Location Event Advertising

Abstract

Information about physical places is gathered to develop quality scores for targeting advertisements to users of mobile devices sharing geographic location events with service providers. A scoring model incorporates selected attributes about places (e.g., created by a service provider vs. user-generated, category, keywords, census data providing population density by location, property values by area, popularity, special events, government vs. private area, whether place is associated with a brand, chain, or is independent) that have been gathered from multiple sources, verified, and normalized. Advertisements are targeted to users running mobile applications based on a location event shared with the service provider using the quality score for the place indicated in the location event in addition to other attributes of the place. In one embodiment, the system uses a machine learning algorithm to analyze conversion rates of targeted advertising to provide feedback to the scoring model.

1 . A method for selecting advertisements based on qualitative information about places, the method comprising:
 receiving a location included in a location event associated with a user;   determining qualitative information about a place associated with the location;   selecting an advertisement for the user based on the qualitative information about the place.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 providing the qualitative information about the place to an external system for targeting advertisements to the user.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the qualitative information comprises a quality score and wherein the quality score satisfies targeting criteria included in the advertisement selected for the user. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the qualitative information comprises a brand attribute and wherein the advertisement selected for the user is associated with the brand attribute. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the qualitative information comprises information gathered from a social networking system. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the qualitative information comprises information gathered from a reviews website. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein determining the qualitative information about the place associated with the location further comprises:
 calculating a quality score for the place based on information gathered about the place; and   storing the quality score as the qualitative information about the place.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein determining the qualitative information about the place associated with the location further comprises:
 retrieving a quality score for the place based on the location included in the location event; and   determining the quality score as the qualitative information about the place.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein determining the qualitative information about the place associated with the location further comprises:
 associating a brand attribute for the place based on information gathered about the place; and   utilizing the brand attribute as the qualitative information about the place.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein determining the qualitative information about the place associated with the location further comprises:
 retrieving information about a nearby place proximate to the location;   determining an inference from the retrieved information about the nearby place about the place; and   utilizing the inference as the qualitative information about the place.   
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the place is associated with a persona, and wherein selecting the advertisement for the user is based on information associated with the persona. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the location event is generated by an application operating on a user device, and wherein the advertisement selected for the user is provided for display within the application on the user device. 
     
     
         13 . A method for defining an advertisement campaign based on information about places, the method comprising:
 providing to a user device an interface for selecting targeting criteria for an advertisement campaign;   receiving from the user device via the interface a selection of targeting criteria;   translating the targeting criteria into a query for places;   determining a candidate set of places meeting the targeting criteria based on the query; and   serving advertisements for the advertisement campaign to users generating location events at the candidate set of places.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein the selection of targeting criteria is based on brand attributes and wherein results of the query for places include places associated with the selected brand attributes. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein the selection of targeting criteria is based on quality score ranges and wherein results of the query for places include places associated with quality scores within the selected quality score ranges. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein the candidate set of places meeting the targeting criteria includes a persona. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein determining the candidate set of places meeting the targeting criteria further comprises:
 calculating a quality score for a place based on information gathered about the place; and   adding the place to the candidate set of places based on the quality score.   
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein calculating a quality score for a place based on information gathered about the place further comprises:
 defining a scoring model that includes attributes about places as weights in the scoring model; and   utilizing the scoring model based on the gathered information about the place.   
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein calculating a quality score for a place based on information gathered about the place further comprises:
 defining a scoring model that includes attributes about places as factors in a regression analysis for the scoring model; and   utilizing the scoring model based on the gathered information about the place.   
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein determining the candidate set of places meeting the targeting criteria further comprises further comprises:
 utilizing a heuristics engine that ranks attributes about places to develop a scoring model;   calculating a quality score using the scoring model based on information gathered about the place; and   adding the place to the candidate set of places based on the quality score.   
     
     
         21 . A method for targeting advertisements to users based on usage patterns for places, the method comprising:
 receiving location events associated with user devices;   extracting user identifying information from the location events;   determining usage patterns for places from the location events based on the extracted user identifying information; and   selecting advertisements for users based on the determined usage patterns about the places.   
     
     
         22 . The method of  claim 21 , wherein determining usage patterns for places from the location events based on the extracted user identifying information further comprises:
 maintaining location events by the extracted user identifying information from the location events in a location event store;   analyzing the location events for repetitive patterns at specified places;   determining the usage patterns for the specified places from the analysis of location events; and   storing the usage patterns in places objects for the specified places in a places store.   
     
     
         23 . The method of  claim 21 , wherein selecting advertisements for users based on the determined usage patterns about the places further comprises:
 receiving targeting criteria for selecting advertisements for users, the targeting criteria including a threshold number of location events at a specified place; and   selecting advertisements for users that have generated the threshold number of location events at the specified place based on the determined usage patterns.   
     
     
         24 . The method of  claim 21 , further comprising:
 responsive to the determined usage patterns for places, generating a persona linking places identified in a determined usage pattern; and   selecting advertisements for users that generate location events at places in the persona.   
     
     
         25 . The method of  claim 21 , wherein the user identifying information includes user information from a social networking system.