Patent Application
20160232564
The present application for patent is related to co-pending United States patent applications entitled, “Non-Public Cookie Associated with Anonymous Purchase Data”, inventors Abbott, et al., having Attorney Docket No. 6593US1.014033.2423, and “Serving Anonymous Cookies Associated with Purchasing Analytics”, inventors Blackhurst et al., having Attorney Docket No, 6588US1.014033.2424, filed concurrently herewith, assigned to the assignee hereof, and expressly incorporated by reference herein.
In general, embodiments of the invention relate to electronic commerce and, more particularly, providing customers with targeted advertisements by implementing anonymous cookies that identify a customer's overall spending trends and/or preferences.
Currently, targeted electronic advertising is implemented through the use of browser cookies—which are a small text files sent to your web browser by a website that you visit. Conventionally, cookies contain information about your visit that you may want the site to remember, like your preferred language and other settings. The web browser stores this data and retries the cookie the next time you visit the site to make the next trip easier and more personalized.
In addition, cookies are used in online advertising for the purpose remembering your interests (i.e., what webpages you've visited) and subsequently showing you related (i.e., targeted) advertisements as you visit other locations throughout the Internet. For example, a user/customer may visit an electronic-commerce (e-commerce) website that sells a product the user is interested in purchasing and the user may browse various web pages on the website, each web page associated with a different product. The e-commerce website may be configured to generate and drop cookies in the user/customer's web browser that identify the web page(s) visited and the content/product associated with those web pages. When the user/customer leaves the e-commerce website and browses other websites on the Internet that have advertising, and more, specifically advertising associated with the previously visited electronic commerce website, the other website may retrieve the cookies and use the information stored therein to provide the user/customer with targeted advertisements. Typically, this means that the user is presented with advertisements for the product(s) that were on the webpages previously visited by the user/customer (i.e., the products that the user/customer showed an interest in).
However, such targeted advertising may be highly ineffective because it does not take into account the fact that in many instances the user/customer has already purchased the product prior to being presented the advertisement, either at another e-commerce website, at a physical retail location (i.e., brick and mortar location) or, in some instances, at the same e-commerce website which generated and dropped the cookies (i.e., the same e-commerce retailer that is providing the user/customer the targeted advertising). In addition, such targeted advertising is limited, in that it is solely based off of previously visited websites and does not take into account any other information or factors that may be relevant to providing more effective targeted advertisement (i.e., advertising that will result in the user/customer responding to the advertising and purchasing the product or service associated with the advertisement).
Therefore, a need exists to develop systems, apparatus, computer program products, methods and the like that provide for serving a customer more effective targeted electronic advertisements. In this regard, the desired systems, apparatus, computer program products, methods and the like should provide for an electronic merchant or an advertiser advertising on a website to be provided information other than what previous websites or specific webpages within a website a customer has previously visited. Moreover, the desired systems, apparatus, computer program products, methods and the like should provide such relevant advertising information to merchant or advertiser while the customer is concurrently visiting the merchant's website or the site at which the advertiser advertises without divulging the identity of the customer.
The following presents a simplified summary of one or more embodiments in order to provide a basic understanding of such embodiments. This summary is not an extensive overview of all contemplated embodiments, and is intended to neither identify key or critical elements of all embodiments, nor delineate the scope of any or all embodiments. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of one or more embodiments in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.
Embodiments of the present invention address the above needs and/or achieve other advantages by providing apparatus, systems, computer program products, methods or the like for presenting customers with targeted electronic advertisements by implementing anonymous cookies that identify a customer's overall spending trends and/or preferences. Specifically, a financial institution, having access to a customer's transactional data, can analyze the data to determine spending trends (e.g., a timeframe for when a customer typically purchases a specified product or service or products or services within a specified category, a timeframe for when a customer typically purchases from a specified merchant or a specified merchant category) and/or purchasing preferences (e.g., the specific products or services, the specific category of products or services, the specific merchants, the specific category of merchants that the customer prefers). The spending trends and/or purchasing preferences can be compiled into ordered lists (in which the highest ranked spending trend corresponds to a highest likelihood of future purchases or the like) or used to further place the customer in a financial institution-defined spending trend category associated with the spending trends and/or purchase preferences.
