billing comprises billing a flat fee to be paid by the advertiser per telephone call connected to the advertiser via the telephone number.
6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
providing the advertisement on a media channel including an Internet.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the reference includes a hyper-link to be selected by a user to initiate a communication to the advertiser.
8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
a first party providing advertisements on a media channel on behalf of multiple advertisers, the advertisements to include at least a reference to a real-time communication connection with the respective advertisers; and
the first party collecting a fee from the respective advertisers in response to a real-time communication connection being established between the respective advertiser and a user.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the real time communication reference includes a reference to be selected by a user to initiate a voice-over IP telephone call to the advertiser.
10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: providing the advertisement in response to a search submitted by a user.
11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
providing the advertisement in response to a search submitted by a user for a subject matter.
12. The method of claim 3 , further comprising:
receiving a bid from a first advertiser to place a corresponding advertisement in a prominent location on the media relative to a location without the bid;
comparing the bid from the first advertiser to bids from other advertisers; and
in response to the bid from the first advertiser being higher than the bids from the other advertisers, placing the corresponding advertisement in the prominent location.
13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the communications include telephonic communications.
14. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a price bid from the advertiser;
wherein the predetermined fee is associated with the price bid received from the advertiser, wherein the price bid received from the advertiser is not conditioned on receiving a bid on a telephone number.
15. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
providing the advertisement on a digital video or audio program.
16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the communications comprise at least one of: Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communications, VoIP to VoIP, and VoIP to Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).
17. The method of claim 1 , wherein the real-time communication reference is a telephonic real-time communication reference.
18. The method of claim 1 , wherein the real-time communication reference is a reference to establish a communication connection for two way real-time communication.
19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the two way real-time communication comprises voice communication.
20. The method of claim 18 , wherein the two way real-time communication comprises one of: instant message and chat.
21. A system, comprising:
a first unit to assign a real-time communication reference to be included in an advertisement, the real-time communication reference to be used to communicate with an advertiser via a non-web based communication;
a third unit to monitor communications to the advertiser via the communication reference; and
a fourth unit to bill the advertiser a predetermined fee for the advertisement in response to an initiation of the communication connected to the advertiser via the communication reference.
22. The system of claim 21 , further comprising a unit to allow an advertiser to associate a key word with text of the advertisement.
23. The system of claim 21 , further comprising a unit to allow the advertiser to bid for the placement of the advertisement within a results page generated by a search engine.
24. The system of claim 21 , further comprising a unit to allow the advertiser to input a geographic location to be associated with the advertisement.
25. The system of claim 21 , further comprising a syndication engine to syndicate the advertisement to a channel for presentation.
26. The system of claim 21 , wherein the real-time communication reference comprises a telephonic reference; and the first unit comprises telephone number auto generation logic to automatically generate the telephonic reference.
27. The system of claim 21 , wherein the first unit is to create a click to call reference which when selected by a user who views the advertisement, causes a communication to a telephonic reference to be initiated.
28. The system of claim 21 , wherein the third unit is configured to not bill for repeat telephone calls made from a same telephone to a telephonic reference, within a predefined period.
29. A computer-readable medium, having stored thereon a sequence of instruction, which when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform a method comprising:
assigning a real-time communication reference to be included in an advertisement, the real-time communication reference to be used to communicate with an advertiser via a non-web based communication;
monitoring communications to the advertiser via the communication reference; and
billing the advertiser a predetermined fee for the advertisement in response to an initiation of the communication connected to the advertiser via the communication reference.
30. A method, comprising:
in response to receiving requests from a set advertisers, assigning the advertisers with separate communication references for their respective advertisements which can be displayed concurrently, the real-time communication references to be used to communicate with an advertisers via a non-web based communications;
monitoring communications to the advertisers via the communication references; and
billing an advertiser a predetermined fee for a corresponding advertisement in response to an initiation of a communication connected to the advertiser via a communication reference.
