WO2000033159A2 - Incentive delivery and notification system and method - Google Patents

Incentive delivery and notification system and method Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2000033159A2
WO2000033159A2 PCT/US1999/028102 US9928102W WO0033159A2 WO 2000033159 A2 WO2000033159 A2 WO 2000033159A2 US 9928102 W US9928102 W US 9928102W WO 0033159 A2 WO0033159 A2 WO 0033159A2
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WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
incentive
consumer
product
information
site
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/US1999/028102
Other languages
French (fr)
Other versions
WO2000033159A3 (en
Inventor
Humphrey N. S. Williams
Immanuel Kan
Jaime Sy
Original Assignee
Gotsavings.Com
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Gotsavings.Com filed Critical Gotsavings.Com
Priority to AU23494/00A priority Critical patent/AU2349400A/en
Publication of WO2000033159A2 publication Critical patent/WO2000033159A2/en
Publication of WO2000033159A3 publication Critical patent/WO2000033159A3/en

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Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q30/00—Commerce
    • G06Q30/02—Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Definitions

  • This invention relates generally to a system and method for delivering and
  • the Web site owner may view an advertisement that may be of interest to the user.
  • the Web site owner may view an advertisement that may be of interest to the user.
  • a targeted advertisement may receive a larger amount of money for a targeted advertisement. For example, in
  • search query into a hypertext markup language (HTML) form
  • HTML hypertext markup language
  • the advertisement server receives the search terms and then select an advertisement
  • banner from a database to display to the particular user based on the search terms.
  • a user that enters the search term "Volkswagen" may be shown a banner
  • the user may browse a Web page with various products
  • the Web site may generate a clickstream including information
  • the incentive delivery and notification system The incentive delivery and notification system.
  • system may, in response to the information about the products being reviewed, search a
  • promotion database that maps a particular product to a particular incentive.
  • the system may generate a button image
  • the system may generate an invisible button (a
  • system may also store the product information in a database so that product preference
  • the apparatus comprises means for gathering information about the
  • consumer preference information and for displaying an incentive to a consumer that is
  • the method comprises automatically gathering information about
  • consumer preference information and for displaying an incentive to a consumer that is
  • the remote incentive system further comprises means for converting the consumer
  • Figure 1 is a diagram illustrating a typical desktop computer system that may
  • Figure 2 is a diagram illustrating a Web page that includes a conventional
  • Figure 3 is a diagram illustrating a method for notifying a user of an incentive
  • Figure 4 is a block diagram illustrating the data flow of the incentive delivery
  • Figure 5 is a block diagram illustrating the data flow of the incentive delivery
  • Figure 6 is a block diagram illustrating the data flow of the incentive delivery
  • Figure 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of a shopping site that interfaces
  • the invention is particularly applicable to, but not limited to, a desktop
  • notification mechanism for the incentives may be changed.
  • the incentive For instance, the incentive
  • system may also support other computing devices like handheld computers, PDAs, and
  • Figure 1 is a diagram illustrating a typical desktop computer system 20 that
  • the Web site 22 may be a typical Web site that
  • the Web site may thus be any type of typical e-
  • the web site 22 may include a central
  • CPU central processing unit
  • database 26 containing one or more web pages that may be displayed to a user
  • the incentive system 24 may include an
  • incentive database 30 that contains one or more records indicating products that have
  • One or more users may connect to the web site 22 using a typical computer
  • network 40 that may be the Internet, the World Wide Web, local area network, a wide
  • the users may use one or more desktop
  • client computers typically personal computers 42 (Client #1, Client #2 and Client
  • Each client computer has the number #N ( #N) to connect to the web site 22 over the computer network.
  • Each client computer has the number #N ( #N) to connect to the web site 22 over the computer network.
  • Client #N may include a typical display 44 that may be a
  • liquid crystal display a cathode ray tube or the like, a central unit 46 and one or more
  • the input devices may include a
  • keyboard 50 and a mouse 52 may also include other peripherals, such as printers
  • the central unit 46 may further include a central processing unit (CPU)
  • the persistent storage may be stored in a persistent storage device 56 or a memory 58.
  • the persistent storage may be stored in a persistent storage device 56 or a memory 58.
  • the memory 58 may include hard disks, removable disks, optical disks and the like.
  • the memory 58 may include hard disks, removable disks, optical disks and the like.
  • a software application may be stored in the persistent storage
  • a typical browser application 60 is shown in the
  • a user may access the web site using the browser application
