MOBILE-OFFER CREATION

• US 20150254704A1
• Filed: 03/06/2014
• Published: 09/10/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/11/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Retailmenot Incorporated (J2 Global, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Retailmenot Incorporated (J2 Global, Inc.)
• Inventors: Song, Jimmy Jaejoon, Zilkha, Eithan, Rego, Jeffrey Ryan, Kothe, Kyle William, Dapremont, Edgar Mitchell III, Ball, Nicole Juneau
• Granted Patent: US 10,878,439 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0225 Avoiding frauds
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0257 User requested
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0267 Wireless devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0276 Advertisement creation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions

Abstract

Provided is a process for managing offers includes: presenting, on a mobile device, offer-creation interfaces by which a merchant specifies an offer, the offer parameters including data indicative of an amount of instances of the offer to be reserved by consumers; obtaining, with the mobile device, the offer parameters; obtaining, with the mobile device, based on wireless signals received by the mobile device indicative of location of the mobile device, a geographic location where consumers are to be alerted to the offer; and sending a request to an affiliate network to distribute the offer to a plurality of publishers within the affiliate network and limit use of the offer according to the specified amount of instances of the offer to be reserved by consumers, wherein the publishers each send a plurality of offers to consumers and wherein the affiliate network tracks redemptions of the offers with merchants.

Claims

1. ) A method of issuing single-use digital coupons by creating coupons tied to a merchant employee'"'"'s current geographic location using a cell phone of the merchant employee such that a limited number of the coupons are available for consumers to reserve and consumers who reserve the coupons are alerted to the coupons on cell phones of those consumers in response to those consumers'"'"' cell phones detecting arrival at the geographic location, the method comprising:

presenting, with an offer-creating merchant mobile device, one or more coupon-creation interfaces configured to obtain coupon parameters specifying a coupon, the coupon parameters including an identifier of a merchant issuing the coupon, a title of the coupon, a description of a discount available to those who redeem the coupon with the merchant, an expiration time of the coupon, and an amount of instances of the coupon to be issued;

receiving the coupon parameters from a merchant user via the one or more coupon-creating interfaces with the offer-creating merchant mobile device;

obtaining a geographic location of the merchant with the offer-creating merchant mobile device;

sending, to a remote offers engine, with one or more wireless transmissions of the offer-creating merchant mobile device, the coupon parameters and the geographic location, wherein the offers engine is configured to distribute coupons from a plurality of merchants to a plurality of consumers over the Internet;

associating the coupon parameters and the geographic location with a coupon identifier in a coupon record stored in memory accessible to the offers engine;

receiving, at the offers engine, from a consumer'"'"'s computing device, via the Internet, a request for a reserving interface to reserve an instance of the coupon;

determining, with the offers engine, that the specified amount of instances of the coupon to be issued is greater than an amount of instances of the coupon that have been reserved;

sending, from the offers engine, to the consumer'"'"'s computing device, one or more reserving interfaces, wherein the one or more reserving interfaces display at least some of the coupon parameters and present a reserving input by which a consumer reserves an instance of the coupon;

receiving, from the consumer'"'"'s computing device, a request to reserve an instance of the coupon after the consumer engages with the reserving input;

after receiving the request to reserve the instance of the coupon and determining that the specified amount of instances of the coupon to be issued is greater than an amount of instances of the coupon that have been reserved, adjusting, with the offers engine, a reserved-amount value indicative of an amount of instances of the coupon that have been reserved;

sending the consumer'"'"'s mobile device a geofence containing the geographic location and instructions to alert the consumer after the mobile device is within the geofence;

sending the consumer'"'"'s mobile device redemption information that, when conveyed to the merchant and by the merchant to the offers engine, causes the offers engine to validate that the consumer reserved an instance of the coupon.

2. ) The method of claim 1, wherein the coupon parameters comprise an image related to the coupon and captured with a camera of the offer-creating merchant mobile device, and wherein obtaining the geographic location of the merchant with the offer-creating merchant mobile device comprises determining a location of the merchant mobile device based on wireless signals received by the merchant mobile device

3. ) The method of claim 1, wherein sending the consumer'"'"'s mobile device redemption information comprises sending instructions, that when input to an offer-redeeming merchant mobile device by optically scanning an image on a display screen of the consumer'"'"'s mobile device with a camera of the offer-redeeming merchant mobile device, cause the offer-redeeming merchant mobile device to send an identifier of the reserved coupon instance to the offers engine, wherein the identifier is unique to the reserved coupon instance among other reserved instances of the coupon.