Once the customer authenticates (e.g., logs-in or the like) themselves at a financial institution website (e.g., online banking), a networked application (e.g., mobile banking) or any other website or application affiliated with the financial institution, an anonymous cookie (i.e., text file) that has a unique identifier (i.e., doesn't identify the customer) associated with the customer and the spending trends or spending categories is generated and stored in the web browser cache of the computing device from which the customer accessed the financial institution website or application.
In response to the customer using the device (on which the anonymous cookie is stored) to access a website that displays advertisements, the anonymous cookie is retrieved from the web browser cache, prompting a call-back to a financial institution server, which retrieves data related to the spending trends/purchasing preferences (e.g., ranked listing, spending category) and communicates the same to the website, in turn, the website uses the data to determine which of the plurality of advertisements (including offers, coupons and the like) available to the advertiser are to be to displayed to the customer while they visit the website. As such, the advertisements that are presented to the customer are highly targeted, in that, the advertisements take into account spending trends of the customer and/or purchasing preferences of the customer. As a result, the customer is more apt to respond to the advertisement (click-through the advertisement to purchase the product or service) and, as such, the advertiser/merchant is more apt to pay a premium for providing such advertisement.
An apparatus for targeted electronic advertisement defines first embodiments of the invention. The apparatus includes a computing platform including a memory and at least one processor in communication with the memory. The apparatus further includes a spending analysis application that is stored in the memory and executable by one or more of the processors. The spending analysis application is configured to access one or more financial institution transaction databases storing transaction records associated with a customer of the financial institution, and determine, based on the transaction records, one or more spending trends or a spending category for the customer. The apparatus further includes a cookie initiator application stored in the memory, executable by one or more of processors and configured to, in response to the customer identifying themselves at a first website or mobile application as a customer of the financial institution, initiate generation of an anonymous cookie on a computing device from which the customer has accessed the first website or the mobile application. The anonymous cookie includes a unique identifier associated with the customer and the spending trends or spending category. In response to the customer using the device to access a second website that displays advertisements, the anonymous cookie is retrieved from the web browser cache, the unique identifier prompts a call-back to a financial institution server. In response to receiving the call-back, the server (i) retrieves the one or more spending trends or the spending category, and (ii) communicates the one of the spending trends or the spending category to the website. The website uses the one or more spending trends or the spending category to determine one or more advertisements to currently display to the customer while accessing the second website.
In specific embodiments of the apparatus, the spending analysis application is further configured to determine the spending trends including one or more of (1) a product or service spending trend, (2) a product or service type spending trends, (3) a merchant spending trend and (4) a merchant type spending trend. Moreover, a spending trend may be defined as a time or timeframe over which the customer is likely to make an associated purchase based on prior purchase history.
In specific embodiments of the apparatus, the spending analysis application is further configured to determine a ranked listing of the spending trends. In such embodiments of the apparatus, the ranking is based on a likelihood of the customer purchasing a product or service based on the associated spending trend (i.e., top ranked spending trend is the trend from which the customer will most likely make a purchase/respond to an advertisement). Further, in such embodiments of the apparatus, in response to the customer using the device to access the second website that displays the advertisements, the anonymous cookie is retrieved from the web browser cache, the unique identifier prompts a call-back to the financial institution server which, in response, (i) retrieves the ranked listing of spending trends, and (ii) communicates the ranked listing of spending trends to the website. The second website uses the ranked listing of spending trends to determine one or more advertisements to currently display to the customer while accessing the second website based on a systematical attribute match, in order of ranking, between a listed spending trend and one or more of the advertisements. (e.g., advertisements that match the highest ranked spending trend are displayed or displayed first, if no advertisements match the highest ranked spending trend, advertisements that match the next highest ranked spending trend are displayed and so on).
In other specific embodiments of the apparatus, in which the spending analysis application determines a spending category and in response to the customer using the device to access the second website that displays advertisements, the anonymous cookie is retrieved from the web browser cache, and the unique identifier prompts a call-back to the financial institution server which, in response, (i) retrieves the spending category, and (ii) communicates the spending category to the website. The second website uses the spending category to determine one or more advertisements to currently display to the customer while accessing the second website based on an attribute match between the spending category and one or more of the advertisements.
