Cross-device geolocation sensing to geotarget offers

• US 9,595,049 B2
• Filed: 08/25/2014
• Issued: 03/14/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/11/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Retailmenot Incorporated (J2 Global, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Retailmenot Incorporated (J2 Global, Inc.)
• Inventors: Showers, Brian Keith, Zilkha, Eithan
• Primary Examiner(s): Boveja, Namrata
• Assistant Examiner(s): Johnson, Robert C
• Application Number:
  US14/467,590
• Publication Number:
  US 20140365304A1
• Time in Patent Office: 932 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0239 Online discounts or incentives
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0242 Determining effectiveness of advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0256 User search
• 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 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

Provided is a process of distributing offers to non-location-sensing devices based on a geolocation sensed by another device, the process comprising: obtaining a geolocation of a user from a mobile device of the user; associating the geolocation of the user with an identifier of the user in an offers engine; receiving a request for an offer from another computing device of the user, the request including or prompting obtaining data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user; retrieving the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device by identifying the user with the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account; selecting, with the offers engine, a responsive offer based on the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device; and sending the responsive offer to the other computing device of the user.

Claims

1. A method of distributing coupons or other offers to non-location-sensing devices based on a geolocation sensed by another device, the method comprising:

obtaining a geolocation of a user from a mobile device of the user, the geolocation being sensed with the mobile device of the user;

associating the geolocation of the user with an identifier of the user in an offers engine, the user having a user account in the offers engine associated with the identifier of the user;

receiving a request for an offer from another computing device of the user, the other computing device of the user being a different device from the mobile device of the user, the request including or prompting obtaining data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account;

retrieving the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device by identifying the user account with the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account;

selecting, with the offers engine, a responsive offer based on the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device, wherein the responsive offer is responsive to the request for an offer from the other computing device, wherein the selection uses cross-device geolocation sensing to customize the presentation of offers on the other computing device of the user without requiring the other computing device of the user to have a geolocation sensor; and

sending the responsive offer to the other computing device of the user.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising:

receiving credentials of the user for accessing the user account from the mobile device of the user;

receiving the credentials of the user for accessing the user account from the other computing device.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein both the mobile device of the user and the other computing device are logged in to the user account in the offers engine at the same time, before receiving the request for an offer from the other computing device.

4. The method of claim 1, comprising:

sending to the other computing device a log-in interface configured to return the credentials of the user for accessing the user account to the offers engine;

receiving the credentials of the user for accessing the user account from the other computing device;

determining that the credentials match the user account; and

after determining that the credentials match the user account, sending the other computing device instructions to store the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account in persistent storage that retains data when the other computing device is turned off.

5. The method of claim 4, comprising:

after receiving the request for an offer from the other computing device, sending the other computing device instructions that when executed cause the other computing device to perform operations comprising;

retrieving from persistent storage the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account; and

sending to the offers engine the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the instructions to store the data include an instruction to store a value in a cookie, a client-side structured-query language (SQL) database accessible by a web browser executing on the other computing device, or a localstorage object instantiated by a web browser executing on the other computing device.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account includes a web browser fingerprint of a web browser executing on the other computing device.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account includes a public IP address of a router through which the mobile user device has communicated with the offers engine.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account comprises a local shared object (LSO) accessible via a Flash player executing on the other computing device and stored outside of a browser sandbox of a web browser executing on the other computing device.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account comprises a canvas fingerprint of a web browser executing on the other computing device.

11. The method of claim 1, comprising:

retrieving the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account by cookie-syncing with a web domain different from a web domain of the offers engine.

12. The method of claim 1, retrieving the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account by cookie-syncing by:

obtaining an email address of the user when the user account is created during installation of a native mobile application on the mobile device of the user; and

sending a web browser of the other computing device instructions to retrieve content from another web domain different from a web domain of the offers engine, the other web domain being configured to respond to a request to retrieve the content from the web browser by causing an identifier of the email address to be sent to the offers engine.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting, with the offers engine, a responsive offer based on the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device comprises:

selecting from a plurality of offer records, each offer record describing an offer and being associated with an offer geolocation, one or more offer records having an offer geolocation including the geolocation of the user or having an offer geolocation within a threshold distance to the geolocation of the user.

