First party cookie attribution
View Patent ↗A third party company (also referred to as an ad server) provides an advertiser with computer code to place on the advertiser's web pages. The web page's code is configured to provide the ad server read and write access to an advertiser's first party cookie on a user's web browser. A user interacts with an ad on a mobile application or third party web page. Based on the user's interaction with the ad a URL containing a web address and ad instance information are sent to the user's web browser. The user's landing page associated with the URL contains code for retrieving the ad instance information and storing it in a first party cookie. When the user navigates to a purchasing page and purchases a product, the code contained in the purchasing page retrieves the ad instance information from the first party cookie and sends it to the ad server.
1. A method comprising:
retrieving a first web page from a seller's server using a uniform resource locater (URL);
executing computer code included as part of the first web page, the computer code configured to:
receive login information from a user,
generate a user identifier corresponding to the user based upon the received login information,
access, using a first party cookie associated with the seller's server, a previously generated user identifier and an advertisement (ad) query string associated with a previous browsing session, the ad query string generated by an ad server different from the seller's server and associated with an interaction with an ad instance during the previous browsing session;
associate the user with the previous browsing session based upon a determination that the user identifier and the previously generated user identifier are the same;
retrieving a second web page from the seller's server;
identifying a transaction on the second web page;
executing computer code included as part of the second web page, the computer code configured to:
generate, based upon the first party cookie, a conversion payload based on the ad query string, the user identifier, and an indication of the transaction, and
send the conversion payload to the ad server.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the interaction with the ad instance comprises receiving a URL from an application including the ad query string, the application displaying the ad instance and the application separate from the web browser.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the interaction with the ad instance is associated with a third party web page not retrieved from the seller's server, the third party web page displaying the ad instance.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the ad instance is uniquely associated with the ad query string.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first web page is different from the second web page.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first web page comprises one or more hyperlinks, the hyperlinks coupling directly or indirectly to the second web page through one or more intermediate web pages.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the ad query string encodes at least one from the group consisting of: a timestamp, a device identifier, an interaction information and a campaign identifier.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the user identifier comprises a hash of the login information.
9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the login information comprises at least a username and a password associated with the user.
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computer code included as part of the first web page is further configured to send, based on the comparison, the user identifier and the ad query string to the ad server.
11. A computer readable medium comprising:
instructions configured to be included as part of a first web page provided by a seller's server, the instructions, when executed by a processor, causing a processor to perform the steps of:
receive login information from a user,
generate a user identifier corresponding to the user based upon the received login information,
access, using a first party cookie associated with the seller's server, a previously generated user identifier and an advertisement (ad) query string associated with a previous browsing session, the ad query string generated by an ad server different from the seller's server and associated with an interaction with an ad instance during the previous browsing session;
associate the user with the previous browsing session based upon a determination that the user identifier and the previously generated user identifier are the same;
instructions configured to be included as part of a second web page provided by the seller's server, the instructions, when executed by a processor, causing a processor to perform the steps of:
identify a transaction on the second web page,
generate, based upon the first party cookie, a conversion payload based on the ad query string, the user identifier, and an indication of the transaction, and
send the conversion payload to the ad server.
12. The computer readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the interaction with the ad instance comprises receiving a URL from an application including the ad query string, the application displaying the ad instance and the application separate from the web browser.
13. The computer readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the interaction with the ad instance is associated with a third party web page not retrieved from the seller's server, the third party web page displaying the ad instance.
14. The computer readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the ad instance is uniquely associated with the ad query string.
15. The computer readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the first web page is different from the second web page.
16. The computer readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the first web page comprises one or more hyperlinks, the hyperlinks coupling directly or indirectly to the second web page through one or more intermediate web pages.
17. The computer readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the ad query string encodes at least one from the group consisting of: a timestamp, a device identifier, an interaction information and a campaign identifier.
18. The computer readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the user identifier comprises a hash of the login information.
19. The computer readable medium of claim 18 , wherein the login information comprises at least a username and a password associated with the user.
20. The computer readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the instructions configured to be included as part of the first web page are further configured to cause the processor to send, based on the comparison, the user identifier and the ad query string to the ad server.