In other specific embodiments of the apparatus, the spending analysis application is further configured to determine, based on the transaction records, a future event (e.g., future travel including destination or the like) associated with the customer and a date for the future event. In such embodiments of the apparatus, the cookie initiator application is further configured, in response to the customer logging into the first website or mobile application associated with the financial institution, initiate generation of a second anonymous cookie on a computing device from which the customer has accessed the first website or the mobile application. The second anonymous cookie includes a unique identifier associated with the customer and the future event and the date. In response to the customer using the device to access the second website that displays advertisements, the second anonymous cookie is retrieved from the web browser cache, the unique identifier prompts a call-back to the financial institution server which, in response, (i) retrieves the future event and the date, and (ii) communicates the one of the future event and data to the second website. The second website uses the future event and date to determine one or more advertisements to currently display to the customer while accessing the second website based on a match between the future event and one of more of the advertisements and a match between a time at which the customer is accessing the second website and a time associated with the date for the future event. (e.g., future event is a trip New York City and advertisements are for restaurants in New York City) and a match between a time at which the customer is accessing the website and a time associated with the date for the future event (e.g., customer is accessing the website three days prior to the trip to New York City).
In further specific embodiments of the apparatus, at least one of (i) the anonymous cookie is retrieved from the web browser cache, (ii) the call-back to the financial institution server or (iii) spending trends or spending category are retrieved and communicated back to the second website occurs based on an advertiser associated with the advertisements being displayed on the website being affiliated with the financial institution (i.e., non-affiliated advertisers will not have access to the cookie, the call-back will not occur or the data is not retrieved and communicated).
In still further embodiments of the apparatus, in response to the customer using the device to access the second website that displays advertisements, the anonymous cookie is retrieved from the web browser cache, the unique identifier prompts a call-back to a financial institution server which, in response, (i) retrieves the one or more spending trends or the spending category, and (ii) communicates the one of the spending trends or the spending category to the second website and wherein the second website uses the one or more spending trends or the spending category to determine either (1) which advertisements are for products or service that are same or similar to the specific product or service and should not be displayed to the customer or (2) which advertisements are for products or services associated with the specific product or service and should be displayed to the customer. (e.g., customer recently purchased a gas grill, therefore don't display gas grill advertisements but do display advertisements for grill accessories).
A system for targeted electronic advertisement defines second embodiments of the invention, the system includes a user computing device (e.g., mobile device, personal computer (PC), laptop computer or the like) having a first memory and at least one first processor in communication with the memory. The memory has a web browser application stored therein that is executable by the first processor. The system additionally includes a first computing platform having a second memory and at least one second processor in communication with the second memory. The second memory stores a spending analysis application that is executable by one or more of the second processors. The spending analysis application is configured to access one or more financial institution transaction databases storing transaction records associated with a customer and determine, based on the transaction records, one or more spending trends or a spending category for the customer. The previously mentioned web browser application is configured to, in response to the customer identifying themselves at a first website or mobile application as a customer of the financial institution, receive a unique identifier associated with the customer and the spending trends or spending category and generate an anonymous cookie that includes the unique identifier and store the anonymous cookie in a web browser cache.
The system additionally includes a second computing platform having a third memory and at least one third processor in communication with the third processor. The third memory stores a targeted advertisement serving application that is executable by the third processor and configured to, in response to (i) the customer using the computing device to access a second website that displays advertisements, and (ii) retrieving the anonymous cookie from the web browser cache, which prompts a call-back to a financial institution server which, in response, retrieves the one or more spending trends or the spending category, and communicates the one of the spending trends or the spending category to the website, determine, based on the spending trends or spending category identified by the anonymous cookie, which one or more advertisements to currently display to the customer while accessing the website.
In specific embodiments of the system, the spending analysis application is further configured to determine the spending trends including one or more of (1) a product or service spending trend, (2) a product or service type spending trends, (3) a merchant spending trend and (4) a merchant type spending trend. Moreover, a spending trend may be defined as a time or timeframe over which the customer is likely to make an associated purchase based on prior purchase history.
