WO2009130499A1

WO2009130499A1 - Method and device for advertisements in e-mail

Info

Publication number: WO2009130499A1
Application number: PCT/GB2009/050397
Authority: WO
Inventors: John O'sullivan; James Denis Fleming; Stephen Carr
Original assignee: 31-7Ideas.Com Limited
Priority date: 2008-04-21
Filing date: 2009-04-21
Publication date: 2009-10-29
Also published as: GB0807253D0

Abstract

A method of processing an electronic message sent by a sender to a recipient is disclosed. The method comprises: a) receiving the message; b) analysing the message to identify the senders and/or the recipients identity; c) comparing the senders and/or the recipients identity with a database of subscribers; and d) if the senders and/or the recipients identity is found in the database of subscribers, extracting data from a database and modifying the message by embedding the extracted data in the body of the message.

Description

METHOD AND DEVICE FOR ADVERTISEMENTS IN E-MAIL

This invention relates to a method for processing electronic messages, such as short message service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS) and in particular electronic mail messages (commonly known as e-mail).

E-mail is an extremely widely used means of communication. Its popularity arises from the fact that it is cheap to provide, simple to operate and provides nearly instantaneous delivery of messages. Billions of e-mail messages are now sent every day.

One of the downsides of e-mail is that unscrupulous marketers have taken advantage of the fact that e-mail is extremely cheap to provide by sending vast quantities of unsolicited marketing material by e-mail (known as "spam"). It is very easy for a spammer to send hundreds of millions of e-mail messages each day.

When it is considered that this quantity of e-mail traffic will be multiplied by hundreds or thousands due to the number of active spammers in the world, it is evident that the resultant volume of e-mail traffic is a severe burden to the service providers transferring it over the Internet.

It goes without saying that the vast majority of users find spam e-mail to be nothing other than an annoyance. Many users now install software to filter spam e-mail so that they do not have to manually delete it, and indeed some Internet service providers (ISPs) also carry out such filtering. The vast majority of spam e- mails therefore simply go unread and their objective of marketing a product or service is not achieved. Furthermore, spam e-mail is now so prevalent that even legitimate marketing tends to be filtered out by spam filters and is also unread.

As the volume of e-mail traffic has risen in recent years, the volume of spam has increased also, and some sources now suggest that the majority of e-mail traffic is constituted by spam. This is one of a few phenomena which threaten the usefulness of e-mail in the future. There is therefore a need, both from the point of view of consumers and legitimate marketers, to be able to ensure that whilst spam can be reliably filtered, legitimate marketing messages remain unfiltered. In accordance with the invention, there is provided a method of processing an electronic message sent by a sender to a recipient, the method comprising: a) receiving the message; b) analysing the message to identify the sender's and/or the recipient's identity; c) comparing the sender's and/or the recipient's identity with a database of subscribers; and d) if the sender's and/or the recipient's identity is found in the database of subscribers, extracting data from a database and modifying the message by embedding the extracted data in the body of the message.

The invention therefore provides a technique by which data (such as advertising or marketing material) may be added to the body of e-mail messages, but only if at least one of the sender or recipient of the e-mail message subscribes to the service. The marketing material is therefore not unsolicited and can be tailored to the interests of the sender or recipient since their identity is known.

Furthermore, the data is embedded in an e-mail which is highly likely to come from a trusted sender and will therefore not be filtered out by spam filters. This is of particular benefit to legitimate marketers as previously their messages were likely to be filtered by spam filters and not be read by the intended recipient. The invention therefore overcomes this issue and provides a new channel for legitimate marketers to advertise products and services. Users of the system will be more prepared to accept this type of advertising as the advertising content can be regulated by the ISPs and is therefore likely to be of a nature which is more appropriate to the recipient and of a higher quality.

It is believed that this invention will help remove the need for marketers to resort to sending spam, and this will of course reduce the volume of e-mail traffic that needs to be carried by ISPs, resulting in a reduction of cost since lower bandwidth equipment will be required.

The message is only modified if the sender and/or recipient is found in the database of subscribers, and senders and recipients are able to opt in or out of being included in the database of subscribers. Further opt out capabilities are described below. These features are of importance, amongst other reasons, due to rising concern about privacy issues and protection of consumer rights in the commercial use of personal data collected by companies. Concern about this issue has been expressed recently by at least one European Union commissioner. In particular, there is concern that personal data is collected and used without permission at the expense of privacy and consumer rights. Indeed, many companies are investing millions into sophisticated monitoring of people's behaviour regarding Internet usage without individual users having any knowledge of this.