  • URL uniform resource locator
  • the web site may forward clickstream information (that may be used to forward clickstream information (that may be used to forward clickstream information).
  • the incentive system may process the clickstream information to generate
  • the incentive system may attempt to match the product to an incentive. If an
  • Figure 2 is a diagram illustrating a Web page 70 that includes a conventional
  • the typical banner advertisement 72 may, when the
  • search keywords for example,
  • the advertisement so that the advertisement is displayed as a banner to the user.
  • the incentive user interface element 74 may operate differently than the banner
  • each web page 70 may include some HTML code
  • the clickstream may include information about those products, such as a
  • the incentive system 24 may
  • the system may also
  • the system communicates an image of an
  • incentive indicator user interface element such as a user interface button
  • transparent incentive indicator e.g. , a 1X1 transparent pixel image
  • the user is connected to a web site that permits the user to take
  • embedded code and the incentive indicator may collect product browsing information
  • Figure 3 is a diagram illustrating a method 80 for notifying a user of an
  • UI client user interface
  • the web site may send a clickstream including specific product information
  • step 83 to an incentive system 84
  • PromoServer (referred to as a PromoServer in this example) to check on the availability of an
  • the incentive system may then perform a search in
  • step 86 the incentive database (not shown) to determine if an incentive is available in step 86.
  • the incentive indication is viewed by the user.
  • the incentive indication is viewed by the user.
  • image may be a user interface button, but it may also be any other user interface
  • step 90 a determination of whether incentive is available for a particular product. If no incentive is available for a particular product, then, in step 90, a
  • transparent incentive indicator image e.g., 1X1 pixel image that matches the
  • the attributes of the incentive can be
  • Figure 4 is a block diagram illustrating the data flow of the incentive delivery
  • a web site 100 such as a merchant partner web site, may, for
  • the clickstream may include, for example, the address of the web site (URL), a
  • the clickstream may be used to determine if an incentive is
  • the incentive system determines the
  • the incentive system may also store the
  • system may generate a report indicating the statistics about any incentive campaign
  • the incentive system 24 may
  • the URL from the clickstream may be communicated to a desktop shopping
  • the clickstream may be passed onto a personal shopping service 108 and the shopping
  • the personal shopping service may then store
  • the SKU information from the clickstream may be forwarded to a
  • comparison shopping service 110 and the comparison shopping service 110 may match
  • Figure 5 is a block diagram illustrating the data flow of the incentive delivery
  • a web site 120 such as a merchant partner web site, may, for
  • the clickstream may include, for example, the address of the web site (URL), a
  • the clickstream may be used to determine a product being
  • the incentive system may also store the data about the product in
  • the incentive system 24 may
  • the clickstream may be communicated to a consumer preference analyzer 126 in which the consumer preference information is categorized
  • the clickstream may be any number of products category, brand and SKU.
  • the clickstream may be any number of products category, brand and SKU.
  • the clickstream may be any number of products category, brand and SKU.
  • clickstream may be forwarded to a price/promotion impact analysis service 130 in
  • the preference change may be used, for example
  • the data warehousing services may help
  • the incentive system providing information to a user
  • Figure 6 is a block diagram illustrating the data flow of the incentive delivery
  • a web site 140 such as a merchant partner web site, may, for
  • the clickstream may include, for example, the address of the web site (URL), a
  • the clickstream may be used to determine the product
  • the incentive system may also store the data about the product in a campaign tracking database 144 so that the incentive system
  • the incentive system 24 may return an
  • the incentive system 24 may
  • clickstream may be communicated to a promotion database 148 in which the
  • the clickstream is a promotion available for the particular product.
  • the clickstream is a promotion available for the particular product.
  • the clickstream is a promotion available for the particular product.
  • a personal shopping history database 150 may be passed onto a personal shopping history database 150 to store the user's
  • a user with a loyalty to a particular brand may be given a
  • clickstream may also be communicated to a campaign rules database 152 in which the
  • promotion service determines if there are any campaign rules applicable to the user's
  • the campaign rules may alter a promotion/incentive based
  • Figure 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of a shopping site 160 that
  • the web site 160 is a product comparison site in which
  • an invisible/transparent incentive indicator e.g., a 1X1

Abstract

A system and method for gathering consumer preference information about a particular product or brand wherein an incentive indicator is displayed on a web page if an incentive is available to the user for a particular product.

