Ad Search Engine

Abstract

An ad search engine comprises a click tag parser, a rich media parser, an ad copy database, a request/query processing module, a user interface module and a content preservation module. The ad search engine advantageously receives and stores information about ad placement, context and advertising statistical and metadata in the ad copy database. In response to a query, the request/query processing module searches the ad copy database for advertisements matching the input query. The user interface module receives the results and presents them in a novel user interface composed of an array of tiles where each tiles represents a placement of the advertisement. The present invention also includes a several novel methods including a method for displaying ad search results, a method for generating an ad search result user interface, a method for populating an ad database, a method for ad preservation and a method for generating derived insights.

1 - 19 . (canceled) 
     
     
         20 . A system, comprising:
 a click-tag parser executed by instructions stored in a memory that cause a processor to execute the instructions to store and retrieve advertisement information and analytics data;   an analytics server adapted to store the analytics data;   an advertisement-engagement tracker providing the analytics data to the analytics server over a network including at least one of a wired and a wireless network, the advertisement-engagement tracker configured to receive data from a data-collection script created for an original advertisement, the advertisement-engagement tracker adapted to monitor for trigger events including execution by a web browser of at least one of 1) a loading of an advertisement, 2) a cursor or gesture being moved over an advertisement, and 3) an advertisement being clicked upon, the advertisement-engagement tracker adapted to track and store browser activities of the user related to eye tracking, including the cursor and gesture movements including click inputs and scroll inputs; and   a script injector adapted to inject the data-collection script in the original advertisement to combine the original advertisement with the data-collection script to formulate a new modified advertisement before the new modified advertisement is provided as a display on a client device, the data-collection script configured to send data to the analytics server in a data flow over the network, the advertisement-engagement tracker adapted to receive and provide data received from the analytics server to a first processing pipeline in real-time, the first pipeline configured to use the data to produce a visual image of a user's attention that is provided to the user-interface module and the advertisement-engagement tracker provides a more limited set of data to a second pipeline in real-time, the second pipeline adapted to process the data and produce a visual image of a user's attention that is provided to the user-interface module, the visual image including a heat map including a plurality of different colors to represent different levels of focus by the user;   an ad injector database in which the script injector stores the new modified advertisement, the script injector making an association between the new modified advertisement, the original advertisement and the data-collection script inserted into the original advertisement;   a rich-media parser executed by instructions stored in a memory that cause a processor to execute the instructions to process the advertisement information and analytics data stored in the analytics server by the advertisement-engagement tracker;   an ad-copy database for storing advertisement placement data, including advertisement context, other advertising, and statistical and metadata corresponding to particular advertisements;   a request-query-processing module executed by instructions stored in a memory that cause a processor to execute the instructions to search the ad-copy database for advertisements matching an input search query received via the client device; and   a user-interface module configured to receive a plurality of results for the input query from the ad-copy database and configured to format the plurality of results into an array of tiles and send the formatted tiles of display on the client device, each tile to represent a single creative of an advertisement and configured to receive gesture or cursor input over the tiles and creating a display of additional analytics data from the analytics server on the client device, the additional analytics data on advertisement placement including a context in which a particular advertisement was placed;   a content-preservation module executed by instructions stored in a memory that cause a processor to execute the instructions to retrieve from the analytics server the context in which an advertisement was presented to a user and to store context data in the ad-copy database.   
     
     
         21 . A system according to  claim 20 , wherein the advertisement-engagement tracker provides data to the analytics server including an ID of the advertisement, a domain on which the advertisement was presented, a placement of the advertisement on a web page, user inputs while the advertisement was being displayed, browser information by which the advertisement was displayed, and information about an entity that served the advertisement. 
     
     
         22 . A system according to  claim 20 , wherein the advertisement-engagement tracker provides raw data received from the analytics server to a first processing pipeline in real-time. 
     
     
         23 . A system according to  claim 20 , wherein the first pipeline processes raw data to produce a visual image of a user's attention that is provided to the user-interface module. 
     
     
         24 . A system according to  claim 23 , wherein the advertisement-engagement tracker provides the more limited set of data to the second pipeline in real-time, wherein the second pipeline includes a filter, a cursor-gesture-to-eye-movement transformer, and an eye-tracking visualization module, wherein the second pipeline processes the data and produces the visual image of a user's attention that is provided to the user-interface module, the visual image including the heat map including a plurality of different colors, wherein the plurality of different colors represents different levels of focus by the user, wherein the user-interface module provides the heat map to the client device for presentation in a browser on the client device. 
     
     
         25 . The system according to  claim 24 , further comprising:
 an attention-score generator configured to use received information and produce an attention score that is delivered to the user-interface module for presentation to the user with tabular statistics to provide a unified view of data on ad placement.   
     
     
         26 . The system according to  claim 25 , wherein the user-interface module is configured to receive input commands from a user permitting the user to make selections or gesture or cursor over different tiles. 
     
     
         27 . The system according to  claim 26 , wherein the user-interface module determines if the input by the user is a hover over a particular tile or a cursor or gesture over a tile and identifies an ad corresponding to the tile and wherein the ad corresponding to the tile is retrieved from the ad-copy database. 
     
     
         28 . The system according to  claim 27 , wherein the ad retrieved is a playable version of the ad and the playable version of the ad is combined with ad metrics and associated buttons to compose into a script executable by a web browser on the client device for display on the client device. 
     
     
         29 . The system according to  claim 28 , wherein the advertising context includes a data snapshot of the context in which an ad is presented. 
     
     
         30 . The system according to  claim 29 , wherein the advertisement-engagement tracker tracks and stores browser activities of the user related to eye tracking, including cursor and gesture movements, click inputs and scroll inputs. 
     
     
         31 . The system according to  claim 30 , wherein the advertisement-engagement tracker monitors for trigger events including execution of certain events by the web browser including the loading of the advertisement, the cursor or gesture being moved over the advertisement, and the advertisement being clicked upon, and custom events. 
     
     
         32 . The system according to  claim 26 , wherein information about user interactions are sent in real-time by the data-collection script in multiple small messages after each trigger event to make the tracking unnoticeable to the user.