Tracking Offers Across Multiple Channels
AssigneeRetailMeNot, Inc.
InventorsMichael Thomas Georgoff, Brian Keith Showers, Jimmy Jaejoon Song, John Thomas Pile, Edgar Mitchell Dapremont
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Provided is a process, including: obtaining a coupon issued by a merchant, the coupon being redeemable both on-line, at the merchant's website, and in-store, at a physical location of the merchant; sending the coupon to publishers for presentation to consumers by the publishers on user devices of the consumers; and receiving indications from the user devices of the consumers that the consumers interacted with the coupon, the indications indicating a consumer selection of an in-store redemption option or an on-line redemption option.
Claims22
An affiliate-network system configured to act as an intermediary between merchants issuing coupons or other offers and publishers promoting the offers to consumers, the affiliate-network system being configured to distribute and track usage of both on-line offers and in-store offers, the system comprising:
- one or more processors;
- memory storing instructions that when executed by one or more of the one or more processors effectuate operations comprising:
- obtaining a coupon issued by a merchant, the coupon being redeemable both on-line, at the merchant's website, and in-store, at a physical location of the merchant;
- sending the coupon to publishers for presentation to consumers by the publishers on user devices of the consumers;
- receiving indications from the user devices of the consumers that the consumers interacted with the coupon, the indications indicating a consumer selection of an in-store redemption option or an on-line redemption option;
- after an indication that a given consumer selected an in-store redemption option, effectuating operations comprising:
- sending the given consumer in-store redemption data documenting that the given consumer is in possession of the coupon for presentation to the merchant at a physical location of the merchant, the data identifying a first publisher that presented the coupon to the given consumer to credit first publisher;
- receiving transaction data from the merchant indicating that the given consumer redeemed the coupon;
- determining compensation for the first publisher based on the transaction data;
- and
- after an indication that another given consumer selected an on-line redemption option, effectuating operations comprising:
- storing on-line redemption data in memory documenting that the other given consumer selected the coupon and identifying a second publisher that presented the coupon to the other given consumer to credit the publisher;
- and
- instructing the user device of the other given consumer to request content from the merchant's website;
- obtaining the on-line redemption data stored in memory upon the other given consumer redeeming the coupon;
- and
- determining compensation for the second publisher based on the obtained on-line redemption data.
A method, comprising:
- obtaining a plurality of offers from merchants, each offer being redeemable on-line and in-store;
- sending information about the offers to a plurality of publishers, each publisher informing consumers of the offers on-line;
- tracking, with one or more processors, usage of the offers by consumers;
- and
- allocating credit for usage of the offers by consumers to the publishers based on the tracking;
- and
- sending information about the allocation of credit to merchants and publishers.
A tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable medium storing instructions that when executed by a data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to effectuate operations comprising:
- obtaining a plurality of offers from merchants, each offer being redeemable on-line and in-store;
- sending information about the offers to a plurality of publishers, each publisher informing consumers of the offers on-line;
- tracking, with one or more processors, usage of the offers by consumers;
- and
- allocating credit for usage of the offers by consumers to the publishers based on the tracking;
- and
- sending information about the allocation of credit to merchants and publishers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.