Systems and methods for an analysis cycle to determine interest merchants

• US 9,195,988 B2
• Filed: 12/14/2012
• Issued: 11/24/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/13/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Original Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Inventors: Fischer, Terrence, Mavromatis, Anthony Harry, Navarro, Monique M., Schulte, Benjamin, Varadachary, Venkat
• Primary Examiner(s): Sterrett, Jonathan G
• Assistant Examiner(s): KASSIM, HAFIZ A
• Application Number:
  US13/715,792
• Publication Number:
  US 20130246124A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,075 Days
• Field of Search: 705/7.33
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0204 Market segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

The method of processing an analysis cycle to determine interest merchants may include selecting a seed merchant relevant to a topic interest, identifying consumers that have completed a transaction with the seed merchant to generate a list of identified consumers, determining merchants visited by the identified consumers, scoring all the merchants based on network connectivity, activity, and merchant over-index, updating the seed merchant in response to the list of scored merchants relative to a scoring threshold, and scoring the list of identified consumers based on the number of distinct merchants in transaction and over-indexing. Additionally, the method may further comprise producing a list of updated interest merchants and a list of updated identified consumers, where the updated interest merchants and the updated identified consumers are relevant to the topic interest.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

selecting, by a computer-based system configured for determining interest merchants, a seed merchant relevant to a topic interest to generate a seeded merchant list,

wherein the seed merchant and the seeded merchant list are associated with a keyword corresponding to a topic interest;

identifying, by the computer-based system, consumers that have completed a transaction with the at least one seed merchant to generate a list of identified consumers;

determining, by the computer-based system, merchants that have initiated a transaction with a transaction account associated with the identified consumers that do not correspond to the merchants of the seeded merchant list,

wherein the merchants are do not have an attribute that corresponds to the key word;

scoring, by the computer-based system, the merchants based on at least one of network connectivity, activity, or merchant over index,

wherein the scoring generates a list of scored merchants,

wherein the scoring the merchants comprises individually calculating a preliminary merchant score and calculating a merchant interest network score (MINS) for each merchant,

wherein the

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing, by the computer based system, an additional analysis cycle in response to a turnover index being greater than a turnover index threshold.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising producing, by the computer based system, a list of updated interest merchants and a list of updated identified consumers, wherein the updated interest merchants and the updated identified consumers are relevant to the topic interest.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising determining, by the computer-based system, a group of boost consumers, wherein the determining the group of boost consumers comprises:

evaluating consumer transactions across a subset of merchants associated with the interest, wherein the subset of merchants have a score above of threshold established for the interest; and

retrieving consumers that have transactions with two or more distinct merchants from the list of updated interest merchants.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the determining merchants visited by the identified consumers includes merchants visited by the group of boost consumers.

6. The method of claim 1,

wherein the network connectivity

7. The method of claim 1,

wherein the MNAj=(Σ

_i=1^ICROCSi;

(Ci, Mj)ε

Tint)−

MCROCSj,

wherein CROCSi=Σ

<sub>tε

Tint</sub>1;

(Ct, Mj)ε

Tint, and wherein MROCSj=Σ

<sub>tε

Tint</sub>1;

(Ci, Mt)ε

Tint,

wherein MNA is merchant network activity,

wherein CROCS is consumer records of charge, and

wherein MROCS is merchant records of charge.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein the interest merchants include:

a list of initial merchants retrieved from a merchant database, wherein the list of initial merchants may further result from at least one of industry codes, or explicit queries;

small merchants that were removed from the list of initial merchants and reinstated in response to the small merchants having sufficient consumer activity; and

consumer booster merchants associated with the group of boost consumers, wherein the consumer booster merchants are sufficiently connected to specific, topic-related consumers to be deemed an interest merchant.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the seed merchant comprises at least one of:

an industry code, one or more specific merchants, or keywords.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a consumer score measuring consumer spend activity and an average merchant interest network score (MINS) per consumer, wherein the consumer spend activity is based on the number of distinct interest merchants where the consumer has conducted a transaction.