Description

INCENTIVE DELIVERY AND NOTIFICATION SYSTEM AND METHOD
Related Co-Pending Applications
This application claims priority, under 35 US C § 120, of US Provisional Patent
Application No. 60/109,984 filed November 25, 1998 which is incorporated herein by
reference.
Background of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a system and method for delivering and
notifying a user of an incentive or promotion on a desktop device.
With the explosion of the Internet and the World Wide Web, companies have
created different methods and techniques for presenting advertising information to the
user that is viewing the Web page. In fact, many Web-based companies generate on
the revenue from showing advertisements to a user. There are numerous advertisement
delivery and tracking systems and methods that deliver advertisements to a user and
then track 1) the number of users that see the advertisement; and 2) the number of users
that click on the advertisement displayed and go to the site as directed by the
advertisement. Typically, a web site owner may receive different amounts of money
depending on whether the user simply views the advertisement or clicks on the
advertisement (known as "click-through"). In a typical Web page, the advertisements
are displayed as banners that typically appear at the top of the Web page being
displayed. Most Web pages desire to change the advertisement being shown to the user
and make the advertisement somewhat targeted to the individual user so that the user
may view an advertisement that may be of interest to the user. The Web site owner
may receive a larger amount of money for a targeted advertisement. For example, in
the context of a Web search engine where a user may enter one or more search terms of
a search query into a hypertext markup language (HTML) form, the one or more search
terms may be captured as a clickstream and communicated to an advertisement server.
The advertisement server receives the search terms and then select an advertisement
banner from a database to display to the particular user based on the search terms. For
example, a user that enters the search term "Volkswagen" may be shown a banner
advertisement for a on-line car purchasing or on-line car financing Web site. If the
user then click on the banner advertisement, the user is shown the Web site of the
company being advertised in the banner advertisement.
It is desirable to provide a system and method that permits incentives and
promotions to be delivered to a Web site and permits the user to be notified of an
incentive or promotion based on different user's actions with respect to a product.
None of the conventional systems permits an incentive to be displayed to the user
based on a user's choice of products. Thus, it is desirable to provide an incentive
delivery and notification system and method and it is to this end that the present
invention is directed.
Summary of the Invention The incentive system and method in accordance with the invention may permit
a promotion to be displayed to the user only when the user has selected a product with
an incentive. In more detail, the user may browse a Web page with various products
and may select a sub-set of products to review. When the user selects a sub-set of
products to review, the Web site may generate a clickstream including information
about the products being viewed by the user and communicate the information to the
incentive delivery and notification system. The incentive delivery and notification
system may, in response to the information about the products being reviewed, search a
promotion database that maps a particular product to a particular incentive. For
products that have an associated incentive, the system may generate a button image
that is displayed to the user on the Web site indicating an available incentive. For
products that do not have a incentive, the system may generate an invisible button (a
1X1 background color bitmap) that is displayed to the user, but the user does not see
any incentive. When the Web site forwards product information to the system, the
system may also store the product information in a database so that product preference
and brand preference information may be mined from the product information.
Thus, in accordance with the invention, an apparatus embedded into a site for
gathering consumer preference information and for displaying an incentive to a
consumer that is browsing through one or more products contained on the site is
provided wherein the apparatus comprises means for gathering information about the
activities of the consumer on the site relating to the one or more products, means for
communicating the consumer activity information to a remote incentive system to determine if an incentive is available for a particular product, and means for displaying
an incentive indicator to the consumer, the incentive indicator being invisible to the
consumer if there is not an incentive for the particular product and being visible to the
user if there is an incentive available for the product.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a method for gathering
consumer preference information and for displaying an incentive to a consumer that is
browsing through one or more products contained on the site using a user interface
