Providing Single-Use Offers

• US 20150134431A1
• Filed: 11/03/2014
• Published: 05/14/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/08/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Retailmenot Incorporated (J2 Global, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Retailmenot Incorporated (J2 Global, Inc.)
• Inventors: Georgoff, Michael Thomas, Throndson, Scott Jason, Rego, Jeffrey Ryan
• Granted Patent: US 10,387,903 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.13
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0207 Discounts or incentives, e.g. coupons or rebates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0211 Determining the effectiveness of discounts or incentives

Abstract

Provided is a process, including: obtaining an offer issued by a merchant, the offer being redeemable on-line, at the merchant'"'"'s website, in-store, at a physical location of the merchant, or both; obtaining a plurality of single-use offer codes associated with the offer; receiving a request for a single-use offer code, the request having a phone number; sending to the phone number, via a text messaging service, a text message comprising a uniform resource identifier (URI) to a select single-use offer code of the plurality single-use offer codes; and sending the single-use offer code to a consumer user device in response to a user selection of the URI.

Claims

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 an offer issued by a merchant, the offer being redeemable both on-line, at the merchant'"'"'s website, in-store, at a physical location of the merchant, or a combination thereof;

obtaining a plurality of single-use offer codes associated with the offer, each of the plurality of single-use offer codes being redeemable for a single transaction;

receiving, via a network, a request for a single-use offer code, the request comprising a phone number;

sending to the phone number, via a text messaging service, a text message comprising a uniform resource identifier (URI) to a select single-use offer code of the plurality single-use offer codes; and

sending the select single-use offer code to a consumer user device in response to a user selection of the URI on the consumer user device.

2. The affiliate-network system of claim 1, the memory storing instructions that when executed by one or more of the one or more processors effectuate operations comprising:

receiving indications from the consumer user device that a consumer selected an in-store redemption option;

sending the consumer in-store redemption data documenting that the consumer is in possession of the offer for presentation to the merchant at a physical location of the merchant, the data identifying a publisher that presented the offer to the consumer to credit the publisher;

receiving transaction data from the merchant indicating that the consumer redeemed the offer, the transaction data including the select single-use offer code; and

determining compensation for the publisher based on the transaction data.

3. The affiliate-network system of claim 2, the memory storing instructions that when executed by one or more of the one or more processors effectuate operations comprising:

identifying the select single-use offer code as invalid after receiving the transaction data.

4. The affiliate-network system of claim 1, the memory storing instructions that when executed by one or more of the one or more processors effectuate operations comprising:

receiving indications from the consumer user device that the consumer selected an on-line redemption option;

storing online redemption data in memory documenting that the consumer selected the offer and identifying a publisher that presented the offer to the consumer to credit the publisher;

instructing the consumer user device to request content from the merchant'"'"'s website;

obtaining the online redemption data stored in memory upon the consumer redeeming the offer, the online redemption data including the select single-use offer code; and

determining compensation for the publisher based on the obtained online redemption data.

5. The affiliate-network system of claim 4, the memory storing instructions that when executed by one or more of the one or more processors effectuate operations comprising:

identifying the select single-use offer code as invalid after receiving the online redemption data.

6. The affiliate-network system of claim 1, the memory storing instructions that when executed by one or more of the one or more processors effectuate operations comprising:

storing the plurality of single-use offer codes in an offer data store.

7. The affiliate-network system of claim 1, wherein sending the select single-use offer code to the consumer user device in response to a user selection of the URI comprises sending single-use offer code content that includes the select single-use offer code.

8. The affiliate-network system of claim 1, the memory storing instructions that when executed by one or more of the one or more processors effectuate operations comprising:

determining whether phone number is associated with any of the plurality of single-use offer codes.

9. The affiliate-network system of claim 1, wherein the text messaging service comprises the Short Messaging Service (SMS).

10. A method, comprising:

receiving at an affiliate-network system, a request for a single-use offer code of a single-use offer, the request comprising a phone number, the affiliate-network system comprising one or more processors;

sending to the phone number, via a text messaging service, a text message comprising a uniform resource identifier (URI) to a select single-use offer code of a plurality single-use offer codes;

receiving at the affiliate-network system a user selection of the URI from a consumer user device; and

sending single-use offer code content having the select single-use offer code to the consumer device in response to the user selection of the URI.