5. ) The method of claim 1, wherein sending the consumer'"'"'s mobile device a geofence containing the geographic location and instructions to alert the consumer after the mobile device is within the geofence comprises:

sending geographic coordinates of a bounding polygon defining a perimeter of the geofence; and

sending instructions that cause the consumer'"'"'s mobile device to execute a background process that determines whether the consumer'"'"'s mobile device has entered the bounding polygon.

6. ) The method of claim 1, wherein:

the one or more coupon-creation interfaces include an interface to select a wireless beacon transmitting in range of the offer-creating merchant mobile device such that a selected wireless beacon indicates the geographic location; and

the instructions to alert the consumer after the mobile device is within the geofence comprise instructions to alert the consumer in response to the mobile device of the consumer wirelessly receiving a transmission from the selected wireless beacon.

7. ) The method of claim 1, wherein the offer-redeeming merchant mobile device indicates the geographic location by broadcasting a wireless beacon.

8. ) The method of claim 7, wherein:

the coupon parameters comprise an identifier of the offer-redeeming merchant mobile device;

the offer-redeeming merchant mobile device is configured to repeatedly wirelessly transmit the identifier as a beacon transmission after sending the coupon parameters to the remote offers engine; and

wherein the instructions to alert the consumer after the consumer mobile device is within the geofence comprise instructions to alert the consumer in response to the consumer mobile device wirelessly receiving the identifier of the offer-redeeming merchant mobile device transmitted by the offer-redeeming merchant mobile device as a beacon while the consumer mobile device is in wireless range of the beacon transmission.

4. ) The method of claim 4, comprising:

receiving, at the offers engine, from the offer-redeeming merchant mobile device, the identifier unique to the reserved coupon instance; and

after receiving the identifier, sending confirmation that the reserved coupon instance is valid to the offer-redeeming merchant mobile device, wherein the confirmation includes a confirmation code to which point-of-sale system of the merchant is responsive.

9. ) A tangible, machine-readable, non-transitory medium storing instructions that when executed by a data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations, comprising:

presenting, on a mobile device, one or more offer-creation interfaces by which a merchant enters offer parameters specifying an offer, the offer parameters including data indicative of an amount of instances of the offer to be reserved by consumers;

obtaining, with the mobile device, the offer parameters after a merchant supplies the offer parameters with the one or more offer-creation interfaces;

obtaining, with the mobile device, a geographic location where consumers are to be alerted to the offer; and

sending a request to an affiliate network to distribute the offer to a plurality of publishers within the affiliate network and limit use of the offer according to the specified amount of instances of the offer to be reserved by consumers, wherein the publishers each send a plurality of offers to consumers and wherein the affiliate network tracks redemptions of the offers with merchants.

10. ) The medium of claim 9, wherein the geographic location is obtained by steps comprising:

sensing, with the mobile device, a geographic coordinate of the mobile device based on wireless signals received by the mobile device indicative of location of the mobile device;

presenting a geofence configuration interface by which a merchant specifies a geofence containing the geographic coordinate.

11. ) The medium of claim 9, wherein the geographic location is obtained by steps comprising:

sensing one or more wireless beacons transmitted by other computing devices within range of the mobile device; and

presenting a beacon selection interface by which a merchant specifies that one or more of the wireless beacons indicate the geographic location.

12. ) The medium of claim 9, comprising:

capturing an image associated with the offer with a camera of the mobile device, wherein the offer parameters include the image.

13. ) The medium of claim 9, wherein obtaining the geographic location comprises obtaining a plurality of overlapping geographic areas, and wherein obtaining offer parameters comprises obtaining different terms of the offer to be presented in the different geographic areas.

14. ) The medium of claim 9, wherein the geographic location is defined by a beacon transmitted by the mobile device, and wherein the operations further comprise transmitting the beacon with the mobile device after sending the request such that at least some consumer devices in range of the beacon cause the at least some consumer devices to alert respective consumers to the offer.

