Computing user micro-segments for offer matching

• US 8,635,226 B2
• Filed: 03/02/2011
• Issued: 01/21/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/02/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Adobe Inc.
• Original Assignee: Adobe Systems Incorporated (Adobe Inc.)
• Inventors: Chang, Walter, Baum, Geoff, Malloy, Thomas
• Primary Examiner(s): Fleurantin, Jean B
• Application Number:
  US13/039,257
• Publication Number:
  US 20120226697A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,056 Days
• Field of Search: 707/740, 707/748, 707/749, 707/758, 705/14, 705/26, 705/30
• US Class Current: 707/740
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0204 Market segmentation

Abstract

User data and a plurality of micro-segment definitions such that each micro-segment definition in the plurality of micro-segment definitions corresponds to one or more offers in an offer provider campaign are received. Further, a dispatcher dispatches a first subset of the user data and a first subset of the plurality of the micro-segment definitions to a first node in a network. In addition, the dispatcher dispatches a second subset of the user data and a second subset of the plurality of the micro-segment definitions to a second node in the network. Parsing and compiling are performed at each node. Further, parallel processing is performed at a scalable evaluation engine at each node to apply micro-segment condition rules to user data to determine matches to micro-segments. Computation of micro-segments occurs in parallel and resulting micro-segment assignments are collected, filtered to remove duplicates, then ranked to produce a final set of micro-segments that can be used to find offers.

Claims

1. A computer useable storage device storing a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program when executed on one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

receiving user data and a plurality of micro-segment definitions such that each micro-segment definition in the plurality of micro-segment definitions corresponds to one or more offers in an offer provider campaign;

parsing each micro-segment definition from the plurality of micro-segment definitions into a plurality of parsed expression segments that indicate a plurality of micro-segment condition rules;

compiling the plurality of parsed expression segments into an executable object that indicates a plurality of instructions to determine if the user data matches the plurality of micro-segment definitions;

processing the executable object to apply the plurality of micro-segment condition rules to the user data to determine a match of a user to a micro-segment;

assigning a score to indicate a strength of the match of the user to the micro-segment; and

ranking the score relative to a different score for a different user assigned based on a strength of a match of the different user to the micro-segment.

2. The computer usable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise determining that the score exceeds a threshold score associated with the micro-segment such that the user is placed in the micro-segment.

3. The computer usable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the micro-segment definitions associated with the micro-segment include weighted attributes that are used to apply at least some of the plurality of micro-segment condition rules to the user data to determine the match of the user to the micro-segment.

4. The computer usable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the plurality of micro-segment definitions is received in a portable micro-segment object that stores analytics without user identification data.

5. The computer usable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the executable object is a bytecode object.

6. The computer usable storage medium of claim 5, wherein the computer readable program when executed on the computer is further caused to store the bytecode object in a NoSQL database.

7. The computer usable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the match of the user to the micro-segment is determined according to three-valued logic such that one or more Boolean predicates and one or more non-Boolean predicates are utilized.

8. The computer-usable storage device of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise sorting the score for the user, the different score for the different user, and scores for other users to generate a ranked list of matches between the user, the different user, and the other users, and the micro-segment.

9. A method implemented by at least one computing device having one or more processors, the method comprising:

receiving user data and a plurality of micro-segment definitions such that each micro-segment definition in the plurality of micro-segment definitions corresponds to one or more offers in an offer provider campaign;

parsing each micro-segment definition from the plurality of micro-segment definitions into a plurality of parsed expression segments that indicate a plurality of micro-segment condition rules;

compiling the plurality of parsed expression segments into an executable object that indicates a plurality of instructions to determine if the user data matches the plurality of micro-segment definitions;

processing the executable object to apply the plurality of micro-segment condition rules to the user data to determine a match of a user to a micro-segment;

assigning a score to indicate a strength of the match of the user to the micro-segment; and

ranking the score relative to a different score for a different user assigned based on a strength of a match of the different user to the micro-segment.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising determining that the score exceeds a threshold score associated with the micro-segment such that the user is placed in the micro-segment.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the micro-segment definitions associated with the micro-segment include weighted attributes that are used to apply at least some of the plurality of micro-segment condition rules to the user data to determine the match of the user to the micro-segment.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the plurality of micro-segment definitions is received in a portable micro-segment object that stores analytics without user identification data.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the executable object is a bytecode object.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the match of the user to the micro-segment is determined according to three-valued logic such that one or more Boolean predicates and one or more non-Boolean predicates are utilized.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising sorting the score for the user, the different score for the different user, and scores for other users to generate a ranked list of matches between the user, the different user, and the other users, and the micro-segment.

16. A system comprising:

one or more processors;

modules stored on one or more computer-readable storage devices and executable by the one or more processors, the modules including;

a reception module configured to receive user data and a plurality of micro-segment definitions such that each micro-segment definition in the plurality of micro-segment definitions corresponds to one or more offers in an offer provider campaign;

a micro-segment parser configured to parse each micro-segment definition of the plurality of micro-segment definitions into a plurality of parsed expression segments that indicate a plurality of micro-segment condition rules;

a compiler configured to compile the plurality of parsed expression segments into an executable object that indicates a plurality of instructions to determine if the user data matches the plurality of micro-segment definitions; and

a scalable evaluation engine configured to;

process the executable object to apply the plurality of micro-segment condition rules to the user data to determine a match of a user to a micro-segment, including utilizing one or more weighted attributes of one or more of the micro-segment definitions to apply at least some of the plurality of micro-segment condition rules to the user data to determine the match of the user to the micro-segment; and

assign a score to indicate a strength of the match of the user with the micro-segment.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the modules further include an aggregator module configured to aggregate the score and a different score assigned based on a strength of a match of a different user to the micro-segment, and perform a ranking of the score relative to the different score.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the aggregator module is further configured to sort the score for the user, the different score for the different user, and scores for other users to generate a ranked list of matches between the user, the different user, and the other users, and the micro-segment.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the scalable evaluation engine is further configure to determine that the score exceeds a threshold score associated with the micro-segment such that the user is placed in the micro-segment.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein the reception module is configured to receive the plurality of micro-segment definitions in a portable micro-segment object that stores analytics without user identification data.