In further specific embodiments of the system, the spending analysis application is configured to determine a ranked listing of the spending trends and the web browser application is further configured to generate the anonymous cookie that includes the ranked listing. In such embodiments of the apparatus, the ranking is based on a likelihood of the customer purchasing a product or service based on the associated spending trend (i.e., top ranked spending trend is the trend from which the customer will most likely make a purchase/respond to an advertisement). Further, in such embodiments of the system, the targeted advertisement serving application is further configured to, in response to (i) the customer using the computing device to access a second website that displays advertisements, and (ii) retrieving the anonymous cookie from the web browser cache, which prompts a call-back to a financial institution server which, in response, retrieves the ranked listing of the spending trends, and communicates the ranked listing of the spending trends to the website, determine, based on the ranked listing of the spending trends, which one or more advertisements to currently display to the customer while accessing the website. based on a systematical attribute match, in order of ranking, between a listed spending trend and one or more of the advertisements.
Moreover, in other specific embodiments of the system, the spending analysis application is further configured to determine, based on the transaction records, a future event associated with the customer and a date for the future event and the web browser application is further configured to, in response to the customer logging into the first website or mobile application associated with the financial institution, generate a second anonymous cookie that includes a unique identifier associated with the customer and the future event and time. In such embodiments of the system, the targeted advertisement serving application is further configured to, in response to the customer using the device to access the second website that displays advertisements, the second anonymous cookie is retrieved from the web browser cache, the unique identifier prompts a call-back to the financial institution server which, in response, (i) retrieves the future event and the date, and (ii) communicates the one of the future event and data to the second website and wherein the second website uses the future event and date to determine one or more advertisements to currently display to the customer while accessing the second website based on a match between the future event and one of more of the advertisements and a match between a time at which the customer is accessing the second website and a time associated with the date for the future event.
In other specific embodiments of the system, the targeted advertisement serving application is further configured to, in response to (i) the customer using the computing device to access a second website that displays advertisements, and (ii) retrieving the anonymous cookie from the web browser cache, which prompts a call-back to a financial institution server which, in response, retrieves the one or more spending trends or the spending category, determine, based on the spending trends identified by the anonymous cookie identifying a specific product or service, either (1) which advertisements are for products or service that are same or similar to the specific product or service and should not be displayed to the customer or (2) which advertisements are for products or services associated with the specific product or service and should be displayed to the customer.
A computer program product including a non-transitory computer-readable medium defines third embodiments of the invention. The computer-readable medium includes a first set of codes for causing a computer to access one or more financial institution transaction databases storing transaction records associated with a customer of the financial institution to determine, based on the transaction records, one or more spending trends or a spending category for the customer. The computer-readable medium additionally includes a second set of codes for causing a computer to, in response to the customer identifying themselves at a first website or mobile application as a customer of the financial institution, initiate generation of an anonymous cookie on a computing device from which the customer has accessed the first website or the mobile application, wherein the anonymous cookie includes a unique identifier associated with the customer and the spending trends or spending category. In addition, the computer-readable medium includes a third set of codes for causing a computer to, in response to (i) the customer using the computing device to access a second website that displays advertisements, and (ii) retrieving the anonymous cookie from the web browser cache, which prompts a call-back to a financial institution server which, in response, retrieves the one or more spending trends or the spending category, and communicates the one of the spending trends or the spending category to the website, determine, based on the spending trends or spending category identified by the anonymous cookie, which one or more advertisements to currently display to the customer while accessing the website.
