U.S. patent application number 16/840476 was filed with the patent office on 2020-07-23 for targeted marketing with cpe buydown.
This patent application is currently assigned to Segmint, Inc.. The applicant listed for this patent is Segmint, Inc.. Invention is credited to Russel Robert Heiser, Nathan W. Shahan.
Application Number | 20200234290 16/840476 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 44914667 |
Filed Date | 2020-07-23 |
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United States Patent
Application |
20200234290 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Heiser; Russel Robert ; et
al. |
July 23, 2020 |
TARGETED MARKETING WITH CPE BUYDOWN
Abstract
When incentivizing vendors to give greater discounts on items or
services offered or advertised to specific customers on a
third-party website in exchange for reduced advertisement pricing,
a vendor enters offer parameters (e.g., item or service for sale,
price or discount amount, terms of the offer, a permitted number of
acceptances of the offer, etc.) into a user interface along with
target customer criteria (e.g., age, gender, minimum income, etc.).
The target criteria is matched to customer profile data, and an
advertisement generated using the offer parameter information is
presented to customers whose profiles match the target criteria. In
return for offering larger discounts, a cost per event (CPE)
associated with the advertisement is reduced for the vendor. An
invoice is generated and transmitted to the vendor, and upon
receipt of payment, the advertisement provider remits a portion of
the received payment to the website owner.
Inventors: |
Heiser; Russel Robert;
(Cuyahoga Falls, OH) ; Shahan; Nathan W.;
(Cuyahoga Falls, OH) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
Segmint, Inc. |
Cuyahoga Falls |
OH |
US |
|
|
Assignee: |
Segmint, Inc.
Cuyahoga Falls
OH
|
Family ID: |
44914667 |
Appl. No.: |
16/840476 |
Filed: |
April 6, 2020 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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13104253 |
May 10, 2011 |
10614459 |
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16840476 |
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11865466 |
Oct 1, 2007 |
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13104253 |
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61332933 |
May 10, 2010 |
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60849156 |
Oct 2, 2006 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
1/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06F 16/9535 20190101;
G06Q 20/387 20130101; G06Q 30/0211 20130101 |
International
Class: |
G06Q 20/38 20060101
G06Q020/38; G06F 16/9535 20060101 G06F016/9535; G06Q 30/02 20060101
G06Q030/02 |
Claims
1. A method of presenting targeted advertisements to qualified
customers while providing a scalable, discount-dependent cost
structure to a vendor placing the advertisements, comprising:
receiving offer parameters from a vendor; accessing a
cost-per-event (CPE) lookup table (LUT) that includes pricing
information for each instance of a predefined event associated with
an advertisement according to the offer parameters; identifying
qualified customers by matching key lifestyle indicators (KLIs) in
an anonymized customer profile to target customer KLIs specified by
the vendor in the offer parameters; presenting the advertisement to
qualified customers when the qualified customers log on to a
predetermined website; tallying the number of
advertisement-associated events that occur within a predetermined
time period; and periodically generating an invoice comprising the
tally of events, the CPE for the events, and a total cost of the
advertisements; wherein the CPE for the events is adjustable as a
function of the size of an offer or discount presented in the
advertisement and specified by the vendor in the offer
parameters.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the offer parameters further
include information describing: one or more of an item and a
service being offered; an expiration date for the offer; and one or
more other terms of the offer.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the cost per event is inversely
proportional to the size of the discount presented in the
advertisement.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the event is a predetermined
number of presentations of the advertisement to qualified
customers.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the event is a predetermined
number of clicks on the advertisement by qualified customers.
6. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting the
invoice to the vendor, receiving payment from the vendor, and
remitting a portion of the received payment to an owner of the
website on which the advertisements are placed.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the website is a financial
institution website, and further including remitting the portion of
the received payment to the financial institution.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the CPE LUT correlates discount
values to CPEs, such that advertisements offering higher discounts
have lower CPEs.
9. A processor that executes, and a computer-readable medium that
stores, computer-executable instructions for performing the method
of claim 1.
10. A system that facilitates presenting targeted advertisements to
qualified customers while providing a scalable, discount-dependent
cost structure to a vendor placing the advertisements, comprising:
a server that is coupled to each of a vendor user interface (UI), a
third party website, and a customer user interface, and which
includes a processor that executes, and a memory that stores,
computer-executable instructions, the instructions including:
receiving offer parameters from a vendor user interface (UI), the
offer parameters including information related to an offer to be
presented on the third party website; generating an advertisement
describing the offer based on the offer parameters; matching
customer profile key lifestyle indicators (KLIs) to target customer
criteria specified in the offer parameters to identify qualified
customers; presenting the advertisement on the third party website
to the qualified customers when the qualified customers log on to
the third party website; tallying a number of advertisement events
that occur within a predetermined time period; determining a cost
per event (CPE) related to advertisement presentations for the
advertisement by performing a table lookup on a CPE lookup table
(LUT) that correlates CPEs to discount values; and generating an
invoice for the vendor that describes the tally of events for the
advertisement, the CPE for the advertisement, and a total cost for
the advertisement; wherein the CPE is adjustable as a function of
the size of an offer or discount by the vendor for an item or
service described in the offer parameters.
11. The system of claim 10, wherein the offer parameters further
include information describing one or more of: an item and a
service being offered; an expiration date of the offer; and a
permitted number of acceptances of the offer.
12. The system of claim 10, wherein the cost per event is inversely
proportional to the size of the discount presented in the
advertisement.
13. The system of claim 10, wherein the event is a predetermined
amount of revenue generated as a result the advertisement from
qualified customers.
14. The system of claim 10, wherein the event is a predetermined
number of clicks on the advertisement by qualified customers.
15. The system of claim 10, wherein the server transmits the
invoice to the vendor, receives payment from the vendor, and remits
a portion of the received payment to an owner of the website on
which the advertisements are placed.
16. The system of claim 10, wherein the website is a financial
institution website, and wherein the server remits the portion of
the received payment to the financial institution.
17. The system of claim 10, wherein the CPE LUT correlates discount
values to CPEs, such that advertisements offering higher discounts
have lower CPEs.
18. The system of claim 10, wherein the event is the occurrence of
a predetermined number of presentations of the advertisement to
qualified customers.
19. The system of claim 18, wherein the predefined number is 1000.
Description
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is a continuation of U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 13/104,253, filed on May 10, 2011, which
claims priority of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No.
61/332,933, filed on May 10, 2010. U.S. patent application Ser. No.
13/104,253 is a continuation-in-part of, and claims priority of,
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/865,466, filed on Oct. 1, 2007,
which claims priority of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No.
60/849,156, filed on Oct. 2, 2006, all of which are incorporated by
reference herein.
BACKGROUND
[0002] The subject application relates to targeted advertising
systems and methods. While the systems and methods described herein
relate to targeted advertising and the like, it will be appreciated
that the described techniques may find application in other
advertising systems, other advertising pricing applications, and/or
other advertisement placement and pricing methods.
[0003] Advertisers are constantly searching for more efficient
means to allow their products/services to be advertised to
consumers who have a need for their products/services or who are
currently spending money on similar products/services with a
competitor. In essence, advertisers are constantly faced with
finding the consumer who is "ready" to purchase their
products/services, "able" to complete the purchase of their
products/services, and "willing" to purchase the products/services
immediately ("RAW"). With the advent of newer technologies such as
Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) and On Demand TV, advertisers fear
the loss of traditional means of advertising to consumers.
[0004] Current options for electronic web based advertising are
very costly and yield limited results. To reach an acceptable
number of consumers to advertise their products/services
advertisers must run campaigns, which reach masses of people but
only yield single digit return in consumer interest and purchases.
For example out of 100 consumers who see an advertiser's
campaign/ad, only 3-5 may be RAW. Despite their best efforts,
current consumer advertising methods remain very costly and yield a
minimal return for the amount of investment.
[0005] One problem with present online advertising is called a
shotgun approach. In this approach, an advertiser/marketer buys a
word that is typed into an internet search engine. When purchasing
this word or phrase the marketer/advertiser is thinking, "based on
this word I think that xx % might be interested in my product". The
problem is those words are very expensive. Internet advertisers are
getting market rates such as between $5.00 and $10.00 per word per
click to have a good placement on a web site per a single word or
two word phrase. Moreover, the marketer/advertiser does not know
whether the consumer who views their advertisement is RAW.