11. The method of claim 10,

wherein the consumer spend activity (CDMi)=Σ

_i=1^I1;

(Ci, Mj)ε

Tint, and

wherein the average merchant interest network score (MINS) per consumer is

12. The method of claim 4, wherein the analysis cycle is repeated in response to not satisfying a predetermined limitation, wherein the predetermined limitation is at least one of:

a set number of iterations of the analysis to be completed;

or

a turnover index exceeding a specific threshold, wherein the turnover index is based on a number of merchants added during the analysis cycle plus a number of merchants dropped during the analysis cycle, divided by the number of the merchants in the analysis cycle.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, by the computer based system, a plurality of personas for a first plurality merchants based on an interest merchant, where the plurality of personas are based on at least one of predetermined activities or transaction information from first transaction accounts, wherein the first transaction accounts are associated with at least one of the plurality of personas;

receiving, by the computer based system, a selected persona from the plurality of personas;

determining, by the computer based system, a subset of total merchants associated with the selected persona; and

recommending, by the computer based system, at least a portion of the subset of total merchants based on the selected persona.

14. An article of manufacture including a non-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a computer-based system for processing an analysis cycle to determine interest merchants, cause the computer-based system to perform operations comprising:

selecting, by the computer-based system, a seed merchant relevant to a topic interest to generate a seeded merchant list,

wherein the seed merchant and the seeded merchant list are associated with a keyword corresponding to a topic interest;

identifying, by the computer-based system, consumers that have completed a transaction with the at least one seed merchant to generate a list of identified consumers;

determining, by the computer-based system, merchants that have initiated a transaction with a transaction account associated with the identified consumers that do not correspond to the merchants of the seeded merchant list,

wherein the merchants are do not have an attribute that corresponds to the key word;

scoring, by the computer-based system, the merchants based on at least one of network connectivity, activity, or merchant over index,

wherein the scoring generates a list of scored merchants,

wherein the scoring the merchants comprises individually calculating a preliminary merchant score and calculating a merchant interest network score (MINS) for each merchant,

wherein the

15. The article of claim 14, further comprising determining, by the computer-based system, a group of boost consumers, wherein the determining the group of boost consumers comprises:

evaluating consumer transactions across a consumer database; and

retrieving consumers that have transactions with two or more distinct merchants from a list of updated interest merchants.

16. The article of claim 15, wherein the determining merchants visited by the identified consumers includes merchants visited by the group of boost consumers.

17. A system comprising:

a processor for processing an analysis cycle to determine interest merchants,

a tangible, non-transitory memory configured to communicate with the processor,

the tangible, non-transitory memory having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising;

selecting, by the processor, a seed merchant relevant to a topic interest to generate a seeded merchant list,

wherein the seed merchant and the seeded merchant list are associated with a keyword corresponding to a topic interest;

identifying, by the processor, consumers that have completed a transaction with the at least one seed merchant to generate a list of identified consumers;

determining, by the processor, merchants that have initiated a transaction with a transaction account associated with the identified consumers that do not correspond to the merchants of the seeded merchant list,

wherein the merchants are do not have an attribute that corresponds to the key word;

scoring, by the processor, the merchants based on at least one of network connectivity, activity, or merchant over index,

wherein the scoring generates a list of scored merchants,

wherein the scoring the merchants comprises individually calculating a preliminary merchant score and calculating a merchant interest network score (MINS) for each merchant,

wherein the

18. The system of claim 17, further comprising determining, by the computer-based system, a group of boost consumers, wherein the determining the group of boost consumers comprises:

evaluating consumer transactions across a consumer database; and

retrieving consumers that have transactions with two or more distinct merchants from a list of updated interest merchants.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the determining merchants visited by the identified consumers includes merchants visited by the group of boost consumers.