14. The method of claim 1, comprising obtaining a plurality of time-stamped geolocations of the user are obtained from the mobile device, wherein selecting, with the offers engine, a responsive offer based on the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device comprises:

determining a measure of central tendency of user geolocations of at least some of the time-stamped geolocations; and

selecting from a plurality of offer records, each offer record describing an offer and being associated with an offer geolocation, one or more offer records having an offer geolocation including the measure of central tendency of user geolocations or having an offer geolocation within a threshold distance to the measure of central tendency of user geolocations.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the geolocation specifies a latitude and longitude of the user;

the mobile device of the user is a cell phone;

the geolocation of the user is obtained by a native application executing on the mobile device, the native application storing in memory of the mobile device user credentials by which the native application accesses the user account in the offers engine, wherein the native application monitors the geolocation of the user with an object that is an instance of a class of an operating system of the mobile device and sends the geolocation to the offers engine over the Internet with data from the mobile device sufficient to identify the user account;

associating the geolocation of the user with the identifier of the user comprises matching the data from the mobile device sufficient to identify the user account with the user account of the user and storing the geolocation of the user in the user account of the user with a time-stamp indicative of when the geolocation was obtained;

the identifier of the user uniquely identifies the user among a plurality of users having user accounts in the offers engine;

receiving a request for an offer from another computing device of the user comprises receiving a transport protocol request over the Internet for markup language content describing an offer from a web browser executing on a desktop or laptop computer of the user;

obtaining the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account comprises sending, after receiving the transport protocol request, a script that when executed by the web browser causes the web browser to retrieve from memory of the other computing device of the user an identifier of the user account and send the identifier of the user account to the offer discovery system over the Internet;

retrieving the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device comprises determining a difference between a current time and the time-stamp to base the selection of the offer on a duration of elapsed time since the geolocation was obtained; and

sending the responsive offer to the other computing device comprises;

sending the other computing device instructions to present a web page to redeem the responsive offer, the web page including a description of the offer, a coupon code, and hyperlinks to an affiliate network that redirect the web browser to a website of a merchant issuing the responsive offer.

16. A system, comprising

one or more processors;

and

memory storing instructions that when executed by at least some of the one or more processors cause operations comprising;

obtaining a geolocation of a user from a mobile device of the user, the geolocation being sensed with the mobile device of the user;

associating the geolocation of the user with an identifier of the user in an offers engine, the user having a user account in the offers engine associated with the identifier of the user;

receiving a request for an offer from another computing device of the user, the other computing device of the user being a different device from the mobile device of the user, the request including or prompting obtaining data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account;

retrieving the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device by identifying the user account with the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account;

selecting, with the offers engine, a responsive offer based on the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device, wherein the responsive offer is responsive to the request for an offer from the other computing device, wherein the selection uses cross-device geolocation sensing to customize the presentation of offers on the other computing device of the user without requiring the other computing device of the user to have a geolocation sensor; and

sending the responsive offer to the other computing device of the user.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the operations comprise:

receiving credentials of the user for accessing the user account from the mobile device of the user;

receiving the credentials of the user for accessing the user account from the other computing device.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein both the mobile device of the user and the other computing device are logged in to the user account in the offers engine at the same time, before receiving the request for an offer from the other computing device.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the operations comprise:

sending to the other computing device a log-in interface configured to return the credentials of the user for accessing the user account to the offers engine;

receiving the credentials of the user for accessing the user account from the other computing device;

determining that the credentials match the user account; and

after determining that the credentials match the user account, sending the other computing device instructions to store the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account in persistent storage that retains data when the other computing device is turned off.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the operations comprise:

after receiving the request for an offer from the other computing device, sending the other computing device instructions that when executed cause the other computing device to perform operations comprising;

retrieving from persistent storage the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account; and

sending to the offers engine the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account.