[0006] Marketers have been able to develop ways to maintain
customers once they have initiated purchases via tracking of the
consumers purchasing habits and trends. Special loyalty programs
have been developed such as reward coupons and other incentives
based on the amount, frequency, and trends of the consumers
purchases. Other advertisers/on-line retailers such as Amazon.com
profile the customers who actually visit their site. With Amazon,
the consumer is profiled by the products they view and what they
purchase while on the site. Amazon then tracks the consumer's
habits of shopping and what they purchased so that when the
consumer signs in at another time advertisements will immediately
pop up with "suggested items" for the consumer to consider
purchasing based on their previous actions and purchases with
Amazon only. While these approaches are effective in maintaining
already existing customers and motivating the consumer to purchase
additional items, they fall short in their ability to secure
additional customers from competitors who offer similar
products/services. The current advertising methodologies are still
unable to track actual consumer spending and trends outside of an
already existing customer, i.e. based on a broad spectrum of actual
financial transactions within the consumer's financial
institution(s).
[0007] To make their advertising dollars more effective,
advertisers attempt to target their advertising to individuals who
are more likely to have an interest in the advertised product,
thereby producing a higher click-through rate and increased
revenues. Of course, in order to target individuals with any degree
of accuracy, something must be known about the individual. For this
reason, technologies have been developed for what is known in the
art as behavioral targeting based on tracking a user's habits
through monitoring of the websites that the user visits, and
offering targeted advertising based on the content of the visited
websites. It is assumed, for example, that if a user is visiting
automobile oriented websites, then an automobile oriented
advertisement is more likely to generate a user response than one
for breakfast cereal. A problem with this type of website tracking
is that if an automobile advertisement for a very expensive car is
delivered to a user and he cannot afford to purchase the
automobile, then the advertisement is not very effective.
[0008] Additionally, traditional cost structures for internet-based
advertisement placement include rigid pricing arrangements, such as
a set cost per advertisement placed, clicked-on, and so forth.
However, targeted marketing methods that employ such pricing
arrangements are only designed to increase the quality of the
customers to whom the advertisement is presented, but do little to
encourage a vendor or the website owner to increase a benefit
passed on to these customers.
[0009] Accordingly, there is an unmet need for systems and/or
methods that facilitate incentivizing vendors and website owners
alike to provide larger discounts for customers of the website on
which the vendors' advertisements are presented, and the like,
while overcoming the aforementioned deficiencies.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION
[0010] Consumers are identified with their actual consumer
financial expenditures so that they can be mined and sorted within
a database according to specific advertising/ad criteria provided
by marketers, advertisers, ad agencies, and other applicable
organizations to match a desired consumer profile with consumers of
such a profile. The subject personalized consumer advertising/ad
placement system provides the ability for marketers, advertisers,
ad agencies, and any other applicable organization to determine and
electronically present their "ideal" consumer profile, or market
segment, and have their advertisement/promotion placed in front of
all consumers who match the profile based on the mining of the
consumers actual spending across a broad base of financial
transactions and other non-personal information. The ability to
allow any advertisers/ad agencies regardless of business or
specific merchant focus, the ability to "create" a "custom" profile
for specific consumers within a certain market, within a
geographical location, with a certain monthly income from the
consumer's actual financial transactions within their financial
institution(s) would be advantageous and unique compared to any
technologies on the market today.
[0011] By way of introduction only, a personalized consumer
advertising/ad architecture/solution may include the presentation
of personal and targeted advertisements/promotions prepared by an
advertiser, ad agency, or any other applicable organization,
transferred electronically to a web site entered by the consumer
for electronic review and response.
[0012] An embodiment of the personalized consumer advertising/ad
architecture/solution enables non-personal consumer transaction
data to be transferred electronically from any financial
institution to an advertisement delivery provider's database. This
financial data can consist of checking account transactions, credit
card transactions, and loan information as well as any other
purchase or financial transactions that may pertain.
[0013] The advertisement delivery provider will house all
transactional data in its secure, industry compliant database
(software and hardware). Each set of consumer transactions will be
provided a key number by the financial institution as the data is
passed to the advertisement deliver provider's database. This key
number will be maintained by the financial institution to enable
the mined data with the corresponding ads/promotions from the
advertisers to be married back together with the consumer for
placement on the consumer's computer after mining.
[0014] The advertisement delivery providers will interact with
outside marketers, advertisers, ad agencies and other applicable
organizations to secure their individual consumer advertising
profiles for specific products /services to be advertised to
consumers. The marketer, advertiser, ad agency, or other
organizations will be able to provide the exact target consumer
they would like to view their ad/promotion. An example might be a
home improvement store which might establish a profile with the
advertisement delivery providers to place a specific ad/promotion
in front of all consumers within 20 miles of Cleveland, having
spent over $500 in the past 6 months on home improvements, who
engages in transactions with Lowes, Sears, Ace Hardware, and
TrueValue, and who have a total income of over $8,000 per month.
The advertisement delivery provider would then mine its database
containing all of the financial transactions from multiple
financial institutions only identifying those consumer accounts,
which fit these specific criteria.
[0015] Pricing for the data mining provided by the advertisement
delivery provider will vary based on the number of levels of
segmentation the marketer, advertiser, ad agency, and other
organizations may specify. The more targeted the consumer audience
requested by an advertising organization, the more the cost to have
the ad displayed will escalate. An example of costs would be the
home improvement scenario used above. There were four levels of
criteria specified and each level cost $1.00, thus the total cost
would be $4.00 to the advertiser for every ad opened by the
targeted consumer. Also, the pricing can be determined as whether
an advertisement has simply been displayed, or whether an
advertisement has been displayed and clicked.
[0016] Through the use of the personalized consumer advertising/ad
architecture/solution, consumers will be able to see new promotions
and ads every time they sign in to their on-line financial
institution web account as well as when they surf to web sites not
affiliated with a financial institution. Consumers can be flagged
unobtrusively as they enter these sites as to how many new
ads/promotions have been provided to them since their last sign
in.
[0017] The advantage of the personalized consumer advertising/ad
architecture/solution is that only ads/promotions appearing for the
consumer can be for services/products they are currently spending
their money on, or have an immediate interest in, across all
categories of purchase. Consumers may receive ads/promotions, which
have discounts at retail stores, restaurant coupons, special
promotions and rebates on automobiles etc. to name a few of the
types of ads/promotions.
[0018] A second advantage of the invention is the ability for the
advertisement delivery provider to create an electronic bridge from
the financial institution to the advertiser for the benefit of the
consumer. The financial institution can now provide an additional
service offering by placing ads, promotions, and coupons directly
in front of a consumer for not only the things they have interest
in but in addition are purchasing currently.
[0019] A third advantage is that the consumer remains anonymous to
the advertiser, despite seemingly having a direct communication
from the advertiser upon the consumer's signing on to the financial
institution's web site. If the consumer chooses to ignore the
advertisement (no click) then the advertisement may expire after a
selected time-out or upon the completion of the advertising
campaign.
[0020] The foregoing summary is provided only by way of
introduction. All features, benefits, and advantages of the
personalized consumer advertising/ad architecture/solution may be
realized and obtained by instrumentalities and combinations
particularly pointed out in the claims. Nothing in this section
should be taken as a limitation on the claims, which define the
scope of the invention.
[0021] The subject development is also applicable to the other
entities or financial institutions who maintain personalized web
sites in association with customers' financial data, such as
insurers, investment counselors, brokers or the like.
[0022] In accordance with various aspects described herein, systems
and methods are described that facilitate presenting targeted
online advertisements to pre-screened, qualified customers using a
scalable price structure for advertisement placement. According to
one aspect, a method of presenting targeted advertisements to
qualified customers while providing a scalable, discount-dependent
cost structure to a vendor placing the advertisements comprises
receiving offer parameters from a vendor, and accessing a
cost-per-event (CPE) lookup table (LUT) that includes pricing
information for each instance of a predefined event associated with
an advertisement according to the offer parameters. The method
further comprises identifying qualified customers by matching key
lifestyle indicators (KLIs) in an anonymized customer profile to
target customer KLIs specified by the vendor in the offer
parameters, and presenting the advertisement to qualified customers
when the qualified customers log on to a predetermined website.
Additionally, the method comprises tallying the number of
advertisement-associated events that occur within a predetermined
time period, and periodically generating an invoice comprising the
tally of events, the CPE for the events, and a total cost of the
advertisements. The CPE for the events is adjustable as a function
of the size of a discount (e.g., 15%, 20%, etc.) or offer (e.g., a
$50 gift card, a $75 gift card upon purchase of a 2-night stay,
etc.) presented in the advertisement and specified by the vendor in
the offer parameters.