Because this invention allows users to opt out entirely or from each element of the invention, no privacy or consumer rights concerns are relevant. Indeed, users are able to change their selections regarding opting out at any time without interference.

In this specification, the body of the message is used to refer to the actual message content intended to be delivered by the sender. It does not include addressing, routing, time stamp or subject data, which are carried in a message header.

The message may be a short message service (SMS) message or a multimedia messaging service (MMS) message. However, in a preferred embodiment, the message is an electronic mail (e-mail) message.

Normally, the e-mail message is received in step (a) from a mail transfer agent (MTA) associated with the sender.

Preferably, the method further comprises delivering the e-mail message modified in step (d) to a mail user agent (MUA) associated with the recipient. The e-mail message may be delivered to the MUA using a variety of protocols, including Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3), Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), and HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) typically known as webmail.

Typically, the embedded data is displayed when the e-mail message is viewed by the recipient.

In one embodiment, extracting data from the database in step (d) comprises: i) extracting a first section of data; and ii) extracting a second section of data if the recipient of the e-mail message is determined to be in a first category of recipients.

In this case, if the recipient is not determined to be in the first category of recipients in step (ii), the recipient may be sent an e-mail with a hyperlink embedded, which if selected, will cause the recipient's identity to be added to the database of subscribers and a corresponding opt-out flag to be set.

Typically, the recipient is determined to be in the first category of recipients if the opt-out flag corresponding to the recipient's identity is not set in the database of subscribers.

Typically, the first and second sections of data each comprise hypertext markup language (HTML) code which may be rendered by a MUA to generate one or more regions of image and/or text content within the body of the e-mail message, each of the one or more regions being selectable by the recipient to access a respective service or website.

The HTML code of the first section of data may be rendered to represent one or more buttons, each of which is associated with a hyperlink to a predefined, respective uniform resource locator (URL).

In this case, at least one of the URLs may be determined by an auction, the definition of the URL being the choice of the highest bidder in the auction. Other commercial mechanisms, such as sale by sealed bids, may be used.

Typically, selection of at least one of the hyperlinks causes a corresponding counter to be incremented. The value in the counter may then be used to calculate a fee to be charged, the fee being calculated by multiplying the value in the counter by a predefined cost.

In a preferred embodiment, at least one of the URLs is predefined by either the sender or recipient.

The HTML code of the second section of data may be rendered to represent a banner, which is associated with a hyperlink to a predefined uniform resource locator (URL).

This URL may be determined by an auction, the definition of the URL being the choice of the highest bidder in the auction.

Alternatively, selection of the hyperlink may cause a corresponding counter to be incremented, in which case the value in the counter may be used to calculate a fee to be charged, the fee being calculated by multiplying the value in the counter by a predefined cost.

The HTML code may be generated by retrieving an HTML template from a database of HTML templates, the HTML template being associated with the sender or recipient and defining the visual appearance of the one or more regions of image and/or text content within the body of the message, and replacing one or more marker elements within the HTML template with sections of HTML code which, on rendering by the MUA, cause an associated image, previously selected by the sender or recipient, to be displayed as each of the one or more selectable regions.

In a second aspect of the invention, a method of advertising comprises receiving at a message processor an electronic message sent from a sender to a recipient, and modifying the content of the electronic message to include predetermined advertising content before delivery to the recipient.

The reception and modification of the electronic message is typically performed using the method of processing electronic messages according to the first aspect of the invention, in which the data extracted from the database and embedded in the body of the message is the predetermined advertising content.

In a third aspect of the invention, a computer program is adapted to perform the method of the first aspect of the invention when run on a computer. In a fourth aspect of the invention, a computer program product comprising computer program code is adapted to perform the method of the first aspect of the invention.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure 1 shows suitable hardware architecture on which the invention may be performed.

Figure 2 shows a flow diagram of a process embodying the invention.

Figures 3 and 4 show more detail of the process.

Figure 1 shows a simple computer architecture for performing the invention. A computer 1 is connected via a network 3 to another computer 2. The network 3 is typically a distributed network such as the Internet, and the connection between each of the computers 1 and 2 and network 3 is normally a broadband connection over a digital subscriber line interface or other similar interface.

Each of the computers 1 and 2 runs mail user agent (MUA) software (often referred to as a mail client) for composing, sending and receiving e-mail messages. The MUA software typically sends e-mail messages to a mail transfer agent (MTA) operated by an ISP using the simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP). The e-mail messages are transferred from the MTA to the mailbox of the intended recipient for collection on demand. The MUA software can fetch e-mail using any of a variety of protocols such as POP3 or IMAP.