Thus, systems, apparatus, methods, and computer program products herein described in detail below provide for serving a website customer highly targeted electronic advertisements by implementing anonymous cookies that serve to identify a customer's overall spending trends and/or preferences. Specifically, a financial institution, having access to a customer's transactional data, can analyze the data to determine spending trends and/or purchasing preferences. Once the customer authenticates (e.g., logs-in or the like) themselves at a financial institution website (e.g., online banking), a networked application (e.g., mobile banking) or any other website or application affiliated with the financial institution, an anonymous cookie having a unique identifier associated with the customer and the spending trends is generated and stored in the web browser cache. In response to the customer using the device to access a website that displays advertisements, the anonymous cookie is retrieved from the web browser cache and the unique identifier prompts a call-back to a financial institution server which retrieves data associated with the spending trends, and/or purchasing preferences customer's spending trend data related to the spending trends/purchasing preferences are used to determine which of the plurality of advertisements are to be to displayed to the customer while they visit the website is communicated to the customer's device, specifically the web browser application, along with instructions for generating an anonymous cookie that includes the data but does identify the customer.
As such, the advertisements that are presented to the customer are highly targeted, in that, the advertisements take into account spending trends of the customer and/or purchasing preferences of the customer. As a result, the customer is more apt to respond to the advertisement (click-through the advertisement to purchase the product or service) and, as such, the advertiser/merchant is more apt to pay a premium for providing such advertisement.
To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends, the one or more embodiments comprise the features hereinafter fully described and particularly pointed out in the claims. The following description and the annexed drawings set forth in detail certain illustrative features of the one or more embodiments. These features are indicative, however, of but a few of the various ways in which the principles of various embodiments may be employed, and this description is intended to include all such embodiments and their equivalents.
Having thus described embodiments of the invention in general terms, reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, and wherein:
Embodiments of the present invention will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which some, but not all, embodiments of the invention are shown. Indeed, the invention may be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will satisfy applicable legal requirements. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout. Although some embodiments of the invention described herein are generally described as involving a “financial institution,” one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the invention may be utilized by other businesses that take the place of or work in conjunction with financial institutions to perform one or more of the processes or steps described herein as being performed by a financial institution.
As will be appreciated by one of skill in the art in view of this disclosure, the present invention may be embodied as an apparatus (e.g., a system, computer program product, and/or other device), a method, or a combination of the foregoing. Accordingly, embodiments of the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.), or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may generally be referred to herein as a “system.” Furthermore, embodiments of the present invention may take the form of a computer program product comprising a computer-usable storage medium having computer-usable program code/computer-readable instructions embodied in the medium.
Any suitable computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be utilized. The computer usable or computer readable medium may be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device. More specific examples (e.g., a non-exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires; a tangible medium such as a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a time-dependent access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), a compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), or other tangible optical or magnetic storage device.
Computer program code/computer-readable instructions for carrying out operations of embodiments of the present invention may be written in an object oriented, scripted or unscripted programming language such as Java, Perl, Smalltalk, C++ or the like. However, the computer program code/computer-readable instructions for carrying out operations of the invention may also be written in conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programming languages.
Embodiments of the present invention are described below with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods or apparatuses (the term “apparatus” including systems and computer program products). It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a particular machine, such that the instructions, which execute by the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create mechanisms for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instructions, which implement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions, which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus, provide steps for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. Alternatively, computer program implemented steps or acts may be combined with operator or human implemented steps or acts in order to carry out an embodiment of the invention.
According to embodiments of the invention described herein, various systems, apparatus, methods, and computer program products are herein described for presenting customers with targeted electronic advertisements by implementing anonymous cookies that identify a customer's overall spending trends and/or preferences. Specifically, a financial institution, having access to a customer's transactional data, can analyze the data to determine spending trends (e.g., a timeframe for when a customer typically purchases a specified product or service or products or services within a specified category, a timeframe for when a customer typically purchases from a specified merchant or a specified merchant category) and/or purchasing preferences (e.g., the specific products or services, the specific category of products or services, the specific merchants, the specific category of merchants that the customer prefers). The spending trends and/or purchasing preferences can be compiled into ordered lists (in which the highest ranked spending trend corresponds to a highest likelihood of future purchases or the like) or used to further place the customer in a financial institution-defined spending trend category associated with the spending trends and/or purchase preferences.
Once the customer authenticates (e.g., logs-in or the like) themselves at a financial institution website (e.g., online banking), a networked application (e.g., mobile banking) or any other website or application affiliated with the financial institution, an anonymous cookie (i.e., text file) that has a unique identifier (i.e., doesn't identify the customer) associated with the customer and the spending trends or spending categories is generated and stored in the web browser cache of the computing device from which the customer accessed the financial institution website or application.