[0023] According to another feature described herein, a system that
facilitates presenting targeted advertisements to qualified
customers while providing a scalable, discount-dependent cost
structure to a vendor placing the advertisements comprises a server
that is coupled to each of a vendor user interface (UI), a third
party website, and a customer user interface, and which includes a
processor that executes, and a memory that stores, computer
executable instructions. The instructions include receiving offer
parameters from a vendor user interface (UI), the offer parameters
including information related to an offer to be presented on the
third party website, and generating an advertisement describing the
offer based on the offer parameters. The instructions further
include matching customer profile key lifestyle indicators (KLIs)
to target customer criteria specified in the offer parameters to
identify qualified customers, and presenting the advertisement on
the third party website to the qualified customers when the
qualified customers log on to the third party website. The
instructions further include tallying a number of advertisement
events that occur within a predetermined time period, determining a
cost per event (CPE) related to advertisement presentations for the
advertisement by performing a table lookup on a CPE lookup table
(LUT) that correlates CPEs to discount values, and generating an
invoice for the vendor that describes the tally of events for the
advertisement, the CPE for the advertisement, and a total cost for
the advertisement. The CPE is adjustable as a function of the size
of a discount offered by the vendor for an item or service
described in the offer parameters.
[0024] The foregoing summary is provided only by way of
introduction. All features, benefits, and advantages of the
personalized consumer content architecture/solution may be realized
and obtained by instrumentalities and combinations particularly
pointed out in the claims. Nothing in this section should be taken
as a limitation on the claims, which define the scope of the
invention.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0025] FIG. 1 is a block diagram depicting a system for selectively
delivering advertisements.
[0026] FIG. 2 is a flow diagram depicting a process for ordering an
advertisement to be delivered to a consumer.
[0027] FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of a process for defining a market
segment of consumers that is to receive an advertisement.
[0028] FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of a process for approving an
advertisement to be displayed on a web site.
[0029] FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of a process for determining the
success of an advertising campaign.
[0030] FIG. 6 is a flow diagram depicting a process for delivering
an advertisement to a consumer.
[0031] FIG. 7 is a flow diagram of another process for delivering
an advertisement to a consumer.
[0032] FIG. 8 is a flow diagram for a method for recording the
display and the click of a targeted advertisement.
[0033] FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram illustrating the pertinent
activities of the consumer and advertiser in the context of the
present embodiment.
[0034] FIG. 10 is a diagram showing communication paths between
consumers, advertiser, the bank and the advertisement delivery
provider.
[0035] FIG. 11 illustrates a system that facilitates providing
targeted, vendor-generated advertisements via a retail merchant's
website to a qualified customer, and sending an invoice to a vendor
generating the advertisements wherein the vendor is given a
scalable discount per event associated with targeted advertisements
placed based on the size of a discount offered by the vendor in the
advertisement.
[0036] FIG. 12 illustrates a method of providing the service
described with regard to FIG. 11, in accordance with various
aspects described herein.
[0037] FIG. 13 illustrates a system that facilitates providing
targeted, vendor-generated advertisements via a financial
institution's website to a qualified customer, and sending an
invoice to a vendor generating the advertisements wherein the
vendor is given a scalable discount per event associated with
targeted advertisements placed based on the size of a discount
offered by the vendor in the advertisement.
[0038] FIG. 14 illustrates a method of providing the service
described with regard to FIG. 13, in accordance with various
aspects described herein.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0039] The following is a description of a system and a method for
delivering targeted advertisements to consumers over a network,
such as the Internet or similar integrated network. An example of
such a system will be described so that one can make the system;
however, the embodiments, which are defined by the appended claims,
are not limited to only the system described below. With reference
to FIG. 1, the system 8 allows for communication among the
following individuals or entities: marketers 10, financial
institutions 12 and consumers 14. The system can also allow
companies or entities that are not financial institutions to allow
for the delivery of advertisements on their web sites or other
communication platform--these entities will be referred to as third
party advertisement presenters 16.
[0040] The marketers 10 are companies or individuals who wish to
deliver an advertisement to the consumers 14. More particularly,
the system allows marketers 10 to deliver advertisements to
consumers who are ready, able and willing (RAW) to buy the products
or services offered by the marketer. The consumers 14 are also
customers of at least one of the financial institutions that share
information within the system. The financial transactional history
of the consumers, which is provided by the financial institutions,
is used to define a market segment that will receive targeted
advertisements over the network. The financial institutions 12 can
include banks, savings and loans, credit unions, retailers and the
like. The third party advertisement presenters 16 operate web sites
that are not affiliated with the any of the financial institutions
(or are unsecure web sites that are operated by the financial
institutions) that allow for the delivery of advertisements. The
system is designed to maintain the anonymity of the consumers while
allowing the marketers to have their advertisements delivered to
consumers who fall within their defined market segment.
[0041] Generally the system includes a secure database 20 (or a
plurality of secure databases) that is/are operated by the
financial institutions 12. The financial institution secure
database 20 stores, or warehouses, the financial transactions (and
other financial information) of the customers of the financial
institution along with other non-financial information. These
financial transactions can include the debits and credits of the
customers of the bank, the loans that are held by the bank for that
customer, credit/debit card transactions and the like. The other
information about the customer that is stored in the financial
information secure database 20 includes information such as the
identity of the customer, the age and sex of the customer and the
home zip code of the customer. This customer information is
associated with a unique customer identification code (UCIC) that
associates the customer to the information while still maintaining
the anonymity of the customer. By anonymity is meant that the
information communicated to the advertising delivery provider
precludes the provider from knowing who the consumer really is so
that the "cookie" presented to the consumer is anonymous.
Accordingly, the UCIC can be referred to as an anonymous coding.
For example, the UCIC is not based on the name, address or social
security number of the customer, which could lead to the identity
of the customer becoming known. The UCIC is tied to the financial
transactions of the customer, the age and sex of the customer, and
the zip code of the customer; however, more personal information,
such as the social security number, phone number, credit card
numbers and the name of the customer, is not associated with the
UCIC, thus protecting the identity of the customer.
[0042] The system also includes a secure database 22 that is
operated by advertisement delivery provider. This database 22
associates the UCIC with the information that is similar to that
stored in the financial institutions databases. The advertisement
delivery provider database 22 stores, or warehouses, the financial
information and other non-personal information that it receives
from a number of different financial institutions. The
advertisement delivery provider database 22 also associates an
advertisement delivery identification code (ADIC) and a financial
institution identification code (FIIDC) for each individual
customer stored in its database and associates these codes with the
UCIC that is provided by the financial institution database. The
ADIC is unique to each customer stored in the database. The FIIDC
is associated with the financial institution that has the provided
the customer information for the unique customer. Since the UCIC
maintains the anonymity of the consumer to which it is matched, the
ADIC and the FIIDC also maintain that anonymity of the consumer
because no personal information is matched to these codes.
Accordingly, the UCIC and the FIIDC can also be referred to as
anonymous codings.
[0043] The system 8 also includes a first interface 24, or portal,
which will be referred to as a non-consumer portal, that allows
marketers 10, financial institutions 12 and third party
advertisement presenters 16 to communicate with the advertisement
delivery provider database through a processor 26, which runs
system software and is operated by the advertisement delivery
provider. The system further includes a second interface 28, which
will be referred to as a consumer portal, through which consumers
14 will receive targeted advertisements based on non-personal
information that is known about the individual consumer who has
logged onto the consumer portal 28.
[0044] Generally, the method for delivering targeted advertisements
to consumers includes a marketer 10 defining a market segment, a
financial institution 12 providing a base of customers from which
the market segment can be drawn, and an entity (the advertisement
delivery provider) that delivers advertisements to consumers that
are within the defined market segment. A market segment is group of
people or entities that share one or more characteristics that
cause them to have similar product needs. A method for delivering
targeted advertisements to consumers will be described in detail so
that one skilled in the art can practice the method; however, the
order in which the steps of the method are practiced can deviate
from the order in which they are depicted in the FIGURES.
[0045] FIG. 2 depicts steps that can be carried out by the marketer
to deliver targeted advertisements to consumers. The marketer is
the entity that desires to sell a product or a service and
therefore wishes to advertise its products or services. The
marketer can also simply wish to deliver advertisements to a market
segment and not be in the business of selling a product or service,
e.g. a charitable organization. At 100 the marketer defines a
market segment that is to receive an advertisement. Prior to
defining the market segment, the marketer will typically have
developed an advertisement that it would like to deliver to a
consumer who is within the defined market segment. For example, a
marketer desiring to sell sport cars may define the market segment
to be females who have a monthly car payment of over $450. The
market segment could be narrowed, for example to where a consumer
lives, the number of car payments that the consumer may have left
on a car loan or lease, the monthly deposits made into the
consumer's checking or savings account and other information that
may be relevant in determining whether the consumer is in the
market for a sports car. As will be described with more detail with
reference to FIGS. 3 and 4, the market segment can be defined
solely by the marketer or the market segment can be defined with
the aid of software utilized within system.