11. The method of claim 10, comprising obtaining offline transaction data from a merchant system, the offline transaction data including a transaction having redemption of the select single-use offer code.

12. The method of claim 11, comprising identifying the select single-use offer code as invalid based on the redemption.

13. The method of claim 10, comprising obtaining online redemption data from a merchant system, the online redemption data including redemption of the select single-use offer code.

14. The method of claim 13, comprising identifying the select single-use offer code as invalid based on the redemption.

15. The method of claim 10, comprising determining whether the phone number is associated with any of the plurality of single-use offer codes.

16. The method of claim 15, comprising associating the select single-use offer code with the phone number if none of the plurality of single-use offer codes are associated with the phone number.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein the text messaging service comprises the short messaging service (SMS).

18. 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 an offer issued by a merchant, the offer being redeemable both on-line, at the merchant'"'"'s website, in-store, at a physical location of the merchant, or a combination thereof;

obtaining a plurality of single-use offer codes associated with the offer, each of the plurality of single-use offer codes being redeemable for a single transaction;

receiving from a consumer user device, via a network, a request for a single-use offer code, the request comprising a device identifier that uniquely identifiers the consumer user device;

sending to the consumer user device, via the network, a uniform resource identifier (URI) to a select single-use offer code of the plurality single-use offer codes; and

sending to the consumer user device, over the network, the select single-use offer code in response to a user selection of the URI.

19. The affiliate-network system of claim 18, the memory storing instructions that when executed by one or more of the one or more processors effectuate operations comprising:

receiving indications from the consumer user device that a consumer selected an in-store redemption option;

sending the consumer in-store redemption data documenting that the consumer is in possession of the offer for presentation to the merchant at a physical location of the merchant, the data identifying a publisher that presented the offer to the consumer to credit the publisher;

receiving transaction data from the merchant indicating that the consumer redeemed the offer, the transaction data including the select single-use offer code; and

determining compensation for the publisher based on the transaction data.

20. The affiliate-network system of claim 19, the memory storing instructions that when executed by one or more of the one or more processors effectuate operations comprising:

identifying the select one of the plurality of single-use offer codes as invalid after receiving the transaction data.

21. The affiliate-network system of claim 18, the memory storing instructions that when executed by one or more of the one or more processors effectuate operations comprising:

receiving indications from the consumer user device that a consumer selected an on-line redemption option;

storing on-line redemption data in memory documenting that the consumer selected the offer and identifying a publisher that presented the offer to the consumer to credit the publisher;

instructing the consumer user device to request content from the merchant'"'"'s website;

obtaining the online redemption data stored in memory upon the consumer redeeming the offer, the online redemption including the select single-use offer code; and

determining compensation for the publisher based on the obtained online redemption data.

22. The affiliate-network system of claim 21, the memory storing instructions that when executed by one or more of the one or more processors effectuate operations comprising:

identifying the select one of the plurality of single-use offer codes as invalid after receiving the online redemption data.

23. The affiliate-network system of claim 18, wherein sending the select single-use offer code to the consumer user device in response to a user selection of the URI comprises sending single-use offer code content that includes the select single-use offer code.

24. The affiliate-network system of claim 18, the memory storing instructions that when executed by one or more of the one or more processors effectuate operations comprising:

determining whether the device identifier is previously associated with any of the plurality of single-use offer codes.

25. A method, comprising:

receiving at an affiliate-network system, via a network, a request for a single-use offer code of a single-use offer from a consumer user device, the request comprising a device identifier that uniquely identifies the consumer user device, the affiliate-network system comprising one or more processors;

sending to the consumer user device identified by the device identifier, via the network, a uniform resource identifier (URI) to a select single-use offer code of a plurality single-use offer codes;

receiving from the consumer user device a user selection of the URI; and

sending to the consumer user device single-use offer code content having the select single-use offer code to the consumer device in response to the user selection of the URI.

26. The method of claim 25, comprising determining whether the device identifier is associated with any of the plurality of single-use offer codes.

27. The method of claim 26, comprising associating the select single-use offer code with the device identifier if none of the plurality of single-use offer codes are associated with the device identifier.