Consumer profiling using network connectivity

A profiling system for at least one facility visited by users with mobile devices, comprising:

• access points geographically distributed within the at least one facility to detect the mobile devices by negotiating possible connections with the mobile devices and collecting information identifying the mobile devices but not the users, and to provide time-stamped location reports of the mobile devices;
• transaction points of the at least one facility, the transaction points arranged to provide time-stamped transaction reports of transactions made by the users in real time;
• and
• a server configured to receive the time-stamped location reports of the mobile devices and the time-stamped transaction reports of transactions made by the users, to generate correlated reports by correlating in time the time-stamped location reports of the mobile devices with the transaction reports, to create a probabilistic link between a specific mobile device of a specific anonymous user and a specific transaction by assuming that, based on the correlated reports, a specific transaction made at a transaction point at substantially a same time as a specific mobile device was detected in a vicinity of the transaction point was made by the specific anonymous user of the specific mobile device, to generate a probabilistic personalized user profile of a specific anonymous user without access to identity information of the specific anonymous user, based on the probabilistic link, to store and update the probabilistic personalized user profile when the specific anonymous user performs a transaction at the at least one facility, and to generate, from the probabilistic personalized user profile, a personalized offer targeted at and provided to the specific anonymous user.

One or more non-transitory computer-readable recording media storing program code which, when executed by a processor in a computer, performs a method of profiling users of facilities, each facility having geographically distributed access points for mobile devices of the users, and transaction points for the users to make transactions, the computer linked to the geographically distributed access points and the transaction points, and the method comprising:

• at the geographically distributed access points, detecting the mobile devices by negotiating possible connections with the mobile devices and collecting information identifying the mobile devices but not the users, and generating time-stamped location reports of the mobile devices in real time;
• at the transaction points, generating time-stamped transaction reports of transactions made by users in real time;
• at the computer, generating correlated reports by correlating in time the time-stamped location reports of the mobile devices with the time-stamped transaction reports and creating a probabilistic link between a specific mobile device of a specific anonymous user and a specific transaction by assuming that, based on the correlated reports, a specific transaction made at a transaction point at substantially a same time as a specific mobile device was detected in a vicinity of the transaction point was made by the specific anonymous user of the specific mobile device;
• and
• at the computer, building a probabilistic user profile of a specific anonymous user without access to identity information of the specific anonymous user, based on the probabilistic link;
• at the computer, storing and updating the probabilistic personalized user profile when the specific anonymous user performs a transaction at a transaction point in one of the facilities;
• and
• at the computer, generating, from the probabilistic personalized user profile, a personalized offer targeted at and provided to the specific anonymous user.