[0046] With continued reference to FIG. 1, at 100 the market
segment is defined by the marketer filling out an order screen,
which in the depicted system embodiment is a web portal
(non-consumer portal 24 in FIG. 1) that is operating the software
that facilitates defining the market segment. Financial institution
customers that fall within the market segment comprise the group of
consumers who will receive the targeted advertisement of the
marketer, which in the example described above is an advertisement
for a sports car.
[0047] At 102, market segment order data is batched with other
market segment order data that has been received from other
marketers or with market segment order data that has been received
from the same marketer requesting advertisements be delivered to a
different market segment. The market segment data is batched in the
advertisement delivery provider database 22 (FIG. 1).
[0048] At 104, the site (or sites) that is/are to present the
advertisement approves or disapproves of the advertisement(s) that
are to be delivered on its site. Typically, the site where the
advertisement is to be presented is the secure web site where the
financial institution's customer performs transactions over the
network (e.g. the financial institution's secure web site).
Nevertheless, the site where the advertisement is to be delivered
can also include unsecure web sites (e.g. cnn.com, espn.com and the
like). If the advertisement is not approved, then at 106 the
marketer is informed of this decision and can also be given the
reason for the disapproval of the advertisement. More description
of the process involved in approval of the advertisement is
described at FIG. 4.
[0049] If the advertisement is approved by at least some of the
operators of web sites that are to display the advertisements, than
at 108, the order data is processed to determine the customers who
fall within the market segment. The advertisement delivery provider
database 22 (FIG. 1) is queried by the software on the processor
26, which may include the database 22, to locate customers that
fall within the market segment. In this database, each consumer,
who is also a customer of one of the financial institutions that is
a part of the system, is associated with a financial institution
identification code (FIIDC), a unique customer identification code
(UCIC) and an advertisement delivery identification code (ADIC). As
stated above, each customer in the advertisement delivery provider
database is associated with a customer identification that is not
traceable back to the customer. Only the financial transaction
history, which has been provided by the financial institutions, and
other non-identifying information (e.g., zip code, sex, age) is
stored in the advertisement delivery provider database and
associated with the FIIDC, the UCIC and the ADIC for each
individual customer. The UCIC is merely an anonymous profile that
does not contain any means to identify the customer, i.e. name or
social security number, other than the transactional financial
history of the customer. Accordingly, the marketer is able to
deliver an advertisement to a consumer who is ready, willing and
able to purchase the good or service offered by the marketer;
however, the identity of the consumer by the marketer and the
advertisement delivery provider remains unknown.
[0050] The ADIC also designates the customer, however, this
identification is assigned by the software of the system, which is
operated by the advertisement deliver provider as opposed to by the
financial institutions. The ADIC is most useful when the consumer
logs onto a web site other than a secure web site operated by one
of the financial institutions that is operating within the system.
The ADIC provides an identification of the consumer that can be
linked back to the UCIC and the financial information that is
associated with the UCIC. When a consumer logs onto a secure
financial institution's web site, which will be described in more
detail below, the UCIC, which has been assigned by the financial
institution, is already known because the financial institution
knows the identity of its customer. However, the financial
institution does not share the "true identity" (the "true identity"
being an identifying characteristic that would allow the identity
of the customer to be known to the advertisement deliver provider).
Instead the financial institution only provides the UCIC to the
advertisement delivery provider which as discussed above is not
traceable back to the financial institution's customer's identity.
Accordingly, the financial institution is providing a database of
anonymous customers each having a different financial history. Thus
only the financial transactions (and other non-identifying
information) of the customer are known to the advertisement
delivery provider.
[0051] At 108, the database is queried to determine which customers
meet the criteria of the market segment to determine the expected
success of the campaign. For the sports car example mentioned
above, the database is queried to determine which consumers pay
over $450 per month for a car. During processing, the expected
campaign success and the time it will take the advertisement to
meet a predetermined number of the consumers can also be reported
to the marketer. For example, where the marketer defines the market
segment very narrowly only a few consumers may meet the criteria
and the likelihood for success of the advertising campaign is also
low or will involve an unacceptable length of time before the
number of targeted consumers will receive the advertisement. The
number of consumers that meet the criteria of the segment can aid
in determining how many consumers will receive the advertisement
that is sent out. This will be described in more detail with
reference to FIG. 6.
[0052] At 112 a report is generated that is sent to the marketer
via the first portal 24 (FIG. 1). The report can include such
information as the number of consumers in the market segment and
the time it will take for a predetermined number of views of the
advertisement. The time it will take to reach a predetermined
amount of consumers can be determined by the amount of times on
average consumers in that market segment log on to certain web
sites that allow for the delivery of these targeted
advertisements.
[0053] At 114, the marketer is asked whether it wishes to place an
order for advertisements to be delivered.
[0054] With reference back to how the market segment is defined
(100 in FIG. 1), with reference to FIG. 3, at 120 the marketer logs
onto a secure web site, which in the exemplary method is the
non-consumer portal 24 in FIG. 1. The web site can be run by the
advertisement delivery provider.
[0055] At 122 the marketer is presented with a screen that asks the
marketer to select the item or service that is to be the subject of
the advertisement that the marketer wishes to be delivered to
consumers. In the example that is discussed above, the marketer may
enter "cars" or "sports cars."
[0056] At 124, the marketer is then prompted to input the desired
number of views or clicks of its advertisement that it wishes to
obtain. A view is simply a posting of the advertisement on a web
site that is viewed by the consumer. A click is when the consumer
clicks on the advertisement and is taken to another web site, which
is typically operated by the marketer, or an agent of the marketer,
and further information can be provided about the service or
product that is the subject of the advertisement.
[0057] At 126 the price that the marketer will pay for the
advertisement to be displayed or clicked on the consumers portal 26
(FIG. 1) is displayed on the web page. The price of the
advertisement can be a function of the product or service that is
the subject of the advertisement. The price can also be a function
of whether the advertisement is clicked or simply viewed. For
example, products or services having a higher sales price will
typically have a higher price per view or click and lower priced
items or services will typically have a lower price per view or
click.
[0058] At 128 the marketer will then be asked whether it wishes to
be assisted in defining a market segment for its product or service
or whether it wishes to define the market segment without
assistance. If the marketer does not desire assistance in defining
the market segment, for example the marketer is knowledgeable of
the customers who desire its products, then at 132 the marketer is
provided with additional criteria by which it can define the market
segment. For example, at 132 the marketer can be presented with a
grab bag of options to further define the market segment, examples
of which include customers who have a current car payment that is
within a certain monetary range, customers of a particular sex,
customers of a particular age, customers who live in a particular
zip code, etc. The grab bag of options may also include criteria
that does not correlate exactly to the data stored in either the
financial institution data base or the advertisement delivery
provider database. For example, the grab bag could include such
options: a range of money that the consumer allocates to
entertainment, the amount of money spent on travel and other
similar criteria. For these aforementioned criteria, the software
operating on the system can be designed to calculate the
entertainment budget of the customer by adding the monthly
transactions of the customer such as movie tickets, concert
tickets, sport events, dining, etc. Additionally, the software may
factor that some of these purchases may also be in cash, which
would not show up as a financial transaction in either database,
and account for this by adding some percentage of the monthly total
to the customer's budget. The budget can be averaged over a time
period, e.g. year. At 134 the price of the advertisement is then
recalculated with each additional criterion that is chosen by the
marketer. The price is then displayed on the web site. The more
criteria that is selected by the marketer to define the market
segment, typically the higher the price of the advertisement.
[0059] If the marketer wishes to be assisted in defining a market
segment for its product or service, then at 136 the product or
service that is the subject of the advertisement is filtered by way
of a taxonomy analysis. The taxonomy analysis classifies the good
or service that is the subject of the advertisement. Based on the
classification of the good or service that is the subject of the
advertisement, questions are presented to the marketer to aid in
defining the market segment at 138. For example, if the subject of
the advertisement is a car, then the marketer can be prompted to
decide whether it wishes to deliver advertisements to consumers who
have paid 33 monthly installments on a car lease, which is an
indication that the lease is about to expire. Another example would
be if the subject of the advertisement is a home mortgage refinance
product, the marketer can be prompted to decide whether it wishes
to deliver advertisements to consumers who originated a mortgage in
a certain year (for example, a year in which interest rates were
known to be higher than they are at the time that the advertisement
will be delivered). After the marketer has answered each question,
which further defines the market segment, the price of the
advertisement is displayed at 134 as a function of the criteria
chosen by the market (by way of answering the questions).
