Lead marketplace system and method with ping campaigns

• US 7,899,715 B2
• Filed: 04/02/2008
• Issued: 03/01/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/09/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: One Planet Ops Inc.
• Original Assignee: Reply! Inc.
• Inventors: Zamani, Payam
• Primary Examiner(s): Smith; Jeffrey A
• Assistant Examiner(s): Desai; Resha
• Application Number:
  US12/061,615
• Publication Number:
  US 20090018928A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,063 Days
• Field of Search: 705/26, 705/27, 705/37
• US Class Current: 705/26.3
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions

Abstract

A lead marketplace system and method are provided. The lead marketplace system and method provides an auction for leads.

Claims

1. A lead marketplace system, comprising:

a storage system that stores a plurality of leads wherein each lead is an electronic contact and transactional information that provides an opportunity to sell a good or service to a prospective customer;

a Lead Seller unit that stores one or more selling campaigns for one or more Lead Sellers, each selling campaign enabling the association of one or more leads to be sold in the lead marketplace system;

a Lead Buyer unit that stores one or more buying campaigns for one or more Lead Buyers, each buying campaign including one or more parameters specifying the characteristics of leads to be bought by the Lead Buyer associated with the buying campaign, at least one buying campaign further comprises a ping campaign including one or more parameters specifying the characteristics of leads to be identified to the Lead Buyer associated with the ping buying campaign when a first lead matches the one or more parameters of the ping buying campaign so that the Lead Buyer has the ability to bid on the first lead; and

a ping campaign unit that provides a notification to the Lead Buyer that the first lead matches the one or more parameters of the ping buying campaign wherein the notification includes consumer information and transaction information associated with the first lead and that allows the Lead Buyer to bid on the first lead that matches the ping buying campaign.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the ping campaign unit further comprises a bid unit that receives a bid from the Lead Buyer in response to the notification.

3. The system of claim 2 further comprising a remote Lead Buyer server wherein the notification from the ping campaign unit is received by the remote Lead Buyer server.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the ping campaign unit further comprises a server computer and wherein the notification between the ping campaign unit server computer and the remote Lead Buyer server is a server to server request.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein the bid from the Lead Buyer in response to the notification has a sharing parameter that specifies a level of sharing of the leads being sought in the ping buying campaign.

6. The system of claim 1 further comprising a lead duplicate detection unit that compares a new lead to the leads stored in the storage system to determine if the new lead is a duplicate.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein each lead further comprises a de-dupe identifier that uniquely identifies each lead and wherein the lead duplicate detection unit compares the de-dupe identifier of the new lead to the de-dupe identifier for each lead in the storage system to detect duplicate leads.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the de-dupe identifier for each lead further comprises one of a set of information about an entity associated with each lead, a globally unique identifier and a hash of the electronic contact and transactional information of each lead.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein the lead duplicate detection unit further comprises a portion of the lead seller unit and a portion of the lead buyer unit.

10. The system of claim 1 further comprising a lead duplicate detection unit that compares a lead being sent to a Lead Buyer with a set of leads already purchased by the Lead Buyer to determine if the sent lead is a duplicate.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein each lead further comprises a de-dupe identifier that uniquely identifies each lead and wherein the lead duplicate detection unit compares the de-dupe identifier of the new lead to the de-dupe identifier for each lead in the storage system to detect duplicate leads.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the de-dupe identifier for each lead further comprises one of a set of information about an entity associated with each lead, a globally unique identifier and a hash of the electronic contact and transactional information of each lead.

13. A computer implemented lead marketplace method that stores a plurality of leads wherein each lead is an electronic contact and transactional information that provides an opportunity to sell a good or service to a prospective customer, the method comprising:

storing, in a seller campaign table storage unit, one or more selling campaigns for one or more Lead Sellers, each selling campaign enabling the association of one or more leads to be sold in a lead marketplace system;

storing, in a buyer campaign table storage unit, one or more buying campaigns for one or more Lead Buyers, each buying campaign including one or more parameters specifying the characteristics of leads to be bought by the Lead Buyer associated with the buying campaign, at least one buying campaign further comprises a ping campaign including one or more parameters specifying the characteristics of leads by to be identified to the Lead Buyer associated with the ping buying campaign when a first lead matches the one or more parameters of the ping buying campaign so that the Lead Buyer has the ability to bid on the first lead; and

providing, using a third party buyer ping computer, a notification to the Lead Buyer that the first lead matches the one or more parameters of the ping buying campaign, wherein the notification includes consumer information and transaction information associated with the first lead; and

allowing the Lead Buyer to bid on the first lead that matches the ping buying campaign.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising receiving a bid from the Lead Buyer in response to the notification.

15. The method of claim 13 further comprising identifying duplicate leads by comparing a new lead to the leads stored in the storage system to determine if the new lead is a duplicate.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein each lead further comprises a de-dupe identifier that uniquely identifies each lead and wherein the lead duplicate detection unit compares the de-dupe identifier of the new lead to the de-dupe identifier for each lead in the storage system to detect duplicate leads.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the de-dupe identifier for each lead further comprises one of a set of information about an entity associated with each lead, a globally unique identifier and a hash of the electronic contact and transactional information of each lead.

18. The method of claim 13 further comprising a lead duplicate detection unit that compares a lead being sent to a Lead Buyer with a set of leads already purchased by the Lead Buyer to determine if the sent lead is a duplicate.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein each lead further comprises a de-dupe identifier that uniquely identifies each lead and wherein the lead duplicate detection unit compares the de-dupe identifier of the new lead to the de-dupe identifier for each lead in the storage system to detect duplicate leads.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the de-dupe identifier for each lead further comprises one of a set of information about an entity associated with each lead, a globally unique identifier and a hash of the electronic contact and transactional information of each lead.