15. ) The medium of claim 9, comprising:

after receiving a request to validate an instance of the offer presented by a consumer, capturing an image presented by the consumer and associated with the offer with a camera of the mobile device;

sending a request to validate the offer to the affiliate network, wherein the request to validate includes an identifier of the instance of the offer presented by the consumer, and wherein the identifier is encoded in the image, and wherein the identifier distinguishes instance of the offer presented by the consumer from other instances of the offer; and

receiving an indication from the affiliate network of whether the offer is valid.

16. ) A system, comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory storing instructions that when executed by the one or more processors effectuate operations comprising;

receiving, from an offer-creating merchant mobile device, an offer to be distributed to consumers, the offer being defined, at least in part, by offer parameters including;

an amount of instances of the offer to be reserved by consumers, and

a geographic location indicative of where consumers are to be alerted to the offer;

creating an offer record in memory, the offer record including data based on the offer parameters;

causing at least some of the data based on the offer parameters to be sent to a consumer'"'"'s computing device;

receiving an indication that the consumer requests to reserve an instance of the offer;

determining that an amount of reserved instances of the offer is less than the amount of instances of the offer to be reserved by consumers included in the offer parameters;

after the determination, sending a consumer mobile device an indication that an instance of the offer has been reserved;

causing the consumer mobile device to be sent data indicative of the geographic location; and

causing the consumer mobile device to be sent instructions to alert the consumer to the offer after the consumer mobile device determines that a current geographic location of the consumer mobile device corresponds to the geographic location included in the offer parameters.

17. ) The system of claim 16, wherein causing the consumer mobile device to be sent instructions to alert the consumer to the offer occurs before receiving an indication that the consumer requests to reserve an instance of the offer.

18. ) The system of claim 16, wherein causing the consumer mobile device to be sent instructions to alert the consumer to the offer occurs after receiving an indication that the consumer requests to reserve an instance of the offer.

19. ) The system of claim 16, wherein the geographic location is defined by data corresponding to information conveyed in a wireless beacon transmitting at the geographic location.

20. ) The system of claim 16, wherein the geographic location is defined by a geofence corresponding to a perimeter of a geographic area.

21. ) The system of claim 16, wherein the offer parameters include an outer geographic location and an inner geographic location contained, at least partially by the outer geographic location, and wherein the operations further comprise:

causing the consumer mobile device to be sent instructions to alert the consumer to the offer both after the consumer mobile device determines that a current geographic location of the consumer mobile device corresponds to the outer geographic location and after the consumer mobile device determines that a current geographic location of the consumer mobile device corresponds to the inner geographic location.

22. ) The system of claim 16, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving a request from an offer-monitoring merchant mobile device to obtain data indicate of offer performance, wherein the offer-monitoring merchant mobile device is either the offer-creating merchant mobile device or another merchant mobile device;

sending to the offer-monitoring merchant mobile device data indicative of the amount of reserved instances of the offer;

receiving from the offer-monitoring merchant mobile device a request to change an offer parameter; and

after receiving the request to change an offer parameter, updating the offer record in memory based on the request.

23. ) The system of claim 16, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving a request from an offer-validating merchant mobile device to validate the reserved instance of the offer, wherein the request includes an offer-instance identifier sent to the consumer mobile device, and wherein offer-validating merchant mobile device is either the offer-creating merchant mobile device or another merchant mobile device;

after receiving the request to validate the reserved instance of the offer, determining that the offer-instance identifier is valid; and

after determining that the offer-instance identifier is valid, sending the offer-validating merchant mobile device data indicating that the reserved instance of the offer is valid.

24. ) The system of claim 23, wherein sending the offer-validating merchant mobile device data indicating that the reserved instance of the offer is valid comprises:

obtaining a validation code to which a point of sale system of the merchant is responsive and sending the validation code to be entered into the point of sale system by the merchant.

25. ) A system, comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory storing instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to effectuate operations comprising;

sending an offer instance and instructions to display the offer instance to a consumer device;

receiving a signal indicating that the offer instance is no longer valid; and

in response to receiving the signal, sending instructions to the consumer mobile device to display an indication that the offer instance is no longer valid.

26. ) The system of claim 25, wherein the instructions to display the offer comprise instructions to repeatedly query whether the offer instance is valid.

27. ) The system of claim 25, wherein sending instructions to the consumer mobile device to display the indication that the offer instance is no longer valid comprises:

sending instructions to the consumer mobile device to display the indication that the offer instance is no longer valid regardless of whether the consumer mobile device has queried whether the offer instance is valid.