[0060] FIG. 4 more particularly describes how the site (or sites)
that is/are to present the advertisement approve(s) or
disapprove(s) of the advertisement(s) that are to be delivered on
its site(s). At 150, the software that is operated by the
advertisement delivery provider determines whether the marketer
that wishes to have the advertisement displayed is a pre-approved
marketer. Operators of web sites that will display advertisements
can pre-approve certain marketers or classifications of marketers
that are approved to display advertisements on their web sites.
Whether the marketer is already a pre-approved marketer or is
similar to a preapproved marketer and how many web site operators
have pre-approved the marketer can have an effect on how quickly
its advertisement will be viewed or clicked by the predetermined
threshold of consumers that it desires to view or click its
advertisement.
[0061] At 152, if the marketer has been preapproved by the web site
operator that will display the advertisement, then the
advertisement is automatically approved and placed in a queue of
advertisements that are waiting to be viewed by customers who log
onto the operator's web site and who are within the market segment
that has been defined by the marketer. The queue of advertisements
can be stored in the advertisement delivery provider database 22
(FIG. 1). At 154 a report can be generated and sent to the marketer
informing the marketer of the web sites that have approved the
marketer's advertisement.
[0062] If the marketer has not been preapproved by the web site
operator, then at 156 the advertisement delivery provider
determines whether the marker is a marketer or a classification of
marketer that is always disapproved by the operator of the web
site. If the marketer is a marketer or is in a classification that
is always disapproved by the web site operator, then a report is
generated, at 106 on FIG. 1, informing the marketer of the
disapproval status.
[0063] If marketer is not always disapproved, then the
advertisement is viewed by the web site operator at 158. The web
site operator can be sent the advertisement via e-mail or the web
site operator can log onto a web site, which can be the
non-consumer portal 24 in FIG. 1, that is operated by the
advertisement delivery provider to view the advertisement(s)
awaiting approval. The web site operator then approves or
disapproves the advertisement at 162. If the advertisement is
approved, then the advertisement is placed in the queue at 152 and
the report is generated at 154. If the advertisement is not
approved, then at 164 the web site operator who was requested to
display the advertisement is asked to answer why the advertisement
has been disapproved. The web site operator, at 166, is also given
the option to deny all advertisements from this particular marketer
or classification of marketer. If the web site operator chooses to
always disapprove the marketer, then at 172 the marketer is added
to an always disapprove list and the marketer will always be
disapproved by the web site operator. If the web site operator
chooses to not always disapprove the marketer, then the marketer is
not placed on the always disapprove list. The marketer is then
notified that the advertisement has been disapproved by the web
site operator.
[0064] With reference back to FIG. 2, after the advertisement has
been approved by the web site that is to display the
advertisement--the advertisement may be displayed on a number of
different web sites, each requiring some sort of approval--the
projected success of the advertisement reaching the predetermined
threshold of consumers is determined at 108. FIG. 5 provides a more
detailed description of how the projected success is
determined.
[0065] With reference to FIG. 5, at 190 the number of consumers in
the advertisement delivery provider database that fall within the
market segment is determined. This is accomplished by querying the
advertisement delivery provider database to locate the consumers
that match the market segment that has been defined by the
marketer. At 192, the software running on the system determines if
the number of consumers in the market segment is too low. If the
number of consumers that match the market segment is too low, then,
at 194, the marketer is notified that there is a small likelihood
that the advertisement will be viewed by the number of consumers
that the marketer would like to view the advertisement. An example
of the consumers in the market segment being too low is where the
marketer wishes to display their advertisement 100,000 times but
the advertisement delivery provider database only returns 100
eligible consumers in the market segment, then the advertisement
will most likely take too long to display 100,000 times. At 196,
the marketer will be given the option to redefine the market
segment to reach a greater number of consumers. If the marketer
chooses to redefine the market segment, then, at 198, the marketer
is returned to 128 in FIG. 3 to see if the marketer desires
assistance in defining the market segment. In addition to, or in
lieu of returning to fully redefining the market segment, at 198
the marketer can also be presented with recommendations for
increasing the number of consumers within the market segment. The
software of the system can break out the criteria used to define
the market segment and suggest that if certain criteria for the
market segment were to be removed then the number of consumers that
could view the advertisement could be increased. For example, the
marketer could be presented with the option to define the market as
including both males and females, where the original market segment
criteria was limited only to females. If the marketer chooses not
to redefine the market segment, then, at 202, the advertisement is
not ordered by the marketer.
[0066] If the number of consumers is not too low, for example if
the marketer desires 100,000 views of the advertisement and 75,000
consumers qualify for the market segment, then, at 204, the
software of the system returns a report to the marketer that the
advertising campaign should be successful. The report can include
an estimate of the time it will take the advertisement to display
the desired number of views of the advertisement. This information
can be based on the number of consumers who have qualified for the
market segment and the web surfing habits of the consumers in the
market segment.
[0067] Moving to the consumer side of the advertisement delivery
process, at 220 the consumer 14 (FIG. 1), who is also a customer of
the financial institution 12 (FIG. 1), logs onto the financial
institution's web site. The consumer logs onto a protected portion
of the financial institution's web site where the consumer must
identify himself appropriately so that, for example, the financial
institution allows the user to perform banking transactions over
the Internet.
[0068] After the consumer logs onto the financial institution's web
site software that is running on the financial institution's web
site, which is also part of the system 8 (FIG. 1), checks for the
presence of a cookie, or similar file, stored on the consumer's
computer at 222. The cookie included is a text file that is stored
on the consumer's computer that includes the ADIC. If the cookie is
not present, then at 224 the software that is running on the
financial institution's web site assigns an ADIC for the customer
that corresponds with the UCIC for that consumer. The UCIC is known
since the consumer has logged into the financial institution's
secure web site, thus verifying the identity of the consumer. This
ADIC is then stored as a cookie on the consumer's computer for
later reference.
[0069] If the cookie is present or after the cookie has been stored
on the consumer's computer, then at 226 the software queries the
advertisement delivery provider database for defined market
segments for advertising campaigns for which the customer
qualifies. At 228, the software determines whether the customer
qualifies for any market segments for advertising campaigns that
are warehoused in the advertisement delivery provider database. If
the customer does not belong to a defined market segment, then at
232 a non-targeted advertisement is displayed on the web site. If
the customer belongs to a defined market segment, then at 234 a
targeted advertisement can be displayed on the web site.
[0070] If the consumer belongs to a plurality of market segments,
then a plurality of advertisements that correlate to the market
segments can be delivered to the web site for display. As discussed
above, the web site can display a tab that can be clicked to
display all of the advertisements for which the consumer qualifies.
Alternatively, the software can be designed to display only a few
of advertisements that correlate to the market segments in which
the customer resides. The software can be designed to deliver the
advertisements for which the greatest price was paid by the
marketer to have their advertisements displayed.
[0071] The consumer can also indicate to the institution that
he/she is not interested in receiving any such advertisement and so
the institution, or the delivery provider, will block the delivery
of any advertisements to that consumer.
[0072] With reference to FIG. 7, where a consumer logs onto a web
site that is operated by a third party advertisement presenter,
i.e. a web site that is not a secure web site of a financial
institution (e.g. cnn.com, espn.com) the process for delivering an
advertisement is slightly altered as compared to the process
depicted in FIG. 6. At 250 the consumer logs onto a third party
advertisement presenter's web site. At 252, the software running on
the third party presenter's web site checks for a cookie containing
the ADIC. If the cookie is not present, at 254, a non-targeted
advertisement is delivered to the web site for the consumer to
view. If the cookie is present, then at 256 the software queries
the advertisement delivery provider database for defined market
segments for advertising campaigns for which the customer
qualifies. At 258, the software determines whether the customer
qualifies for any market segments for advertising campaigns that
are warehoused in the advertisement delivery provider database. If
the customer does not belong to a defined market segment, then at
254 a non-targeted advertisement is displayed on the web site. If
the customer belongs to a defined market segment, then at 262 a
targeted advertisement can be displayed on the web site.
[0073] Similar to the process defined with regard to FIG. 6, if the
consumer belongs to a plurality of market segments, then a
plurality of advertisements that correlate to the market segments
can be delivered to the web site for display. As discussed above,
the web site can display a tab that can be clicked to display all
of the advertisements for which the consumer qualifies.