In response to the customer using the device (on which the anonymous cookie is stored) to access a website that displays advertisements, the anonymous cookie is retrieved from the web browser cache, prompting a call-back to a financial institution server, which retrieves data related to the spending trends/purchasing preferences (e.g., ranked listing, spending category) and communicates the same to the website, in turn, the website uses the data to determine which of the plurality of advertisements (including offers, coupons and the like) available to the advertiser are to be to displayed to the customer while they visit the website. As such, the advertisements that are presented to the customer are highly targeted, in that, the advertisements take into account spending trends of the customer and/or purchasing preferences of the customer. As a result, the customer is more apt to respond to the advertisement (click-through the advertisement to purchase the product or service) and, as such, the advertiser/merchant is more apt to pay a premium for providing such advertisement.
Referring to
A spending trend may indicate a customer's preference, over a predetermined time period, to purchase a specific product or service or a preference to purchase a product or service type (i.e., a category of products or services). Additionally, a spending trend may indicate a customer's preference, over a predetermined period of time, to purchase products or services from a specific merchant or a merchant type (i.e., a category of merchants). In specific embodiments, as discussed infra., the spend analysis application (or some other ancillary application) may be configured to provide a ranked listing of the spending trends, such that, the most significant spending trend is listed first, followed by the next most significant and so on. The most significant spending trend being defined as the spending trend which would most likely trigger a purchase or a positive response to an advertisement (i.e., the customer is likely to activate a link associated with an electronic advertisement to access the merchant's website associated with the advertisement). In addition, when a spending trend is tied to a product/service type, a merchant or a merchant type, the spend analysis application 14 may further identify specific products or services purchased within the trend.
A spending category may be one of a plurality of spending categories defined by the financial institution and/or the merchants/advertisers. Based on spending preferences a customer may be assigned to one of the spending categories. In specific embodiments of the invention, the spending categories may be associated with the amount and/or volume of purchases that a customer makes over a predetermined period of time. In other embodiments of the invention, the spending categories or sub-categories may be associated with specific products or services preferred by the customer, specific product or service type preferred by the customer, specific merchants preferred by the customer and/or specific merchant types preferred by the customer.
In addition to spending trends and spending categories, the spend analysis application 14 may be configured to identify, based on transaction records, future events associated with the customer (for example, a future trip/travel, future wedding, future house purchase, future graduation and the like) and a corresponding date or period of time associated with the future event (i.e., a travel period, a wedding date, a graduation date or the like).
Referring to
In addition, system 200 includes network device 46 that is associated with a website or application requiring customer authentication 48, such as a financial institution website/online banking website, a mobile banking application or the like. It should be noted that the website or application may be a third-party website or application that is requiring the customer to authenticate themselves (provide username and password/PIN or the like) as a financial institution customer. In response to the customer authenticating themselves as a financial institution customer, the network device 46 executes cookie initiator application 44 that is configured to generate or receive a unique identifier 66 (number, string of characters or the like) that is associated with the customer and, in some embodiments, the spending trend 38 data or spending category data 40. Once generated, the cookie initiator application 44 communicates the unique identifier 66 and a cookie request, via a communication network 42, such as the internet, a cellular network or the like, to computing device 50 from the customer is using to access the website or application requiring customer authentication 48. The computing device may comprise a personal computer 52, a mobile communication device/smart telephone 54, a laptop computer 56 or any other device having network connectivity and computing capabilities. In specific embodiments of the invention, the cookie initiator application 44 generates the unique identifier 66, while in other embodiments the unique identifier 66 is requested by the cookie initiator application 44 and received from the financial institution computing environment 10. In those embodiments in which the cookie initiator application 44 generates the unique identifier 66, the unique identifier 66 is additionally communicated back to the financial institution computing environment 10 for the purpose of associating the unique identifier with the customer and the spending trends 38 and/or spending categories.
