ONLINE MARKETING, MONITORING AND CONTROL FOR MERCHANTS
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Abstract
Systems and methods of online marketing, monitoring and control for merchants are disclosed. Third party providers are crawled to obtain information about a plurality of merchants and correlate the merchant information to create a merchant database. Third party providers are monitored for merchant information, and information about the merchants is stored. Alerts are provided to subscribing merchants when an alert trigger is identified within the system or at a third party provider. The method allows the subscribing merchant to view and respond to reviews, view and maintain online listings, prepare and send consumer offers, and prepare and send communications to consumers, all directly from the system. The method allows the subscribing merchant to view information and analyses for competing merchants. An overall marketing score for merchants is prepared and displayed. The method may be performed on a server and accessed via an Internet browser and mobile device applications.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. (canceled)
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2. A system comprising:
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an electronic data store configured to store electronic records; and a computing system comprising one or more hardware computing devices, said computing system in communication with the electronic data store, and configured to at least; automatically search one or more electronic repositories to extract identification information associated with each of a plurality of merchants identified in the one or more electronic repositories; for each identified merchant of the plurality of merchants; identify a network-accessible page associated with the identified merchant; retrieve the network-accessible page; extract additional information associated with the identified merchant from the network-accessible page; and create and store a new electronic record associated with the identified merchant in the electronic data store, wherein the new electronic record includes (a) the extracted identification information associated with the identified merchant from the one or more electronic repositories, and (b) the additional information associated with the identified merchant from the network-accessible page associated with the identified merchant; automatically crawl a plurality of third-party network resources to electronically collect further information associated with one or more of the plurality of merchants, wherein crawling the plurality of third-party network resources comprises automatically searching the third-party network resources for at least a subset of information retrieved from the stored electronic records, wherein the third-party network resources comprise at least one of a merchant review resource or a social networking resource; update at least one electronic record in the electronic data store at least in part by correlating the collected further information; and for a first merchant of the plurality of merchants, determine a competitor of the first merchant by analyzing information stored in the electronic records stored in the electronic data store, wherein analyzing the stored information comprises comparing stored information associated with the first merchant to stored information associated with each of two or more different merchants. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A computer-implemented method comprising:
as implemented by one or more computing devices configured with specific executable instructions, automatically searching one or more electronic repositories to extract identification information associated with each of a plurality of merchants identified in the one or more electronic repositories; for each identified merchant of the plurality of merchants; identifying a network-accessible page associated with the identified merchant; retrieving the network-accessible page; extracting additional information associated with the identified merchant from the network-accessible page; and creating and storing a new electronic record associated with the identified merchant in an electronic data store, wherein the new electronic record includes (a) the extracted identification information associated with the identified merchant from the one or more electronic repositories, and (b) the additional information associated with the identified merchant from the network-accessible page associated with the identified merchant; automatically crawling a plurality of third-party network resources to electronically collect further information associated with one or more of the plurality of merchants, wherein crawling the plurality of third-party network resources comprises automatically searching the third-party network resources for at least a subset of information retrieved from the stored electronic records; updating at least one electronic record in the electronic data store at least in part by correlating the collected further information; and for a first merchant of the plurality of merchants, determining a competitor of the first merchant by analyzing information stored in the electronic records stored in the electronic data store, wherein analyzing the stored information comprises comparing stored information associated with the first merchant to stored information associated with each of two or more different merchants. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A computer-readable, non-transitory storage medium storing computer executable instructions that, when executed by one or more computing devices, configure the one or more computing devices to perform operations comprising:
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automatically searching one or more electronic repositories to extract identification information associated with each of a plurality of merchants identified in the one or more electronic repositories; for each identified merchant of the plurality of merchants; identifying a network-accessible page associated with the identified merchant; retrieving the network-accessible page; extracting additional information associated with the identified merchant from the network-accessible page; and creating and storing a new electronic record associated with the identified merchant in an electronic data store, wherein the new electronic record includes (a) the extracted identification information associated with the identified merchant from the one or more electronic repositories, and (b) the additional information associated with the identified merchant from the network-accessible page associated with the identified merchant; automatically crawling a plurality of third-party network resources to electronically collect further information associated with one or more of the plurality of merchants, wherein crawling the plurality of third-party network resources comprises automatically searching the third-party network resources for at least a subset of information retrieved from the stored electronic records; updating at least one electronic record in the electronic data store at least in part by correlating the collected further information; and for a first merchant of the plurality of merchants, generating an automated recommended action for the first merchant based on a comparison of stored information associated with the first merchant and stored information associated with a competitor of the first merchant. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20)
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Specification