Alternatively, the software can be designed to display only a few
of advertisements that correlate to the market segments in which
the customer resides. The software can be designed to deliver the
advertisements for which the greatest price was paid by the
marketer to have their advertisements displayed. In other words, an
advertisement that costs $10 per display will have a greater
likelihood of being delivered to a web site than an advertisement
that costs $5.
[0074] With reference to FIG. 8, the results of the advertisement
display are reported to the marketer. At 270 the delivered targeted
advertisement is displayed on the web site that the consumer is
viewing (whether the web site is the secure web site of a financial
institution or a third party advertisement presenter's web site).
At 272 the software of the system records that the advertisement
has been displayed. At 274 the software determines whether the
advertisement has been clicked. If the consumer does not click on
the advertisement, then this action is recorded at 276. If the
consumer does click on the advertisement, then the consumer is
directed to another web site, typically operated by the marketer,
and this action is recorded at 278. At 282 a report is generated
that is sent to the marketer that provides the results of the
advertising campaign. Since the marketer can pay for an
advertisement on a "view or display" basis and on a "click" basis,
the report can provide a basis for billing the marketer for the
advertising campaign. Moreover, the report can provide the marketer
information such as the percentage or viewed advertisements that
were clicked, which will be helpful in defining future market
segments for similar products.
[0075] FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram illustrating the pertinent
activities of the consumer and advertiser in the context of the
present embodiment.
[0076] FIG. 10 is a diagram showing communication paths between
consumers, advertiser, the bank and the advertisement delivery
provider.
[0077] In accordance with various other features described herein,
systems and methods are described that overcome the above-described
problems by incentivizing vendors to provide larger discounts when
offering an item or service in an advertisement placed on a third
party website, in return for reduced cost associated with
advertisement placement on the website. Similarly, the described
systems and methods encourage an owner or host of the website to
accept a smaller payment for advertisement placement on the website
in return for larger discounts for customers visiting the
website.
[0078] It will be appreciated that although the "events" that are
tracked are described herein as being associated with a website
(e.g., user clicks on a web page, user completion of a survey on a
website, presentation of an ad on a website, etc.), such events are
not limited to being associate with a website. For example, an
event can include user activation of an application (an "app"), on
a computer or a mobile device. In another example, the event
includes a user action (e.g., executing, interacting with, etc.)
with the app. For instance, the event can comprise a user
downloading and/or installing an app on a mobile device such as a
smartphone. Moreover, the advertisements described herein are not
limited to being displayed on a website, but rather can also be
presented to the user within an application, during application
download or installation, or the like. Events that occur via
interaction with the application, such as user clicks on the
advertisement, purchases of the item or service offered in the
advertisement, etc., can then be tracked and a CPE determined
therefor.
[0079] With reference to FIG. 11, a system 410 is illustrated that
facilitates providing targeted, vendor-generated advertisements via
a retail merchant's website to a qualified customer, and sending an
invoice to a vendor generating the advertisements wherein the
vendor is given a scalable discount per event associated with one
or more targeted advertisements placed based on the size of a
discount offered by the vendor in the advertisement. In accordance
with the various systems and methods described herein, the event
may be, for example, the occurrence of a predefined number of
presentations or impressions of the advertisement to qualified
customers. For instance, the event may be 1000 presentations of the
advertisement, and the cost per thousand (e.g., cost-per-mil)
presentations is a function of the size of the discount offered in
the advertisement. Other examples of events may include without
limitation: a predefined number (e.g., 1, 5, 10, 100, 500, 1000,
etc.) of times the advertisement is clicked on by qualified users
to whom the advertisement is presented (e.g., a cost-per-click or
per predefined number of clicks); an action or predefined number of
actions, such as the customer completing a form or survey, buying
an item, etc. (e.g., a cost-per-action); a predefined amount of
revenue generated from the targeted advertisement
presentations(e.g., a cost-per-revenue); a transaction or
predefined number of transactions such as a purchase or the like
(e.g., a cost-per-transaction); or any other suitable metric by
which the effectiveness of the targeted advertisement can be
measured in order to charge the vendor for placing the targeted
advertisement. In any case, the greater the discount offered by the
vendor, or the greater the size of the offer in the advertisement,
the lower the CPE for placing the targeted advertisement. In one
example, the bank may select a CPE amount as a function of what
they want to be paid, and the offers are correlated to make up that
total. For instance, if a bank desires a $7 CPE and the offers are
a mix of $5 and $8 CPEs, the system can mix the offers to achieve
the desired CPE of $7 (e.g., two-thirds of the events are
associated with $8 CPE offers, and one third with $5 CPE
offers.
[0080] The diagram of the system is provided for the purpose of
explaining interrelationships between various data in the system,
and the embodiments of the present application are not limited to
the arrangement shown. Although each of the blocks in the diagram
is described sequentially in a logical order, it is not to be
assumed that the system processes the described information in any
particular order or arrangement.
[0081] The system 410 includes a vendor user interface (UI) 412
(e.g., a computing device such as a personal computer, laptop, PDA,
Smartphone, etc.), via which the vendor (or manufacturer) enters
parameter information related to a desired advertisement or offer
that the vendor wishes to present to qualified customers on a
retail merchant's website. Additionally, the vendor identifies or
enters an event type (e.g., a user-click, purchase, completed form,
or the like) that the vender wishes to be detected to calculate the
CPE. The vendor UI 412 accesses a system server 414 (e.g., an
advertisement server run by an advertisement generating company or
entity and which generates advertisements for placement on one or
more websites) that is coupled to one or more processors 416, which
in turn is coupled to a memory 418 (e.g., a computer-readable
medium or database, etc.). The processor 416 and memory 18 may be
integral to the server or remote thereto.
[0082] The processor 416 executes, and the memory 418 stores,
computer executable instructions for carrying out any and all
functions, methods, techniques, etc., described herein. The memory
418 may be a computer-readable medium on which a control program is
stored, such as a disk, hard drive, or the like. Common forms of
computer-readable media include, for example, floppy disks,
flexible disks, hard disks, magnetic tape, or any other magnetic
storage medium, CD-ROM, DVD, or any other optical medium, RAM, ROM,
PROM, EPROM, FLASH-EPROM, variants thereof, other memory chip or
cartridge, or any other tangible medium from which the processor
416 can read and execute. In this context, the system 410 may be
implemented on or as one or more general purpose computers, special
purpose computer(s), a programmed microprocessor or microcontroller
and peripheral integrated circuit elements, an ASIC or other
integrated circuit, a digital signal processor, a hardwired
electronic or logic circuit such as a discrete element circuit, a
programmable logic device such as a PLD, PLA, FPGA, Graphical card
CPU (GPU), or PAL, or the like.
[0083] The vendor enters advertisement or offer parameter
information 420 in the vendor UI 412, which is received at the
server 14 (e.g., over an Internet connection, a cellular
connection, etc.), processed by the processor 416, and stored in
the memory 418. The offer parameters 420 may include, without being
limited to, information describing items 422 to be offered for sale
to the customer, discount information 424 (e.g., a discount
percent, a fixed amount off, etc.), expiration information 426,
other terms 428 of the offer (e.g., 10% off for a purchase over
$50.00), a number of permitted acceptances of the offer (e.g.,
offer valid to the first 1000 customers who accept the offer on a
first-come first-served basis), etc. The offer parameter
information 420 additionally includes target customer criteria 430
(i.e. vendor-specified KLIs) that describe what the vendor
considers to be an ideal customer to whom the offer should be
presented. The vendor may provide or generate artwork or graphics
that are employed or presented in the advertisement. The processor
416 executes instructions to generate one or more offer
advertisements 432 based on the vendor-entered offer parameter
information and the graphics or artwork provided by the vendor.
[0084] Additionally, the processor 416 access a cost-per-event
(CPE) lookup table (LUT) 434 to retrieve pricing information for
the advertisement(s) 432. Pricing may be a function of any suitable
variables including but not limited to advertisement size,
prominence of the advertisement on a webpage, etc. Additionally,
the price information CPE LUT 434 is a function of the size of the
discount offered by the vendor. For instance, given a set of offer
parameters, an advertisement may have a CPE of $15 for placing 1000
targeted advertisements. If the vendor offers a 10% discount in the
advertisement, the CPE may be $13. A discount of 20% may result in
a CPE of $10.50, and so on. In another example, the discount may be
a flat-rate discount (e.g., $10, $20, etc., where greater discounts
are rewarded with lower CPEs). It will be appreciated that the
reduced CPE scale for larger discounts may be linear or non-linear,
as a matter of design choice.