element is provided. The method comprises automatically gathering information about
the activities of the consumer on the site relating to the one or more products as the
consumer is browsing through the site, communicating the consumer activity
information to a remote incentive system to determine if an incentive is available for a
particular product, and displaying an incentive indicator to the consumer, the incentive
indicator being invisible to the consumer if there is not an incentive for the particular
product and being visible to the user if there is an incentive available for the product.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a system for gathering
consumer preference information and for displaying an incentive to a consumer that is
browsing through one or more products contained on a site is provided. The system
comprises means, embedded in the site, for gathering information about the activities
of the consumer on the site relating to the one or more products and means for
communicating the consumer activity information to a remote incentive system and
means for displaying the incentive indicator on the site to the consumer, the incentive
indicator being invisible to the consumer if there is not an incentive for the particular product and being visible to the user if there is an incentive available for the product.
The remote incentive system further comprises means for converting the consumer
activity data into information about a product, means for comparing the product
information to an incentive database to determine if an incentive is available for the
product and means for generating an incentive indicator.
Brief Description of the Drawings
Figure 1 is a diagram illustrating a typical desktop computer system that may
interface with an incentive delivery and notification system in accordance with the
invention;
Figure 2 is a diagram illustrating a Web page that includes a conventional
banner advertisement and an incentive indicator user interface element in accordance
with the invention;
Figure 3 is a diagram illustrating a method for notifying a user of an incentive
in accordance with the invention;
Figure 4 is a block diagram illustrating the data flow of the incentive delivery
and notification system for supporting a portal service in accordance with the
invention; Figure 5 is a block diagram illustrating the data flow of the incentive delivery
and notification system for supporting shopping analysis in accordance with the
invention;
Figure 6 is a block diagram illustrating the data flow of the incentive delivery
and notification system for supporting promotion delivery in accordance with the
invention; and
Figure 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of a shopping site that interfaces
with the promotion delivery and notification system in accordance with the invention.
Detailed Description of a Preferred Embodiment
The invention is particularly applicable to, but not limited to, a desktop
computer based incentive delivery and notification system that uses an incentive
indicator, such as a user interface button, for incentive notification and it is in this
context that the invention will be described. It will be appreciated, however, that the
system and method in accordance with the invention has greater utility since it may be
implemented using other types of user interfaces and computer networks and the
notification mechanism for the incentives may be changed. For instance, the incentive
system may also support other computing devices like handheld computers, PDAs,
Set-top boxes and other Internet-enabled appliances.
Figure 1 is a diagram illustrating a typical desktop computer system 20 that
may access a web site 22 connected to an incentive delivery and notification system 24 in accordance with the invention. The Web site 22 may be a typical Web site that
provides a user with information about one or more products that may be reviewed
and/or purchased on the Web site. The Web site may thus be any type of typical e-
commerce shopping or product review site. The web site 22 may include a central
processing unit (CPU) 25 that controls the operation of the web site, a web page
database 26 containing one or more web pages that may be displayed to a user
accessing the web site, and incentive logic 28 that may be embedded into a web page
generated by the web site 22, as described in more detail below, to permit an incentive,
where applicable, to be shown to the user. The incentive system 24 may include an
incentive database 30 that contains one or more records indicating products that have
an associated incentive. If there is a match between the product information, generated
based on the clickstream information provided by the Web site 22, with an incentive in
the incentive database, then that incentive is displayed to a user. The operation of the
incentive system is described in more detail below with reference to Figure 3.
One or more users may connect to the web site 22 using a typical computer
network 40 that may be the Internet, the World Wide Web, local area network, a wide
area network, a wireless network and the like. The users may use one or more desktop
client computers (typically personal computers) 42 (Client #1, Client #2 and Client
