System and method for distributing advertisements to third-party SMS content providers

1. A short message service (SMS) advertising distribution system facilitating advertisement message and data exchange between an advertisement aggregator and an SMS content provider, the system comprising:

an ad database storing at least one text-based advertisement with associated targeting parameters;

an application ad server operative to receive an advertisement request, select at least one advertisement that satisfies targeting parameters by performing a contextual keyword analysis of words contained in an SMS message body to look for at least one of plurals, misspellings, synonyms or popular text message grammar translations, and retrieve from the ad database one or more selected advertisements;

a third-party SMS application operative to send a request for advertisements to the application ad server, interact with an SMS gateway to format message protocol for the SMS gateway, transmit at least one message to a remote wireless device;

a campaign management application to create and manage advertisements within the ad database; and

a reporting database to show advertisement delivery statistics,

wherein advertisements are created in the campaign management application, wherein an advertisement is comprised of campaign parameters, targeting parameters, creative ad copy, conversion ad copy, and conversion types,

wherein the creative ad copy is in the form of text; wherein several ad copy formats are presented, differing by character size; and wherein a single campaign contains several ad copy formats including:

55 character ad copy with spaces, 5 characters for formatting=60 total characters,

35 character ad copy with spaces, 5 characters for formatting=40 total characters, and

20 character ad copy with spaces, 5 characters for formatting=25 total characters;

wherein the creative ad copy contains a first conversion action to text a first keyword to a shortcode, then receive a first response message that contains a first conversion ad copy and a second keyword; and

wherein conversion ad copy contains a second conversion action to opt-in to future alerts from an advertiser by replying with the second keyword to the first response message, then receive a second response message that contains a second conversion ad copy.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the third-party SMS application provides message content, user phone number and time stamp to the application ad server.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the third-party SMS application provides a unique identification number to the application ad server for authentication, advertisement retrieval, advertisement reporting, and content-channel.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein a content-channel is defined by a type of SMS content or service a third-party message provider distributes, the type including at least one of: news and information, mobile search, entertainment, sports, social communities (one to group messaging), and person to person messaging.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the application ad server counts characters available in the at least one message transmitted from the third-party SMS application and selects advertisements from the ad database that have character counts less than or equal to available characters in the at least one message.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein a standard SMS message contains 160 alphanumeric characters including spaces.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein an advertisement has conditional targeting parameters established in the campaign management application that must be satisfied before being distributed for attachment to outgoing third-party SMS message, the conditional targeting parameters including at least one of: area code, time, content-channel, and contextual keyword.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the area code is a U.S. area code found in a phone number of the remote wireless device receiving the transmitted message.

9. The system of claim 7 wherein the time is the time stamp is established when the third-party SMS application requests an advertisement.

10. The system of claim 7 wherein the SMS content provider is assigned a content-channel identification and will only be provided advertisements that match that content-channel designation.

11. The system of claim 7 wherein the contextual keyword includes a contextual keyword analysis of words contained in an SMS message body and those tagged to the advertisement, wherein the contextual keyword analysis looks for all of direct word matches, plurals, misspellings, synonyms, and popular text message grammar translations.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein an advertisement has conditional campaign parameters established in the campaign management application that must be satisfied before being distributed for attachment to an outgoing third-party SMS message, the conditional campaign parameters including at least one of:

advertisement campaign must be set to “active” status,

time of server request must be between campaign start and end dates,

advertisement account must contain a positive balance, and

advertisement campaign must not exceed daily budget.

13. The system of claim 1 wherein the application ad server further selects advertisements from ad database based on the following rules:

determining maximum character length,

determining area code match,

determining time match,

determining content-channel match, and

determining contextual keyword match.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein when multiple ads meet campaign and targeting criteria, the advertisement with a higher price value will be selected.

15. The system of claim 1 wherein upon delivery of advertisement to the third-party SMS application, the application ad server sends receipt of delivery to the reporting database.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein the reporting database records total advertisements delivered to a third-party SMS message provider and a reporting application provides total commissions earned by the third-party SMS message provider and total fees owed by advertiser.

17. The system of claim 1 wherein the creative ad copy contains conversion types including at least one of:

reply to a message with keyword, then receive a response message containing conversion

ad copy;

URL hyperlink to website; and

toll-free or local tracking number.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein user responses to conversion types are submitted to the reporting database.

19. The system of claim 17 wherein each keyword is unique to each creative ad copy and an advertiser is billed for each user who texts in keyword or replies to a message with a keyword.

20. The system of claim 17 wherein each URL hyperlink is unique to each creative ad copy and the advertiser is billed for each visit through the URL hyperlink.

21. The system of claim 17 wherein each toll-free or local tracking number is unique to each creative ad copy and calls through the tracking number can be billed on a per-call basis to the advertiser.

22. The system of claim 17 wherein the conversion ad copy is sent by SMS to the user through the designated short code included in the creative ad copy.

23. The system of claim 1 wherein the campaign management application provides advertisement reporting summaries from the reporting database.

24. The system of claim 1 wherein the advertisement is composed of no more than 160 characters of text for delivery by SMS.

25. The system of claim 1 wherein the advertisement is composed of graphic images for delivery by MMS.

26. The system of claim 1 wherein the SMS content provider is any service that sends outgoing mobile terminated short message service (SMS) messages, whether that be content generated by the SMS content provider, content aggregated from other sources, or content generated by users themselves through person-to-person messaging.

27. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one message includes the SMS message body and one of the one or more selected advertisements, wherein the advertisement includes the first keyword to text to the shortcode, and wherein the system is further configured to:

in response to receipt of the first keyword texted to the shortcode, transmit an SMS message that includes the first response message and the second keyword; and

in response to receipt of a reply that includes the second keyword, transmit an SMS message that includes the second response message.