Rule-based bidding platform

• US 8,566,166 B1
• Filed: 01/25/2011
• Issued: 10/22/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/25/2010
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Connexity, Inc.
• Original Assignee: PriceGrabbercom Incorporated (PriceGrabber.com, LLC)
• Inventors: Jones, Graham, Jean, Dominique, Ritter, Robert
• Primary Examiner(s): Vig, Naresh
• Application Number:
  US13/013,591
• Time in Patent Office: 1,001 Days
• Field of Search: 705/14.71
• US Class Current: 705/14.71
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions

Abstract

A computing system is configured to accept bid rules from merchants for the placement of ads for a plurality of products. The bid rules comprise a bid amount, a rule definition and a priority. The bid amount may be an absolute bid or it may be relative to base advertising rate. The rule definition comprises criteria for describing products to determine when the bid rule is applied to a product for sale. The priority indicates whether the bid rule applies to a particular product when the rule definition of more than one bid rule could be applied to a product. The computing system is also configured to generate a list of product offers based at least in part on the bids. The system may also generate reports for merchants.

Claims

1. A method of pre-assigning advertising rates to a plurality of products offered by a merchant, the method comprising:

providing, by a bidding platform computing device, computer-executable code useable to generate a computer interface usable by a merchant in order to define bid rules for determining advertising rates for the plurality of products offered by the merchant, wherein each bid rule comprises;

a bid amount indicating an absolute advertising rate or a relative bid adjustment to be made to a base advertising rate;

a rule definition comprising criteria for identifying products of the merchant associated with the respective bid rule, the criteria comprising one or more price criteria, taxonomy criteria, or product manufacturer criteria; and

a bidding priority indicating a respective priority of the bid rule in relation to other bid rules;

transmitting the computer-executable code to a computing device of the merchant;

receiving one or more bid rules defined by the merchant from the merchant computing device;

applying the received one or more bid rules defined by the merchant to the plurality of products offered by the merchant, wherein the bidding priorities of respective bid rules are useable to determine which of one or more bid rules that each apply to a particular product to use in determining an advertising rate for the particular product; and

determining and assigning, based on the applied one or more bid rules, advertising rates for the plurality of products.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein applying the received one or more bid rules comprises:

for each of the plurality of products;

identifying one or more bid rules having rule definitions matching attributes of the product;

in response to identifying more than one bid rule each having rule definitions matching attributes of the product, selecting a bid rule of the more than one bid rules with a highest priority as the applicable bid rule;

in response to identifying only one bid rule having a rule definition matching attributes of the product, selecting the only one bid rule as the applicable bid rule; and

determining an advertising rate for the product using the bid amount of the applicable bid rule.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said determining the advertising rate comprises:

in response to determining that the applicable bid rule comprises an absolute advertising rate, setting the advertising rate for the product as the absolute advertising rate; and

in response to determining that the applicable bid rule comprises a relative bid amount, setting the advertising rate for the product as the relative bid adjustment plus an applicable bid rate from a rate card.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a request for a product offer from a consumer computing device or from a partner computing device;

accessing the determined advertising rate for the product offer; and

in response to providing the requested product offer to the consumer computing device, charging the merchant the determined advertising rate.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing, with the bidding platform computing device, additional computer-executable code useable to generate a computer interface comprising a list of multiple products ordered at least in part by the respective calculated advertising rates of the multiple products; and

transmitting the additional computer-executable code to a consumer computing device or to a partner computing device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some price criteria of respective rule definitions indicate that only products having prices that are less than, equal to, or greater than a threshold price match the respective price criteria.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some price criteria of respective rule definitions indicate that only products having prices that are within a range of prices match the respective price criteria.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some taxonomy criteria of respective rule definitions indicate that only products of a particular type match the respective taxonomy criteria.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein that particular type indicates one or more of a product channel, a product category or a product sub-category.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some product manufacturer criteria of respective rule definitions indicate that only products manufactured by one or more manufactures indicated in the manufacturer criteria match the respective manufacturer criteria.