In an example of the invention in operation, an e-mail message is composed and sent at computer 1. The recipient of the e-mail is a user of computer 2. The email message is transferred across the network 3 and delivered to the recipient's mailbox at their ISP. The processing of this e-mail message as it is delivered is explained with reference to Figures 2 and 3.

The e-mail message is received at the ISP and is shown by reference numeral 10 in Figure 2. However, instead of being handled immediately by the incoming mail server 11 (the path shown by the dashed line) as in a prior art mail server, it is instead handled by processing software 12 which after processing the message hands it on to the incoming mail server 11.

Figures 3 and 4 show the processing that is performed by the processing software 12. Firstly, in step 13 the e-mail message is analysed to determine the identity of the sender (by inspection of the e-mail header) and the sender is looked up in a user database 15 to find out whether they are a subscriber to or member of the service. If they are then the e-mail message is passed directly to the incoming mail server Il for delivery to the recipient's mailbox.

If they are not a subscriber then step 14 analyses the e-mail message and determines the identity of the recipient (again by inspection of the e-mail header). The recipient is looked up in the user database 15 to find out whether they are a subscriber of the service. If they are not then the e-mail message is passed directly to the incoming mail server 11 for delivery to the recipient's mailbox.

If the recipient is a subscriber then a flag is set in step 16 to indicate that subsequent processing of the e-mail message is to be based on a set of preferences associated with the recipient, which is stored in the user database 15.

The set of preferences indicate various options chosen by the sender/recipient and will be described below.

In step 17, HTML data is retrieved from a tool database 18. The HTML data defines a set of tool buttons which may be rendered by the MUA software when it displays the e-mail message. The particular HTML data that are retrieved depend on the set of preferences associated with the sender/recipient. For example, if the sender/recipient has indicated in the set of preferences that they are interested in sport and travel, then the HTML data that are retrieved may include data that define tool buttons for accessing sport and travel websites. There may be some data that are always retrieved, for example data that define tool buttons for accessing a search engine.

The data defining each of the buttons also include data defining an associated hyperlink, which when the button is activated (e.g. by a mouse click as shown by input step 35) causes the activation to be recorded in the tool database 18 by incrementing a counter for that particular button and retrieves a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) which will cause a web browser to be directed to a website or service associated with the button.

The tool buttons will generally indicate a category, such as "Search", "Music", "News" and "Travel". Each of theses categories may be used to generate revenue by associating them with interested companies, who may even compete against each other to be associated with the button. For example, both Google and Yahoo may be interested in being associated with the "Search" category, and Expedia and British Airways may be interested in being associated with the "Travel" category.

For example, the tool buttons may be individually sold or auctioned to the highest bidder for a given time period (e.g. for each day or week). Alternatively, the tool buttons can be provided without an upfront charge to interested companies and the value in the counter can be used to determine how many times the tool button has been selected, from which a fee may be calculated for that company to pay for the traffic that is passed to their site by clicking the button (for example, they may be charged a fixed amount for each selection of a button).

It is also envisaged that a tool button could be provided that is simply associated with a website selected by the sender/recipient, and for which no revenue would be generated. The sender/recipient is thus free to choose any website that he wishes, although the ISP may restrict the availability to prevent any conflict of interest with companies who have paid for association with tool buttons (e.g. with an alternative search engine to that associated with the "Search" button) or to prevent association with sites having pornographic or other content unsuitable for minors. This restriction would be made by comparing the site chosen by the sender/recipient with a predefined list of websites, which are blacklisted by the ISP.

It is also possible for the sender to associate a website with a tool button and the recipient to elect to receive this tool button by indicating so in his preferences in the user database 15.

In step 19, HTML data is retrieved from a banner database 20. The HTML data defines a banner which may be rendered by the MUA software when it displays the e-mail message. The particular HTML data that are retrieved depend on the set of preferences associated with the sender/recipient. For example, a sender/recipient may opt out of receiving banners at all or they may simply have opted out of receiving specific banners or types of banners. The user is given the option to opt out and adjust their other preferences by visiting a web page which comprises Common Gateway Interface (CGI) code for updating the user database 15, which may be accessed by selecting (e.g. by a mouse click as shown by input step 36) a hyperlink embedded in a received e-mail processed by the processing software 12. The sender/recipient may also set a preference to opt out of embedding banners and/or tool buttons in e-mail messages for a number of e-mail messages.

