Providing Personalized Ads Based on Customer Information

Providing Personalized Ads Based on Customer Information

The following diagram illustrates how an ad service vendor can use customer information contained in a cookie to personalize advertisements. Assume that the content provider, the content distributor, and the ad service provider are in different domains.

In this scenario, the client connects directly to the ad service provider and can therefore send a cookie. The steps in the following list correspond to those in the diagram.

1. The client connects to the content provider and requests a Web page.
2. The content provider sends the Web page to the client. The page contains a link to an ad service provider, and the query string in the link contains the URL of a playlist administered by the content distributor.
3. The client clicks the link and is connected to the ad service provider. The appropriate cookie is also sent upstream.
4. The ad provider encrypts the cookie and creates a new URL consisting of the requested URL discussed in step 2 and the encrypted cookie. The ad provider redirects the client to the new URL.
5. The client connects to the content distributor.
6. The content distributor uses the WMS HTTP Download Data Source plug-in to request that the ad provider create and download a playlist for the connected client. The client is identified by the encrypted cookie in the URL query string sent to the ad provider.
7. The ad provider decrypts the cookie, identifies the client, creates a personalized playlist (including ads) for the client, and sends the playlist back to the content distributor.
8. The content distributor sends the content referenced in the playlist to the client.

The key to this scenario is to recognize that the content provider, the content distributor and the ad service provider reside in different domains. Best practices dictate that cookies must not be sent across domains. The client can send a cookie to the ad service provider because, after a direct connection is established, they reside in the same domain. However, the ad provider and the content distributor are in different domains, and the client cookie must not be shared between them. The ad provider hides the cookie from the content distributor by encrypting it. When the cookie is returned, the ad provider decrypts it to identify the end user and create a personalized playlist.

See Also

• Downloading a Playlist from a Web Server
• Playlist Reference
• Scenarios
• Using the Server Object Model to Define Playlists
• Using XML to Define Playlists