#N) to connect to the web site 22 over the computer network. Each client computer
(Client #N only will be described here) may include a typical display 44 that may be a
liquid crystal display, a cathode ray tube or the like, a central unit 46 and one or more
input/output devices 48 that permit the user to interact with the software applications being executed by the computer. In this example, the input devices may include a
keyboard 50 and a mouse 52, but may also include other peripherals, such as printers
and the like. The central unit 46 may further include a central processing unit (CPU)
54 that controls the operation of the computer and executes software applications that
may be stored in a persistent storage device 56 or a memory 58. The persistent storage
device stores one or more software applications permanently unless erased and may
include hard disks, removable disks, optical disks and the like. The memory 58 may
be typically volatile in that the contents of the memory is lost when the computer is
turned off. Typically, a software application may be stored in the persistent storage
device normally and then loaded into the memory when the software application is
executed by the CPU. For example, a typical browser application 60 is shown in the
memory in this example since the browser application is being used to access the web
site 22 and display web pages being generated by the web site.
In operation, a user may access the web site using the browser application
directed to a uniform resource locator (URL) of the web site and browse for a product
or category of products. The web site may forward clickstream information (that may
include, for example, cookie information, URL information, SKU information) to the
incentive system. The incentive system may process the clickstream information to
generate information about the products being viewed by the consumer at the web site.
The incentive system may attempt to match the product to an incentive. If an
incentive exists for the particular product, an incentive notification user interface
element is displayed on the web page being displayed on the user's display 44. Otherwise, the user does not see any incentive. Now, the difference between a typical
banner advertisement and the incentive notification in accordance with the invention
will be described in more detail.
Figure 2 is a diagram illustrating a Web page 70 that includes a conventional
banner advertisement 72 and an incentive notification user interface element 74 in
accordance with the invention. The typical banner advertisement 72 may, when the
user completes an search request with one or more search keywords, for example,
forward the keyboards to a web ad server 76 that searches an advertisement database
and then returns an image of an advertisement and the destination URL for the
advertisement so that the advertisement is displayed as a banner to the user. The user
may then click on the advertisement and be taken to the destination URL of the
advertisement.
The incentive user interface element 74 may operate differently than the banner
advertisement. In particular, each web page 70 may include some HTML code
embedded into the Web page where the user interface element 74 may appear. As the
user browses through the Web page and selects one or more products, the clickstream
is captured by a piece of software code embedded into the web pages of the web site
wherein the clickstream may include information about those products, such as a
cookie, the URL, the uniform product code (UPC) or the stock keeping unit (SKU)
number, are communicated to the incentive system 24. The incentive system 24 may
convert the clickstream information, if necessary, into product information (e.g., UPC or SKU information) and then search the incentive database 30 based on the product
information to determine if an incentive exists for each product. The system may also
store the product information in a database to generate various reports, such as brand
preference reports, so that the incentive system may provide incentives as well as
generating information about the products being reviewed by the user. For each
product with an associated incentive, the system communicates an image of an
incentive indicator user interface element, such as a user interface button, to the web
site that generated the web page so that the element 74 is displayed to the user on the
web page. For products that do not have an incentive, the system forwards a
transparent incentive indicator (e.g. ,a 1X1 transparent pixel image) to the web site so
that the web site displays no incentive button to the user. If the user clicks on the
incentive button, the user is connected to a web site that permits the user to take
advantage of the incentive. In this manner, unlike the banner advertisements, the
embedded code and the incentive indicator may collect product browsing information
from the user while the user browses through products as well as displaying an
incentive to the user viewing the web page if an incentive is available for a particular
product. A method for incentive delivery and notification in accordance with the
invention will now be described with reference to Figure 3.
Figure 3 is a diagram illustrating a method 80 for notifying a user of an
