Web advertising management method
The invention relates to a method, system and computer program for management of paid advertisements displayed in response to a search query entered into a search engine. A vendor's inventory is discovered by reading from an inventory database. Search terms are determined for item categories in the inventory database, reading from fields of the inventory database. A user can specify additional or replacement search terms to be associated with a particular item. Advertisement sets are then created for items which are currently available or “in stock,” each set containing an advertisement corresponding to an item, the associated search terms, and a landing page identifier. The landing page displays search results from the vendor's inventory database, relating to the corresponding item category for that advertisement.
1. A method of producing advertisements for display in response to search queries entered into a search engine service, the method comprising:
determining, from an inventory database, a quantity of inventory of available items for a plurality of item categories;
selecting a plurality of the item categories for which the determined quantity is at least a predetermined number;
associating one or more search terms with each of the selected item categories;
producing advertisement sets, each set comprising an advertisement for a corresponding selected item category for which the determined quantity is at least the predetermined number, the one or more associated search terms, and a landing page identifier, wherein the advertisement sets for submission to a search engine service are for display of the advertisement when the associated one or more search terms are included in a search query entered into the search engine service;
obtaining values of fields in the inventory database; and
including in the advertisements, the values of the fields obtained from the inventory database.
2. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising submitting the advertisement sets to the search engine service.
3. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising submitting the advertisement sets to multiple search engine services.
4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the landing page identifier for each advertisement set identifies a landing page that is targeted at a corresponding item category.
5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein at least one of the selected item categories has a plurality of corresponding advertisement sets, with each advertisement of the plurality of corresponding advertisements sets having different creative forms.
6. A non-transitory computer readable medium, encoded with data representing a computer program, that can be used to direct a programmable device to perform the method of claim 1 .
7. A method of advertising an item category associated with one or more search terms, upon receipt of a search query including at least one of the one or more search terms, comprising:
displaying, to a user, an advertisement for the item category,
wherein the advertisement is produced by a method of producing advertisements for display in response to search queries entered into a search engine service, comprising:
determining, from an inventory database, a quantity of inventory of available items for a plurality of item categories;
selecting a plurality of the item categories for which the determined quantity is at least a predetermined number;
associating one or more search terms with each of the selected item categories; and
producing advertisement sets, each set comprising an advertisement for a corresponding selected item category for which the determined quantity is at least the predetermined number, the one or more associated search terms, and a landing page identifier, wherein the advertisement sets for submission to a search engine service are for display of the advertisement when the associated one or more search terms are included in a search query entered into the search engine service.
8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein:
said determining a quantity of inventory comprises initiating a query of the inventory database.
9. A method of producing advertisements for display in response to search queries entered into a search engine service comprising:
initiating a query of an inventory database to determine a quantity of inventory of available items for a plurality of item categories;
selecting a plurality of the item categories for which the determined quantity is at least a predetermined number;
associating one or more search terms with each of the selected item categories; and
producing advertisement sets, each set comprising an advertisement for a corresponding selected item category for which the determined quantity is at least the predetermined number, the one or more associated search terms, and a landing page identifier; and
submitting the advertisement sets to the search engine service, for display of the advertisements for the selected item categories for which the determined quantity is at least the predetermined number, when the associated one or more search terms are included in a search query entered into the search engine service.