A web browser application 58 executing on computing device 50 receives the unique identifier 66 and the cookie request and executes cookie generator 60 to generate an anonymous cookie 64 that includes the unique identifier 66 and is stored in the web browser cache 62. The cookie 64 is deemed to be anonymous because the cookie does include or identify the customer, the cookie only identifies through use of the identifier the spending trends and/or spending categories associated with the customer.
In addition, system 200 includes network device 70, which comprises a web server associated with a website that displays circular advertisements 76. Circular advertising provides for banners and the like configured about the websites pages that display different advertisements to a user and, in most instances, different advertisements each time a user visits a webpage (e.g., refreshes the browser or the like). The merchant associated with the website may display the advertisements 76, in which case; the advertisements 76 may be associated with products or services sold by the merchant on the website or the advertisements 76 may be associated with other websites. Alternatively, a third-party advertiser (a separate entity from the merchant associated with the website) may provide the advertisements 76 on the website.
Network device 70 executes targeted advertisement serving application 72. Targeted advertisement serving application 72 is configured to, in response to the customer using the computing device 50 to access the website associated with network device 70 (i.e., the website that displays the advertisements 76), retrieve or otherwise receive the anonymous cookie 64. The unique identifier 66 in the anonymous cookie 64 prompts a call-back to a network device 78 in the financial institution computing environment 10, which, in turn, executes unique code correlator 68 to determine the customer associated with the unique identifier. Once the customer has been identified, the spending trends 38 and/or spending categories 40 associated with the customer are retrieved for a customer profile database or the like and communicated back to the targeted advertising serving application 72 executing on network device 70. The targeted advertising serving application 72 uses the spending trends 38 and/or spending category 40 to determine which of the advertisements to currently display to the customer while the customer is accessing the website. In other words, the advertisements that are displayed to the customer are user-specific advertisements, specially tailored for the customer, based on the advertisements 72 meeting matching criteria associated with the spending trends or spending categories.
It should be noted that according to specific embodiments of the invention, the merchant operating the website or the advertiser providing the advertisements 76 on the website will be affiliated or otherwise in a relationship with the financial institution. As such only affiliated merchants or advertisers are able to identify the spending trends 38 and/or spending category 40 associated with the customer and, as such, only affiliated merchants or advertisers that provide the customer targeted advertisements that correspond to the spending trends 38 or categories 40. In specific embodiments of the invention, only affiliated merchants or advertises can read or otherwise comprehend the unique code and, as such, only affiliated merchants or advertisers can make the call-back to the financial institution network device 78. In other specific embodiments, the network device 74 may implement a merchant/advertiser authenticator 74 that is configured to authenticate the merchant/advertiser as an affiliated merchant/authenticate before the network device 78 responds to the call-back (i.e., communicates the spending trend 38 data and the spending category 40 data back to the targeted adverting serving application 72). By implementing the merchant/advertiser authenticator 74 at the network device 78, non-affiliated merchants/advertisers who may otherwise, accidentally or nefariously, read the unique code and initiate the call-back are prevented from obtaining the spending trend 38 data and/or spending category 40 data.
Referring to
As previously noted, a spending trend 38 is defined as customer's preference, over time, to purchase a specific product or service or a specific type of product or service. Alternatively, a spending trend 38 may be defined as a customer's preference, over time, to purchase products or services from a specific merchant or from a specific type of merchant. In specific embodiments a spending trend 38 may be identified based on the customer making a predetermined number of purchases for a specific product/service, a specific type of product/service, a specific merchant or a specific type of merchant over a predetermined period of time (e.g., a month, a year or the like).
Additionally, as previously noted, a spending category 40 may be defined as one of a plurality of categories defined by the financial institution that identify the type of customer in terms of the customer's spend preferences. The different categories may be based on the types of products or services purchased by the customer and/or the amount or volume of transactions conducted by the customer or the like.
The memory 104 of apparatus 100 additionally includes cookie initiator application 44. In response to the customer logging in or otherwise authenticating 112 themselves at a website 114 or a mobile application (i.e., mobile app) 116 associated with financial institution (i.e., verifying that they are a financial institution customer), the cookie initiator application 100 will generate or receive a unique identifier 66 that is associated with the customer 108 and, in some embodiments, the spending trend 38 data and/or spending category 40 data. The unique identifier 66 will be included in instructions to generate a cookie, which are communicated to the web browser application 58 executing on the customer's computing device 50 (i.e., the mobile communication device, PC, laptop or the like from the customer is logging into the website/mobile app). In turn, the web browser application 58 generates an anonymous cookie 64 (i.e., does not identify the customer) that includes the unique identifier and stores the anonymous cookie 64 in the web browser cache 62.