incentive in accordance with the invention. In general, a web site that has signed up
for the incentive service, may be browsed by a user 82 using a client user interface (UI)
such as a browser user interface. As the user browses the site and particular products on the site, the web site may send a clickstream including specific product information,
such as the SKU or manufacturer part number, in step 83 to an incentive system 84
(referred to as a PromoServer in this example) to check on the availability of an
incentive for a particular product. The incentive system may then perform a search in
the incentive database (not shown) to determine if an incentive is available in step 86.
If the particular product has an associated incentive, then the incentive system returns
an incentive indication image in step 88 that is displayed on the web page being
viewed by the user. In the embodiment described herein, the incentive indication
image may be a user interface button, but it may also be any other user interface
element indicating that an incentive is available in connection with the product. An
example of the incentive indication element is shown in Figure 7 which will be
described below. If no incentive is available for a particular product, then, in step 90, a
transparent incentive indicator image (e.g., 1X1 pixel image that matches the
background) is communicated back to the web site. The image (either the transparent
image or the visible incentive indicator) is displayed on the web site. Since the user
does not see the transparent image, the user does not see any incentive. If the user
clicks on the visible incentive indicator, a user interface permitting the user to sign up
and redeem the incentive is displayed. The attributes of the incentive can be
determined dynamically at run-time based user's clickstream history and brand
preference. Now, several embodiments of the incentive system integrated into
particular systems will be described. Figure 4 is a block diagram illustrating the data flow of the incentive delivery
and notification system for supporting a portal service in accordance with the
invention. In particular, a web site 100, such as a merchant partner web site, may, for
every product viewed by the user, transmit a clickstream 102 to the incentive system
24. The clickstream may include, for example, the address of the web site (URL), a
cookie indicating other URLs and actions taken by the user, and the SKU number of
the product being viewed. The clickstream may be used to determine if an incentive is
available for the particular product. In some cases, the incentive system determines the
product information based on the clickstream. The incentive system may also store the
data about the product in a campaign tracking database 104 so that the incentive
system may generate a report indicating the statistics about any incentive campaign
being run by the incentive system for a merchant or product manufacturer.
Based on the information in the clickstream, the incentive system 24 may
provide different information to one or more services of a portal business. For
example, the URL from the clickstream may be communicated to a desktop shopping
service 106 in which the URL of the clickstream is matched to a SKU number for a
product in order to determine the product preference of the user that is accessing that
URL to determine if an incentive is appropriate. As another example, the cookie from
the clickstream may be passed onto a personal shopping service 108 and the shopping
service 108 may extract one or more URLs from the cookie information to determine
the one or more sites visited by the user. The personal shopping service may then store
those URLs in a database so that it can return the user to the URL(s) quickly. As yet another example, the SKU information from the clickstream may be forwarded to a
comparison shopping service 110 and the comparison shopping service 110 may match
the SKU number to one or more URL addresses so that the comparison shopping site
can determine other locations where the user may find the product being offered. Now,
the incentive system providing information to a data warehousing business will be
described in more detail.
Figure 5 is a block diagram illustrating the data flow of the incentive delivery
and notification system for supporting shopping analysis in accordance with the
invention. In particular, a web site 120, such as a merchant partner web site, may, for
every product viewed by the user, transmit a clickstream 122 to the incentive system
24. The clickstream may include, for example, the address of the web site (URL), a
cookie indicating other URLs and actions taken by the user, and/or the SKU number of
the product being viewed. The clickstream may be used to determine a product being
viewed and if an incentive is available for the particular product and for other analysis
as described below. The incentive system may also store the data about the product in
a campaign tracking database 124 so that the incentive system may generate a report
indicating the statistics about any incentive campaign being run by the incentive
system for a merchant or product manufacturer.
Based on the information in the clickstream, the incentive system 24 may
provide different information to one or more data warehousing services for shopping