[0085] Optionally, the target customer criteria 430 include
tolerance or threshold information (not shown), whereby the vendor
can specify a tolerance for the target customer criteria being met.
For instance, the vendor can specify that if a predefined
percentage of the criteria (e.g., 80%, 90%, 95%, etc.) of the
criteria are met by a customer, then the offer may be presented to
the customer, to increase a number of customers reached by a given
advertisement while ensuring that the customer is still a desirable
target for the advertisement. According to an example, a vendor may
specify three KLIs that the vendor desires to be associated with a
customer in order to present the targeted advertisement to the
customer. The vendor may assign priority levels or weights to each
of the KLIs. If fewer than a desired number of customers match all
three criteria, then the third-priority KLI may be dropped and
customers matching the two more heavily weighted KLIs may be
targeted for presentation of the advertisement in order to achieve
a desired number of advertisement presentations to the desired
number of qualified customers.
[0086] The server 414 (and/or processor 416) accesses a website
436, which may be the vendors' own website, or any other website
that permits advertisements to be placed thereon. The website 436
has associated therewith a customer profile database 438 that
includes customer profiles 440 for any number of customers (labeled
as C1, C2, CN, where N is an integer). The customer profiles 440
include information about the customers that is entered directly by
the customer (e.g., age, zip code, personal interests or hobbies,
occupation, marital status, etc.) or that is inferred by customer
actions (e.g., purchases, webpage history, etc.). When a customer
logs on to the website 436 via a customer UI 442, the processor
executes a matching algorithm 444 (e.g., a set of
computer-executable instructions) that compares the customer's
profile 440 to the target customer criteria 430 to determine
whether the customer satisfies the target customer criteria 430. If
a match is identified, then the offer advertisement 432 is
presented to the customer on the website 436.
[0087] Events 447 are trackable inputs (ad presentations, clicks,
transactions, actions, revenue generated, etc.) associated with the
advertisement and are stored to the memory 418. As events occur, an
event tally component or algorithm 446 is run by the processor 416
to keep track of the number of events 447. Periodically (e.g.,
monthly, quarterly, etc.), invoice data 448 is generated comprising
the number of events associated with the advertisement, the CPE for
the advertisement, and the total cost of the advertisements for the
period. An invoice 450 is generated by the processor 416 from the
invoice data 448 and transmitted to the vendor. When the vendor
pays the amount due on the invoice, a portion of the payment is
provided to the owner of the website 446, and the remainder is
retained by the provider of the advertisement placement service
(e.g., the server owner).
[0088] The server 414 is operated by an advertisement company or
the like, which generates advertisements and targets specific
customers for the vendor. According to another aspect, the
advertisements can be pre-generated by the vendor and provided to
the advertisement server for presentation to qualified customers.
Because the matching algorithm 444 identifies customers by their
customer profiles, which may be closely held by the company owning
the website, anonymity is maintained with regard to the vendor.
That is, potentially private customer profile information is not
provided to the vendor, but rather only access for comparison to
the target customer criteria specified by the vendor. Indeed, the
vendor need not be informed of the identity of the customers to
whom its offers are advertised.
[0089] FIG. 12 illustrates a method of providing the service
described with regard to FIG. 11, in accordance with various
aspects described herein. One or more of the steps described with
regard to the method of FIG. 12 may be performed on a computer 468.
At 470, offer parameter information is received from a vendor. At
472, a CPE lookup table is accessed to identify a CPE for the
offers, which are presented on a particular website. The CPE is a
function of the offer parameters, including the size of the
discount offered, as well as the event type (presentation, click,
purchase, survey completion, etc.) specified by the vendor. At 474,
the offer is presented to qualifying customers when they log on to
the website. Customer qualification is determined by comparing
vendor-specified target customer criteria to a customer profile for
the customer. At 476, the vendor-specified event is detected a
tally of the number of times the specified event has occurred is
updated (e.g., periodically or continuously). Periodically, a
vendor invoice is generated, at 478. The invoice is transmitted to
the vendor at 480. Payment is received from the vendor at 482.
[0090] A predetermined portion of the vendor's payment is then
provided to the website owner or host, at 484. In this manner, the
website host receives payment for permitting the advertisement to
be displayed on its website, and accepts a smaller payment per
event for advertisements displayed for larger discounts for its
visitors. In another example, the website owner receives a
prescribed fee per event (e.g., per a predefined number of
advertisement presentations, per a predefined number of clicks on
the advertisement by targeted customers, etc.), and the
advertisement provider accepts a smaller payment for larger
discounts. In yet another example, the website owner and the
advertisement provider both accept a reduced payment when the
vendor offers larger discounts. The vendor is incentivized to
provide larger discounts to entice customers to click on the
advertisement, and the website host is incentivized to charge less
per advertisement display in order to provide larger discounts to
its visitors or customers, which in turn increases the likelihood
of future visits to the website by customers.
[0091] FIG. 13 illustrates a system 500 that facilitates providing
targeted, vendor-generated advertisements via a financial
institution's website to a qualified customer, and sending an
invoice to a vendor generating the advertisements wherein the
vendor is given a scalable discount per event associated with
targeted advertisements placed based on the size of a discount
offered by the vendor in the advertisement. An "event" may be a
predefined number of advertisement presentations to qualified
customers, one or more transactions, one or more clicks on the
advertisement, or any other suitable metric as described above with
regard the preceding figures. The system 500 includes the vendor UI
412, via which the vendor enters parameter information related to a
desired advertisement or offer that the vendor wishes to present to
qualified customers on a retail merchant's website. Additionally,
the vendor identifies or enters an event type (e.g., a user click,
purchase, form or survey completion, etc.) that the vendor wishes
to be tracked in order to calculate the CPE. The vendor UI 412
accesses the system server 414, which is coupled to one or more
processors 416, which in turn is coupled to the memory 418 (e.g., a
computer-readable medium or database, etc.). The processor 416 and
memory 418 may be integral to the server or remote thereto.
[0092] The vendor enters advertisement or offer parameter
information 420 into the vendor UI 412, which is received at the
server 414 (e.g., over an Internet connection, a cellular
connection, etc.), processed by the processor 416, and stored in
the memory 418. The offer parameters 420 may include, without being
limited to, information describing items 422 to be offered for sale
to the customer, discount information 424 (e.g., a discount
percent, a fixed amount off, etc.), expiration information 426,
other terms 428 of the offer (e.g., 10% off for a purchase over
$50.00), etc. The offer parameter information 420 additionally
includes target customer criteria 430 that describe what the vendor
considers to be an ideal customer to whom the offer should be
presented. The vendor enters the offer information by selecting
offer parameters from one or more dropdown menus, entering
information into a text box or field, or the like. The vendor may
provide or generate artwork or graphics that are employed or
presented in the advertisement. The processor 416 executes
instructions to generate one or more graphical offer advertisements
432 based on the vendor-entered offer parameter information and the
optional graphics or artwork provided by the vendor.
[0093] Additionally, the processor 416 accesses the CPE LUT 434 to
retrieve pricing information for the advertisement(s) 432. Pricing
may be a function of any suitable variables including but not
limited to advertisement size, prominence of the advertisement on a
webpage, etc. Additionally, the price information in the CPE LUT 34
is a function of the size of the discount offered by the vendor.
For instance, given a set of offer parameters, an advertisement may
have a CPE of $20 for placing 1000 targeted advertisements. If the
vendor offers a 10% discount in the advertisement, the CPE may be
$18. A discount of 20% may result in a CPE of $16 and so on. It
will be appreciated that the reduced CPE scale for larger discounts
may be linear or non-linear, as a matter of design choice.
[0094] Optionally, the target customer criteria 430 include
tolerance information, whereby the vendor can specify a tolerance
for the target customer criteria being met. For instance, the
vendor can specify that if a predefined percentage of the criteria
(e.g., 80%, 90%, 95%, etc) of the criteria are met by a customer,
then the offer may be presented to the customer, increase a number
of customers reached by a given advertisement while ensuring that
the customer is still a desirable target for the advertisement.
According to an example, a vendor may specify five criteria or KLIs
that the vendor desires to be associated with a customer in order
to present the targeted advertisement to the customer, and the
vendor may assign priority levels or weights to each of the KLIs.
If fewer than a desired number of customers match all five KLIs,
then the lowest-priority KLI may be dropped and customers matching
the four more heavily weighted KLIs may be targeted for
presentation for the advertisement in order to achieve a desired
number of advertisement presentations to the desired number of
qualified customers.