21. The system of claim 19, wherein the instructions to store the data include an instruction to store a value in a cookie, a client-side structured-query language (SQL) database accessible by a web browser executing on the other computing device, or a localstorage object instantiated by a web browser executing on the other computing device.

22. The system of claim 16, wherein the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account includes a web browser fingerprint of a web browser executing on the other computing device.

23. The system of claim 16, wherein the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account includes a public IP address of a router through which the mobile user device has communicated with the offers engine.

24. The system of claim 16, wherein the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account comprises a local shared object (LSO) accessible via a Flash player executing on the other computing device and stored outside of a browser sandbox of a web browser executing on the other computing device.

25. The system of claim 16, wherein the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account comprises a canvas fingerprint of a web browser executing on the other computing device.

26. The system of claim 16, wherein the operations comprise:

retrieving the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account by cookie syncing with a web domain different from a web domain of the offers engine.

27. The system of claim 16, wherein the operations comprise retrieving the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account by cookie-syncing by:

obtaining an email address of the user when the user account is created during installation of a native mobile application on the mobile device of the user; and

sending a web browser of the other computing device instructions to retrieve content from another web domain different from a web domain of the offers engine, the other web domain being configured to respond to a request to retrieve the content from the web browser by causing an identifier of the email address to be sent to the offers engine.

28. The system of claim 16, wherein selecting, with the offers engine, a responsive offer based on the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device comprises:

selecting from a plurality of offer records, each offer record describing an offer and being associated with an offer geolocation, one or more offer records having an offer geolocation including the geolocation of the user or having an offer geolocation within a threshold distance to the geolocation of the user.

29. The system of claim 16, wherein the operations comprise obtaining a plurality of time-stamped geolocations of the user are obtained from the mobile device, wherein selecting, with the offers engine, a responsive offer based on the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device comprises:

determining a measure of central tendency of user geolocations of at least some of the time-stamped geolocations; and

selecting from a plurality of offer records, each offer record describing an offer and being associated with an offer geolocation, one or more offer records having an offer geolocation including the measure of central tendency of user geolocations or having an offer geolocation within a threshold distance to the measure of central tendency of user geolocations.

30. The system of claim 16, wherein:

the geolocation specifies a latitude and longitude of the user;

the mobile device of the user is a cell phone;

the geolocation of the user is obtained by a native application executing on the mobile device, the native application storing in memory of the mobile device user credentials by which the native application accesses the user account in the offers engine, wherein the native application monitors the geolocation of the user with an object that is an instance of a class of an operating system of the mobile device and sends the geolocation to the offers engine over the Internet with data from the mobile device sufficient to identify the user account;

associating the geolocation of the user with the identifier of the user comprises matching the data from the mobile device sufficient to identify the user account with the user account of the user and storing the geolocation of the user in the user account of the user with a time-stamp indicative of when the geolocation was obtained;

the identifier of the user uniquely identifies the user among a plurality of users having user accounts in the offers engine;

receiving a request for an offer from another computing device of the user comprises receiving a transport protocol request over the Internet for markup language content describing an offer from a web browser executing on a desktop or laptop computer of the user;

obtaining the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account comprises sending, after receiving the transport protocol request, a script that when executed by the web browser causes the web browser to retrieve from memory of the other computing device of the user an identifier of the user account and send the identifier of the user account to the offer discovery system over the Internet;

retrieving the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device comprises determining a difference between a current time and the time-stamp to base the selection of the offer on a duration of elapsed time since the geolocation was obtained; and

sending the responsive offer to the other computing device comprises;

sending the other computing device instructions to present a web page to redeem the responsive offer, the web page including a description of the offer, a coupon code, and hyperlinks to an affiliate network that redirect the web browser to a website of a merchant issuing the responsive offer.