Providing Offers and Associated Location Information
First Claim
1. An affiliate-network system configured to act as an intermediary between merchants issuing coupons or other offers and publishers promoting the offers to consumers, the affiliate-network system being configured to distribute and track usage of both on-line offers and in-store offers, the system comprising:
- one or more processors;
non-transitory tangible computer-readable memory storing instructions that when executed by one or more of the one or more processors effectuate operations comprising;
obtaining a coupon issued by a merchant, the coupon being redeemable in-store at a physical location of the merchant;
obtaining one or more merchant location identifiers, the coupon only being redeemable at one or more merchant locations identified by the one or more merchant location identifiers; and
sending the coupon and the merchant location identifiers to publishers for presentation to consumers by the publishers on user devices of the consumers.
8 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Provided is a process, including: obtaining a coupon issued by a merchant, the coupon being redeemable in-store, at a physical location of the merchant; obtaining one or more merchant location identifiers, the coupon only being redeemable at one or more merchant locations identified by the one or more merchant location identifiers; sending the coupon and the merchant location identifiers to publishers for presentation to consumers by the publishers on user devices of the consumers; and receiving indications from the user devices of the consumers that the consumers interacted with the coupon, the indications indicating a consumer selection of an in-store redemption option.
106 Citations
23 Claims
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1. An affiliate-network system configured to act as an intermediary between merchants issuing coupons or other offers and publishers promoting the offers to consumers, the affiliate-network system being configured to distribute and track usage of both on-line offers and in-store offers, the system comprising:
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one or more processors; non-transitory tangible computer-readable memory storing instructions that when executed by one or more of the one or more processors effectuate operations comprising; obtaining a coupon issued by a merchant, the coupon being redeemable in-store at a physical location of the merchant; obtaining one or more merchant location identifiers, the coupon only being redeemable at one or more merchant locations identified by the one or more merchant location identifiers; and sending the coupon and the merchant location identifiers to publishers for presentation to consumers by the publishers on user devices of the consumers. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method, comprising:
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obtaining a plurality of offers from merchants, the offers including offer location data, the offer location data comprising one or more merchant locations, one or more designated market areas, or a combination thereof; determining a first set of the plurality of offers responsive to a request from a publisher and location criteria; sending information about the offers to a publisher in response to the request, the information including the offer location data; tracking, with one or more processors, usage of the offers by consumers; allocating credit for usage of the offers by consumers to the publisher based on the tracking; and sending information about the allocation of credit to merchants and the publisher. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14)
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15. A tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable medium storing instructions that when executed by a data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to effectuate operations comprising:
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obtaining a plurality of offers from merchants, the offers including offer location data, the offer location data comprising one or more merchant locations, one or more designated market areas, or a combination thereof; determining a first set of the plurality of offers responsive to a request from a publisher and location criteria; sending information about the offers to a publisher in response to the request, the information including the offer location data; tracking, with one or more processors, usage of the offers by consumers; allocating credit for usage of the offers by consumers to the publisher based on the tracking; and sending information about the allocation of credit to merchants and the publisher.
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16. A method, comprising:
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obtaining a location of a consumer user device; determining location criteria based on the location of the consumer user device; sending a request for offers and the location criteria to an affiliate-network system; obtaining a set of offers and offer location data responsive to the request and the location criteria; and sending a plurality of uniform resource identifiers (URI'"'"'s) corresponding to the set of offers to the consumer user device in response to request. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. A tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable medium storing instructions that when executed by a data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to effectuate operations comprising:
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obtaining a location of a consumer user device; determining location criteria based on the location of the consumer user device; sending a request for offers and the location criteria to an affiliate-network system; obtaining a set of offers and offer location data responsive to the request and the location criteria; and sending a plurality of uniform resource identifiers (URI'"'"'s) corresponding to the set of offers to the consumer user device in response to request.
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Specification