Methods and apparatuses for pay for lead advertisements
View Patent ↗Methods and apparatuses for advertising where the performance is determined via tracking the communication leads generated from the advertisements. One embodiment includes: providing an advertisement on behalf of a specific party; and charging an advertisement fee responsive to a customer making a request for an in person communication with the specific party via the advertisement.
1. A method, comprising:
providing, via a computing device, to a user an advertisement on behalf of the advertiser of the advertisement, the advertisement including a communication reference to the advertiser, including contact information for addressing a request message by the user of the communication reference to establish a communication link through a first session initiation protocol message connection server;
receiving from the user a transmission of a request message comprising a request to establish the communication link to the advertiser using the request message to define the advertiser end point of the communication link;
establishing the communication link to the advertiser using the request message through one of the first session initiation protocol message connection server forwarding the request message to a second session initiation protocol message connection server of the advertiser, addressing a separate session initiation protocol request message to establish a second communication link to the advertiser and placing a telephone call to a number of the advertiser encoded in the communication reference to the advertiser; and
charging an advertisement fee responsive to the receipt of the request message from the user.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the communication link comprises a telephone conversation with the advertiser.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the communication link comprises instant messaging.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the communication link comprises an electronic mail message from the user.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the communication link comprises a voice message from the user.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the communication link comprises a video message from the user.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the communication link comprises a short message service message from the user.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the communication link comprises a request of the user.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the request message comprises the user requesting a connection for real time communications.
10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the connection allows full duplex communications between the user and the advertiser.
11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the connection allows communications in at least one of voice, audio, video and text.
12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
assigning a specific communication reference to the advertiser;
embedding the specific communication reference in the advertisement; and
tracking, using the specific communication reference, any request message.
13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:
determining a telephonic reference of the advertiser in response to the request message; and
placing a voice over Internet protocol call to the advertiser using a telecommunication carrier using the communication link determined from the request message, the telecommunication carrier bridging the voice over Internet protocol call to a connection for the advertiser through a switch on a public switched telephone network.
14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the user transmitting the request message comprises the user particularly requesting to reveal contact information of the advertiser.
15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the user transmitting the request message comprises the user providing contact information for a call back to the user.
16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the user transmitting the request message comprises the user requesting an appointment.
17. The method of claim 1 , wherein the user transmitting the request message comprises the user initiating a communication session.
18. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
facilitating communication between the user and the advertiser using a reference embedded in the advertisement.
19. The method of claim 18 , further comprising:
verifying that the user is available for communication in person with the advertiser.
20. A tangible machine readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a method, the method comprising:
providing to a user an advertisement on behalf of an advertiser of the advertisement, the advertisement including a communication reference to the advertiser, including contact information for addressing a request message by the user of the communication reference to establish a communication link through a first session initiation protocol message connection server;
receiving from the user a transmission of a request message comprising a request to establish the communication link to the advertiser using the request message to define the advertiser end point of the communication link;
establishing the communication link to the advertiser using the request message through one of the first session initiation protocol message connection server forwarding the request message to a second session initiation protocol message connection server of the advertiser, addressing a separate session initiation protocol request message to establish a second communication link to the advertiser and placing a telephone call to a number of the advertiser encoded in the communication reference to the advertiser; and
charging an advertisement fee responsive to the receipt of the request message from the user.
21. A system, comprising:
a computing device configured to:
provide to a user an advertisement on behalf of the advertiser of an advertisement, the advertisement including a communication reference to the advertiser, including contact information for addressing a request message by the user of the communication reference to establish a communication link through a first session initiation protocol message connection server;
receive from the user a transmission of a request message comprising a request to establish the communication link to the advertiser using the request message to define the advertiser end point of the communication link;
establish the communication link to the advertiser using the request message through one of the first session initiation protocol message connection server forwarding the request message to a second session initiation protocol message connection server of the advertiser, addressing a separate session initiation protocol request message to establish a second communication link to the advertiser and placing a telephone call to a number of the advertiser encoded in the communication reference to the advertiser; and
charge an advertisement fee responsive to the receipt of the request message from the user.