11. A computing system configured to assign advertising rates to a plurality of products of a merchant comprising:

one or more processors configured to execute software instructions;

a computer readable medium storing software instructions executable by the one or more processors in order to cause the computing system to perform operations comprising;

accessing a data structure including information regarding a plurality of products offered by a merchant;

accessing a data structure including information regarding bid rules of the merchant, the bid rules each including;

a bid amount indicating an absolute advertising rate or a relative bid adjustment to be made to a base advertising rate;

a rule definition comprising criteria for identifying matching products, the criteria comprising one or more price criteria, taxonomy criteria, or manufacturer criteria; and

a bidding priority indicating a respective priority of the bid rule in relation to other bid rules, the bidding priority useable to determine one of the bid rules to apply to a particular product when more than one bid rule applies to the particular product;

for each product of the plurality of products;

identifying one or more bid rules having rule definitions matching attributes of the product;

in response to identifying more than one bid rule having respective rule definitions matching attributes of the product, selecting a bid rule of the more than one bid rules with a highest priority as the applicable bid rule;

in response to identifying only one bid rule having a rule definition matching attributes of the product, selecting the only one bid rule as the applicable bid rule; and

determining and assigning an advertising rate for the product using the bid amount of the applicable bid rule.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the operations further comprise:

generating a computer interface for inputting bid rules;

transmitting the computer interface to a merchant computing device, and

receiving the bid rules from the merchant computing device.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein said determining the advertising rate comprises:

in response to determining that the applicable bid rule comprises an absolute advertising rate, setting the advertising rate for the product as the absolute advertising rate; and

in response to determining that the applicable bid rule comprises a relative bid amount, setting the advertising rate for the product as the relative bid adjustment plus an applicable bid rate from a rate card.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein at least some price criteria of respective rule definitions indicate that only products having prices that are less than, equal to, or greater than a threshold price match the respective price criteria.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein at least some price criteria of respective rule definitions indicate that only products having prices that are within a range of prices match the respective price criteria.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein at least some taxonomy criteria of respective rule definitions indicate that only products of a particular type match the respective taxonomy criteria.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein that particular type indicates one or more of a product channel, a product category or a product sub-category.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein at least some product manufacturer criteria of respective rule definitions indicate that only products manufactured by one or more manufactures indicated in the manufacturer criteria match the respective manufacturer criteria.

19. A tangible non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer-executable instructions configured to cause a computing device to perform operations comprising:

applying bid rules provided by a first entity to a plurality of goods and/or services offered by the first entity in a sequential order starting with a highest priority bid rule and ending with a lowest priority bid rule, wherein at least some of the goods and/or services have more than one applicable bid rule, the applying comprising, for each bid rule;

comparing a rule definition of the bid rule to attributes of respective goods and/or services that have not yet been assigned an advertising rate; and

in response to identifying one or more goods and/or services having attributes matching the rule definition of the bid rule, assigning respective advertising rates to the identified one or more goods and/or services based on the bid amount of the bid rule.

20. The tangible computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the first entity comprises a merchant or a group voucher retailer.

21. The tangible computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the attributes of the goods and/or services include one or more of:

price, taxonomy, manufacturer, brand, compatible brand, gender, size, and sales data.

22. A computer-implemented method of determining which bid rule defined by a merchant to apply to each of a plurality of products of the merchant comprising:

periodically applying a plurality of bid rules provided by a merchant to a plurality of products offered by the merchant in an order starting with a high priority bid rule having a highest bidding priority, and ending with a low priority bid rule having a lowest bidding priority,

wherein at least some of the products have more than one bid rule having rule definitions matching attributes of the at least some products,

wherein said periodically applying a plurality of bid rules comprises, for each bid rule;

determining any products of the products offered by the merchant that have not yet been assigned an advertising rate;

identifying any of the determined products that have respective attributes matching a rule definition of the bid rule; and

assigning respective advertising rates to the identified products based on a bid type and a bid amount of the bid rule.