analysis. For example, the clickstream may be communicated to a consumer preference analyzer 126 in which the consumer preference information is categorized
by product category, brand and SKU. As another example, the clickstream may be
passed onto another consumer preference analyzer 128 to determine consumer
preferences that are analyzed across each merchant. As yet another example, the
clickstream may be forwarded to a price/promotion impact analysis service 130 in
order to determine when the preferences of consumers changes based on the price and
the incentives/promotions being provided. The preference change may be used, for
example, by the merchant to determine the optimal amount of incentive/price to
provide to a user/consume to receive the most consumer preference for the amount of
money being spent on the incentives. Thus, the data warehousing services may help
the merchant to determine various information about the current promotions/incentives
being provided to the user. Now, the incentive system providing information to a
promotion/incentive delivery system will be described in more detail.
Figure 6 is a block diagram illustrating the data flow of the incentive delivery
and notification system for supporting promotion delivery in accordance with the
invention. In particular, a web site 140, such as a merchant partner web site, may, for
every product viewed by the user, transmit a clickstream 142 to the incentive system
24. The clickstream may include, for example, the address of the web site (URL), a
cookie indicating other URLs and actions taken by the user, and/or the SKU number of
the product being viewed. The clickstream may be used to determine the product
information and to determine if an incentive is available for the particular product and
for other analysis as described below. The incentive system may also store the data about the product in a campaign tracking database 144 so that the incentive system
may generate a report indicating the statistics about any incentive campaign being run
by the incentive system for a merchant or product manufacturer. Based on the
information in the clickstream, the incentive system 24 may return an
incentive/promotion 146 to the web site so that the user is notified of the
incentive/promotion.
Based on the information in the clickstream, the incentive system 24 may
provide different information to one or more promotion services. For example, the
clickstream may be communicated to a promotion database 148 in which the
information in the clickstream or generated based on the clickstream, such as the SKU
for example, is compared to the promotion database to determine if there is a
promotion available for the particular product. As another example, the clickstream
may be passed onto a personal shopping history database 150 to store the user's
shopping history that may be used, in the future, to determine future promotions or
incentives. For example, a user with a loyalty to a particular brand may be given a
larger incentive to ensure that the user stays with the brand. The information in the
clickstream may also be communicated to a campaign rules database 152 in which the
promotion service determines if there are any campaign rules applicable to the user's
clickstream. For example, the campaign rules may alter a promotion/incentive based
on some information in the clickstream. Now, an example of a shopping site that
includes the incentive system will be described in more detail. Figure 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of a shopping site 160 that
includes the promotion delivery and notification system in accordance with the
invention. In this example, the web site 160 is a product comparison site in which
various products in various categories, such as computers, monitors and printers, may
be compared to each other. In the example shown, the user has selected to review the
Toshiba® computers available at the site. As shown, a price is listed for each
Toshiba® computer. As the user selects the Toshiba® computers, the SKU
information for each computer is passed onto the incentive system. The incentive
system returns either, a visible incentive/promotion indicator if an incentive/promotion
is available for the product or an invisible/transparent incentive indicator (e.g., a 1X1
pixel image) that the user does not see. As shown in Figure 7, one of the computers
has an incentive/promotion so an incentive/promotion indicator 162 is displayed next
to the price of the computer. If the user clicks on the incentive/promotion indicator,
then the user is presented with information about how to redeem the incentive. If an
item does not have a promotion currently, then the user simply sees the product's price
with no incentive/promotion indicator. In both cases, there is software code embedded
in the web page that gathers information about the products being viewed by the user
and then may or may not display an incentive/promotion indicator.
While the foregoing has been with reference to a particular embodiment of the
invention, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes in this
embodiment may be made without departing from the principles and spirit of the
invention, the scope of which is defined by the appended claims.