The HTML banner data that are actually retrieved can be chosen at random or may be chosen in sequence to ensure that all banners are given equal distribution. In either case, banners which the sender/recipient has opted out of receiving will not be retrieved, and the software will simply not include this in the collection from which a random banner is chosen or in the sequence of banners.

The data defining the banner also include data defining an associated hyperlink, which when the banner is selected (e.g. by a mouse click as shown by input step 34) causes the selection to be recorded in the banner database 20 by incrementing a counter for that particular banner and retrieves a URL which will cause a web browser to be directed to a website or service associated with the banner.

The value in the counter can be used to determine how many times the banner has been selected, from which a fee may be calculated for the company providing the website or service to pay for the traffic that is passed to their site by clicking on the banner (for example, they may be charged a fixed amount for each selection of a banner). Other models for revenue generation are also possible, and as with the tool buttons the banners may be provided for a fixed upfront cost or auctioned to the highest bidder. Companies may also choose to pay a premium price to increase the exposure of their banner.

The HTML data retrieved in steps 17 and 19 defining the tool buttons and banner are embedded in the body of the e-mail message, typically at the very top above the message originally composed in step 21. The e-mail message is then passed directly to the incoming mail server 11 for delivery to the recipient's mailbox.

If the sender is a subscriber but the recipient is not (i.e. is not found in the user database 15) then it is determined that this is the first of this type of e-mail message that the recipient has received. Prior to modifying and forwarding the e- mail message to the recipient, he may therefore be sent a dummy e-mail message explaining that he has been sent an e-mail by the sender which may be modified to contain advertising content and asking whether he would like to opt out of this type of e-mail. If he does opt out (by selecting a hyperlink) then the user database 15 is updated to indicate this and banners and/or tool buttons will not be embedded to future e-mails to this recipient. For example, the recipient may opt out of receiving banners, tool buttons or both. Opt-out flags corresponding to the banners and tool buttons can be set in the user database 15. Each e-mail sent by the system can include hyperlinks for accessing a web page for updating the opt- out flags.

Figure 4 shows the processes performed in more detail. In particular, prior to extracting the HTML data defining the tool buttons in step 17, the software generates, in step 22, a unique identification number or ID for the e-mail message being processed. This ID is stored in the e-mail message being processed and in a message database 23 for tracking purposes.

In step 24, the preferences of the recipient are retrieved from the user database 15. The software knows to retrieve the preferences of the recipient because of the value of the flag that was set in step 16. These preferences are then used as explained above in the subsequent processing steps 17 and 19. The processing performed by steps 17, 19 and 21 is then performed as shown and finally various data related to the modified e-mail message are stored in the message database 23 in step 25. The stored data include data referring to the tool buttons and banner that were embedded and identity of the sender/recipient. This enables various useful analyses to be carried out, for example to find out how much use a particular user has made of the system. The modified e-mail message is then passed to the incoming mail server II.

The processing performed on an outgoing e-mail message (for example, one 15 sent in response to the message considered above) is very similar and is described briefly with reference to Figures 2 to 4.

The outgoing e-mail message is shown by reference numeral 30. Instead of being handled immediately by outgoing mail server 31 (i.e. passing along the route shown in dashed lines), the e-mail message is diverted to the mail processing software 12.

As can be seen, the only difference in processing the outgoing e-mail is that instead of assessing whether either the sender or recipient is a subscriber to the service, it is only necessary to analyse the e-mail message to identify the sender and determined whether the sender is a subscriber. This is done in step 32.

If the sender is not a subscriber then the e-mail message is sent directly to the outgoing mail server 31 for onward delivery.

However, if the sender is a subscriber then a flag is set in step 33 to indicate that subsequent processing of the e-mail message is to be based on a set of preferences associated with the sender, which is stored in the user database 15.

The set of preferences retrieved from the user database 15 in step 24 will therefore be those of the sender rather than the recipient as above. Otherwise, the processing of the message is identical.

In an alternative embodiment, a database of HTML templates is also provided. These HTML templates may be defined by a user (i.e. a sender or recipient) or they may be predefined. The HTML templates are selectable by the user and are associated with the user from then on (the user may of course change their association to another HTML template in due course).

Each HTML template defines the overall visual appearance of the modified e-mail message. Each template comprises HTML code defining one or more aspects of the visual appearance (e.g. background colour and/or image and one or more foreground images along with positions of the message body text, banners and tool buttons). The HTML code contains one or more marker elements, which are replaced with sections of HTML code which, when rendered, cause the associated image and/or text to be displayed in predefined locations consistent with the desired visual appearance. These marker elements may therefore be used to act as a generic anchor for any of the elements making up the visual appearance, but are replaceable with a specific instance (for example of a button's colour or text font and/or colour) so as to personalize the visual appearance.