31. A method, comprising:
assigning a first communication reference to a first advertiser, the first communication reference to be used in a first advertisement and to communicate with the first advertiser via a non-web based communication;
assigning a second communication reference to a second advertiser, the second communication reference to be used in a second advertisement and to communicate with the second advertiser via a non-web based communication, wherein the second and first advertisement can be displayed concurrently;
monitoring communications to the first advertiser via the first communication reference and communications to the second advertiser via the second communication reference;
billing the second advertiser a predetermined fee for the second advertisement in response to an initiation of the communication connected to the second advertiser via the second communication reference.
32. A method, comprising:
assigning a first communication reference to a first advertiser, the first communication reference to be used in a first advertisement and to communicate with the first advertiser via a non-web based communication;
assigning a second communication reference to a second advertiser, the second communication reference to be used in a second advertisement and to communicate with the second advertiser via a non-web based communication, wherein the second and first advertisements can be displayed concurrently;
monitoring communications to the first advertiser via the first communication reference and communications to the second advertiser via the second communication reference;
billing the first advertiser a predetermined fee for the first advertisement per communication connected to the first advertiser via the first communication reference; and
billing the second advertiser a predetermined fee for the second advertisement hi per communication connected to the second advertiser via the second communication reference.
33. The method of claim 32 , wherein the communications to the first advertiser via the first communication reference comprise telephonic communications.
34. The method of claim 32 , wherein the first advertisement and the second advertisement are for a common field of service.
35. A method, comprising:
assigning to an advertiser a placement for an undefined advertisement and a communication reference for the advertisement, the communication reference be used to communicate with the advertiser via a non-web based communication;
monitoring communications to the advertiser via the communication reference; and
billing the advertiser a predetermined fee for the advertisement in response to an initiation of the communication connected to the advertiser via the communication reference.
36. The method of claim 35 , wherein the communications to the advertiser via the communication comprise telephonic communications.
37. The method of claim 35 , further comprising:
supporting the advertiser to define the advertisement, the advertisement to include the communication reference.
38. A method, comprising:
assigning a communication reference to an advertiser to be included in an advertisement, the communication reference assigned independent of a price to be paid by the advertiser for the advertisement, the communication reference be used to communicate with the advertiser via a non-web based communication;
monitoring communications to the advertiser via the communication reference; and
billing the advertiser a predetermined fee for the advertisement in response to an initiation of the communication connected to the advertiser via the communication reference.
39. The method of claim 38 , wherein the communications comprise telephonic communications.
40. The method of claim 39 , further comprising:
receiving advertisement information from the advertiser; and
providing an advertisement including the communication reference to identify the advertiser and the advertisement information for the advertiser.
41. The method of claim 39 , further comprising:
providing the advertisement on a media channel selected by the advertiser.
42. The method of claim 39 , further comprising:
receiving a price bid from the advertiser, the bid to be used to determine a placement for the advertiser's advertisement relative to other advertisements;
wherein said billing the advertiser comprises billing the advertiser according to the price bid.
43. The method of claim 39 , wherein the advertisement to be bid on by the advertiser is exclusive of a communication reference when bid upon by the advertiser.
44. The method of claim 39 , wherein the communication reference is unique relative to separate advertisers.
45. The method of claim 39 , wherein the communication reference is unique relative to separate advertisements.
46. The method of claim 39 , wherein said assigning comprises assigning separate communication references in response to requests from the separate advertisers.
47. The method of claim 39 , wherein the communication reference comprises a telephone number, and the method further comprises avoiding billing the advertiser for repeat telephone calls made within a predefined period from a same telephone number.
48. A method, comprising:
providing a communication reference to be included in an advertisement for an advertiser, without the advertiser having to bid to receive the communication reference, the communication reference be used to communicate with the advertiser via a non-web based communication;
monitoring communications to the advertiser via the communication reference; and
billing the advertiser a predetermined fee for the advertisement in response to an initiation of the communication connected to the advertiser via the communication reference.