Claims

Claims:
1. An apparatus embedded into a site for gathering consumer preference
information and for displaying an incentive to a consumer that is browsing through one
or more products contained on the site, the apparatus comprising:
means for gathering information about the activities of the consumer on the
site relating to the one or more products;
means for communicating the consumer activity information to a remote
incentive system to determine if an incentive is available for a particular product; and
means for displaying an incentive indicator to the consumer, the incentive
indicator being invisible to the consumer if there is not an incentive for the particular
product and being visible to the user if there is an incentive available for the product.
2. The apparatus of Claim 1, wherein the consumer activity information
comprises clickstream data and wherein the gathering means further comprises means
for automatically capturing the clickstream data.
3. The apparatus of Claim 2, wherein the consumer activity information
further comprises one or more of uniform resource locators (URLs), a uniform product
code (UPC), a stock keeping unit (SKU) number, and a cookie.
4. The apparatus of Claim 1, wherein the displaying means further
comprises means for receiving a transparent incentive indicator if no incentive is
available for the product and means for receiving a button indicating that an incentive
is available for the product.
5. The system of Claim 4, wherein the incentive indicator is a user
interface element that the consumer may interact with in order to indicate an interest in
the incentive.
6. The system of Claim 5, wherein the user interface element comprises a
clickable graphics.
7. A method for gathering consumer preference information and for
displaying an incentive to a consumer that is browsing through one or more products
contained on the site using a user interface element, the method comprising:
automatically gathering information about the activities of the consumer on the
site relating to the one or more products as the consumer is browsing through the site;
communicating the consumer activity information to a remote incentive system
to determine if an incentive is available for a particular product; and
displaying an incentive indicator to the consumer, the incentive indicator being
invisible to the consumer if there is not an incentive for the particular product and
being visible to the user if there is an incentive available for the product.
8. The method of Claim 7, wherein the consumer activity information
comprises clickstream data and wherein the gathering further comprises automatically
capturing the clickstream data.
9. The method of Claim 8, wherein the consumer activity information
further comprises one or more of uniform resource locators (URLs), a uniform product
code (UPC), a stock keeping unit (SKU) number, and a cookie.
10. The method of Claim 7, wherein the displaying further comprises
receiving a transparent incentive indicator if no incentive is available for the product
and receiving a button indicating that an incentive is available for the product.
11. The system of Claim 10, wherein the incentive indicator is a user
interface element that the consumer may interact with in order to indicate an interest in
the incentive.
12. The system of Claim 11 , wherein the user interface element comprises a
clickable graphics
13. A system for gathering consumer preference information and for
displaying an incentive to a consumer that is browsing through one or more products
contained on a site, the system comprising:
means, embedded in the site, for gathering information about the activities of
the consumer on the site relating to the one or more products;
means for communicating the consumer activity information to a remote
incentive system;
the remote incentive system comprising means for converting the consumer
activity data into information about a product, means for comparing the product information to an incentive database to determine if an incentive is available for the
product and means for generating an incentive indicator;
means for displaying the incentive indicator on the site to the consumer, the
incentive indicator being invisible to the consumer if there is not an incentive for the
particular product and being visible to the user if there is an incentive available for the
product.
14. The system of Claim 13, wherein the consumer activity information
comprises clickstream data and wherein the gathering means further comprises means
for automatically capturing the clickstream data.
15. The system of Claim 14, wherein the consumer activity information
further comprises one or more of uniform resource locators (URLs), a uniform product
code (UPC), a stock keeping unit (SKU) number, and a cookie.
16. The system of Claim 13, wherein the displaying means further
comprises means for receiving a transparent incentive indicator if no incentive is
available for the product and means for receiving a button indicating that an incentive
is available for the product.
17. The system of Claim 16, wherein the incentive indicator is a user
interface element that the consumer may interact with in order to indicate an interest in
the incentive.
18. The system of Claim 17, wherein the user interface element comprises a
clickable graphics.
19. The system of Claim 15, wherein the remote incentive site further
comprises means for mapping the information in the cookie into one or more URLs
visited by the consumer, the URLs being stored in a personal shopping service.
20. The system of Claim 15, wherein the remote incentive site further
comprises means for mapping the information in the SKU number to a URL of the site
where the product is located, the URL being stored in a comparison shopping service.
21. The system of Claim 15, wherein the remote incentive site further
comprises means for determining a consumer preference based on the SKU
information.
22. The system of Claim 15, wherein the remote incentive site further
comprises means for generating preference change information based on the consumer
activity information in order to determine the impact of one or more of a price and an
incentive on the preference of consumer's for the product.
PCT/US1999/028102 1998-11-25 1999-11-24 Incentive delivery and notification system and method WO2000033159A2 (en)

Priority Applications (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
AU23494/00A AU2349400A (en) 1998-11-25 1999-11-24 Incentive delivery and notification system and method

Applications Claiming Priority (3)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US10998498P 1998-11-25 1998-11-25
US60/109,984 1998-11-25
US09/448,562 1999-11-23

Publications (2)

Publication Number Publication Date
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WO2000033159A3 WO2000033159A3 (en) 2000-08-17

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AU (1) AU2349400A (en)
WO (1) WO2000033159A2 (en)

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WO2000033159A3 (en) 2000-08-17

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