During processing of a message, the HTML template associated with a user is retrieved from the database of HTML templates. The or each marker element is then replaced with a corresponding section of HTML code according to a selection previously made by the user. The resultant HTML code is then embedded within the message body as previously discussed. Thus, when the message is received, it may be rendered by the e-mail client of the recipient to render the image in accordance with the desired visual format or appearance.

Claims

1. A method of processing an electronic message sent by a sender to a recipient, the method comprising: a) receiving the message; b) analysing the message to identify the sender's and/or the recipient's identity; c) comparing the sender's and/or the recipient's identity with a database of subscribers; and d) if the sender's and/or the recipient's identity is found in the database of subscribers, extracting data from a database and modifying the message by embedding the extracted data in the body of the message.

2. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the message is a short message service (SMS) message or a multimedia messaging service (MMS) message.

3. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the message is an electronic mail message.

4. A method according to claim 3, wherein the message is received in step (a) from a mail transfer agent (MTA) associated with the sender.

5. A method according to claim 3 or claim 4, further comprising delivering the message modified in step (d) to a mail user agent (MUA) associated with the recipient.

6. A method according to any of claims 3 to 5, wherein the embedded data is displayed when the message is viewed by the recipient.

7. A method according to any of claims 3 to 6, wherein extracting data from the database in step (d) comprises: i) extracting a first section of data; and ii) extracting a second section of data if the recipient of the message is determined to be in a first category of recipients.

8. A method according to claim 7, wherein if the recipient is not determined to be in the first category of recipients in step (ii), the recipient is sent an e-mail with a hyperlink embedded, which if selected, will cause the recipient's identity to be added to the database of subscribers and a corresponding opt-out flag to be set.

9. A method according to claim 8, wherein the recipient is determined to be in the first category of recipients if the opt-out flag corresponding to the recipient's identity is not set in the database of subscribers.

10. A method according to any of claims 7 to 9, wherein the first and second sections of data each comprise hypertext markup language (HTML) code which may be rendered by a MUA to generate one or more regions of image and/or text content within the body of the message, each of the one or more regions being selectable by the recipient to access a respective service or website.

11. A method according to claim 10, wherein the HTML code of the first section of data may be rendered to represent one or more buttons, each of which is associated with a hyperlink to a predefined, respective uniform resource locator (URL).

12. A method according to claim 11 , wherein at least one of the URLs is determined by an auction, the definition of the URL being the choice of the highest bidder in the auction.

13. A method according to either claim 11 or claim 12, wherein selection of at least one of the hyperlinks causes a corresponding counter to be incremented.

14. A method according to claim 13, wherein the value in the counter is used to calculate a fee to be charged, the fee being calculated by multiplying the value in the counter by a predefined cost.

15. A method according to any of claims 11 to 14, wherein at least one of the URLs is predefined by either the sender or recipient.

16. A method according to claim 10, wherein the HTML code of the second section of data may be rendered to represent a banner, which is associated with a hyperlink to a predefined uniform resource locator (URL).

17 A method according to claim 16, wherein the URL is determined by an auction, the definition of the URL being the choice of the highest bidder in the auction.

18. A method according to claim 16, wherein selection of the hyperlink causes a corresponding counter to be incremented.

19. A method according to claim 18, wherein the value in the counter is used to calculate a fee to be charged, the fee being calculated by multiplying the value in the counter by a predefined cost.

20. A method according to any of claims 10 to 19, wherein the HTML code is generated by retrieving an HTML template from a database of HTML templates, the HTML template being associated with the sender or recipient and defining the visual appearance of the one or more regions of image and/or text content within the body of the message, and replacing one or more marker elements within the HTML template with sections of HTML code which, on rendering by the MUA, cause an associated image, previously selected by the sender or recipient, to be displayed as each of the one or more selectable regions.

21. A method of advertising comprising receiving at a message processor an electronic message sent from a sender to a recipient, and modifying the content of the electronic message to include predetermined advertising content before delivery to the recipient.

22. A method according to claim 21 , wherein the reception and modification of the electronic message is performed using the method of processing electronic messages defined in any of claims 1 to 20, in which the data extracted from the database and embedded in the body of the message is the predetermined advertising content.

23. A computer program adapted to perform the method of any of the preceding claims when run on a computer.

24. A computer program product comprising computer program code adapted to perform the method of any of claims 1 to 22.

25. A method substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.