[0095] The server 414 (and/or processor 416) accesses a financial
institution's website 502, which permits advertisements to be
placed thereon. The website 502 has associated therewith a customer
profile database 504 that includes customer profiles 506 for any
number of customers (labeled as C1, C2, CN, where N is an integer)
of the financial institution. The memory 418 stores anonymized
customer profiles 507 that include key lifestyle information or
indicators (KLIs) 508, which may include information about the
customers C1 through CN that is entered directly by the customer
(e.g., age, zip code, personal interests or hobbies, occupation,
marital status, etc.) or that is inferred by customer actions
(e.g., purchases, webpage history, anonymized bank account and/or
transaction information, etc.). Such information and the user
thereof to identify target customers is described in co-pending
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/266,199, and co-pending U.S.
patent application Ser. No. 12/403,656, both of which are
incorporated by reference herein in their entireties. Anonymization
of the customer profile information is described herein with regard
to FIGS. 1-10.
[0096] When a customer logs on to the website 502 via the customer
UI 442, the processor executes the matching algorithm 444 (e.g., a
set of computer-executable instructions) that compares the KLIs 508
in the customer's profile 506 to the target customer criteria 430
to determine whether the customer satisfies the target customer
criteria 430. If a match is identified, then the offer
advertisement 432 is presented to the customer on the website
502.
[0097] Events 447 are trackable inputs (e.g., user clicks,
purchases, forms filled out by the user, other user actions, etc.)
and are stored to the memory. As the trackable events occur, the
event tally component or algorithm 446 is run on the processor 416
to keep track of the number of events associated with the
advertisement. Periodically (e.g., monthly, quarterly, etc.),
invoice data 448 is generated comprising the number of events
associated with the advertisement (e.g., in a given time period or
invoicing interval), the CPE for the advertisement, and the total
cost of the advertisements for the period. An invoice 450 is then
transmitted to the vendor. When the vendor pays the amount due on
the invoice, a portion of the payment is provided to the financial
institution, and the remainder is retained by the provider of the
advertisement placement service (e.g., the server owner).
[0098] FIG. 14 illustrates a method of providing the service
described with regard to FIG. 13, in accordance with various
aspects described herein. One or more of the steps of the method
described with regard to FIG. 14 may be implemented on a computer
468. At 520, offer parameter information is received (e.g., at an
advertisement placement service or provider) from a vendor. At 522,
a CPE lookup table is accessed to identify a cost per event for the
offer on a financial institution's website. The CPE is a function
of the offer parameters, including the size of the discount
offered, the type of event specified by the vendor (e.g., click,
purchase, ad presentation, competed form, etc.). For instance, a
larger discount has a lower CPE than a smaller discount for the
same item or service. At 524, the offer is presented to qualifying
financial institution customers when they log on to the financial
institution's website. Customer qualification is determined by
comparing vendor-specified target customer criteria to KLIs in a
customer profile stored in a financial institution database for the
customer. At 526, the vendor-specified event is detected and a
tally of the number of times the event occurs is updated (e.g.,
periodically or continuously). Periodically, a vendor invoice is
generated, at 528. The invoice is transmitted to the vendor at 530.
Payment is received from the vendor at 532. A predetermined portion
of the vendor's payment is then provided to the financial
institution, at 534. In this manner, the financial institution
receives a payment for permitting the advertisement to be displayed
on its website, and may accept a smaller payment per event
associated with advertisements displayed in exchange for larger
discounts for its customers. The vendor is incentivized to provide
larger discounts to entice customers to click on the advertisement,
and the financial institution is incentivized to charge less per
advertisement display in order to provide larger discounts to its
visitors or customers, which in turn increases the likelihood of
future visits to the financial institution website (i.e., increased
website traffic).
[0099] The methods illustrated in FIGS. 12 and 14 may be
implemented in a computer program product that may be executed on a
computer 468 or computing components (e.g., server 414, processor
416, memory 418, etc.) in the system of FIGS. 11 and 13. Further,
it is to be appreciated that any suitable computing environment can
be employed in accordance with the present embodiments. For
example, computing architectures including, but not limited to,
stand alone, multiprocessor, distributed, client/server,
minicomputer, mainframe, supercomputer, digital and analog can be
employed in accordance with the present embodiments.
[0100] The computer can include a processing unit such as the
processor 416 of FIGS. 11 and 13, a system memory such as the
memory 418 of FIGS. 11 and 13, and a system bus that couples
various system components including the system memory to the
processing unit. The processing unit can be any of various
commercially available processors (e.g., a central processing unit,
a graphical processing unit, etc.). Dual microprocessors and other
multi-processor architectures also can be used as the processing
unit.
[0101] The system bus can be any of several types of bus structure
including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and
a local bus using any of a variety of commercially available bus
architectures. The computer memory includes read only memory (ROM)
and random access memory (RAM). A basic input/output system (BIOS),
containing the basic routines that help to transfer information
between elements within the computer, such as during start-up, is
stored in ROM.
[0102] The computer can further include a hard disk drive, a
magnetic disk drive, e.g., to read from or write to a removable
disk, and an optical disk drive, e.g., for reading a CD-ROM disk or
to read from or write to other optical media. The computer
typically includes at least some form of computer readable media.
Computer readable media can be any available media that can be
accessed by the computer. By way of example, and not limitation,
computer readable media may comprise computer storage media and
communication media. Computer storage media includes volatile and
nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any
method or technology for storage of information such as computer
readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other
data. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM,
ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM,
digital versatile disks (DVD) or other magnetic storage devices, or
any other medium which can be used to store the desired information
and which can be accessed by the computer.
[0103] Communication media typically embodies computer readable
instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a
modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport
mechanism and includes any information delivery media. The term
"modulated data signal" means a signal that has one or more of its
characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode
information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation,
communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or
direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF,
infrared and other wireless media. Combinations of any of the above
can also be included within the scope of computer readable
media.
[0104] A number of program modules may be stored in the drives and
RAM, including an operating system, one or more application
programs, other program modules, and program non-interrupt data.
The operating system in the computer can be any of a number of
commercially available operating systems.
[0105] A user may enter commands and information into the computer
through a keyboard (not shown) and a pointing device or stylus (not
shown), such as a mouse. Other input devices (not shown) may
include a microphone, an IR remote control, a joystick, a game pad,
a satellite dish, a scanner, or the like. These and other input
devices are often connected to the processing unit through a serial
port interface (not shown) that is coupled to the system bus, but
may be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, a
game port, a universal serial bus (USB), an IR interface, etc.
[0106] A monitor (not shown), or other type of display device, may
also be connected to the system bus via an interface, such as a
video adapter (not shown). In addition to the monitor, a computer
typically includes other peripheral output devices (not shown),
such as speakers, printers etc. The monitor can be employed with
the computer to present data that is electronically received from
one or more disparate sources. For example, the monitor can be an
LCD, plasma, CRT, etc. type that presents data electronically.
Alternatively or in addition, the monitor can display received data
in a hard copy format such as a printer, facsimile, plotter etc.
The monitor can present data in any color and can receive data from
the computer via any wireless or hard wire protocol and/or
standard.
[0107] The computer can operate in a networked environment using
logical and/or physical connections to one or more remote
computers, such as a remote computer(s). The remote computer(s) can
be a workstation, a server computer, a router, a personal computer,
microprocessor based entertainment appliance, a peer device or
other common network node, and typically includes many or all of
the elements described relative to the computer. The logical
connections depicted include a local area network (LAN) and a wide
area network (WAN). Such networking environments are commonplace in
offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the
Internet.
[0108] When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer is
connected to the local network through a network interface or
adapter. When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer
typically includes a modem, or is connected to a communications
server on the LAN, or has other means for establishing
communications over the WAN, such as the Internet. In a networked
environment, program modules depicted relative to the computer, or
portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage
device. It will be appreciated that network connections described
herein are exemplary and other means of establishing a
communications link between the computers may be used.
[0109] Methods and systems for providing targeted content to
specific customers while reducing advertisement cost to a vendor in
exchange for increased discounts for the customer have been
described with reference to specific embodiments. Modifications and
alterations will occur to those upon reading and understanding the
preceding detailed description. For example, the methods and
systems described above can also be used to deliver targeted
content--content that is not an advertisement--to consumers based
on the above described classification and transactional metrics.
The invention is not limited to only those embodiments described
above. Instead, the invention is intended to cover all
modifications and alterations that come within the scope of the
appended claims and the equivalents thereof.
* * * * *