The website 114 may be a financial institution website, such as an online banking website or the like or the website 114 may be a third-party website that is otherwise affiliated with the financial institution (e.g., a website that requires the user to verify themselves as a financial institution customer 108 in order to make purchases and/or receive offers). The mobile application 116 may be mobile banking application or any other mobile application that is otherwise affiliated with the financial institution. Customer authentication may require that the user/customer input a username and/or password/PIN as a means of financial institution customer authentication.
In specific embodiments, the cookie initiator application 44 may generate the unique identifier 66, in which case, once generated the cookie initiator application 44 will communicate the unique identifier to the financial institution so that the financial institution can correlate/match the unique identifier 66 with the customer 108 and/or the customer's spending trends 38 and/or spending category 40. In other embodiments of the invention, the cookie initiator application 44 may be configured to call-back to the financial institution to request that the financial institution generate the unique identifier 66, which is then subsequently communicated back to the cookie initiator application 44.
Subsequently, in response to the customer using the device (on which the cookie resides) to access a website (or mobile app) that displays electronic advertisements (i.e., a website (or mobile app) different from the website that generated/dropped the cookie on the device), the anonymous cookie 64 is retrieved from the web browser cache 62 and the unique identifier 66 in the cookie 64 prompts a call-back to a financial institution server, which includes the unique identifier 66. In response to the call-back, the financial institution server correlates the unique identifier 66 to the customer 108, and, in some embodiments, the spending trends 38 and/or spending category 40, retrieves the spending trends 38 and/or spending category 40 from a financial institution database (e.g., customer profile database or the like) and communicates the spending trends 38 and/or spending category 40 back to the website (or mobile app). In turn, the website/mobile app determines which electronic advertisements to display to the customer during the customer's current website session based on the customer's spending trends and or spending categories. In this regard, attributes (e.g., metadata) associated with the spending trend 38 and/or spending category 40 are matched with attributes (e.g., metadata) associated the advertisements to determine which advertisements match or align with the customer's spending trends 38 and/or spending category 40.
Referring to
The apparatus 100 includes computing platform 102 that can receive and execute algorithms, such as routines, and applications. Computing platform 102 includes memory 104, which may comprise volatile and non-volatile memory, such as read-only and/or random-access memory (RAM and ROM), EPROM, EEPROM, flash cards, or any memory common to computer platforms. Further, memory 104 may include one or more flash memory cells, or may be any secondary or tertiary storage device, such as magnetic media, optical media, tape, or soft or hard disk. Moreover, memory 104 may comprise cloud storage, such as provided by a cloud storage service and/or a cloud connection service.
Further, computing platform 102 also includes processor 106, which may be an application-specific integrated circuit (“ASIC”), or other chipset, processor, logic circuit, or other data processing device. Processor 106 or other processor such as ASIC may execute an application programming interface (“API”) (not shown in
Processor 106 includes various processing subsystems (not shown in
Computer platform 102 may additionally include communications module (not shown in
The memory 104 of apparatus 100 stores spending analysis application 14 that is configured to provide targeted advertisements through implementation of anonymous cookies that, without identifying the customer, identify spending trends, spending categories or other spending data associated with the customer, in accordance with embodiments of the present invention. In this regard, spending trend analysis application is configured to access financial institution transaction databases 16, such as POS merchant transaction databases, customer account transaction databases and the like, which store transaction records 110 associated with customers 108 of the financial institution and determine, based on the transaction records various spending data associated with the customers 108.
As previously described, the spend data may include spending trends 38 which may be configured by the financial institution and/or customer to indicate a customer's preference, over a predetermined time period, to purchase a specific product or service 122 or a preference to purchase a product or service type 124 (i.e., a category of products or services). Additionally, a spending trend may indicate a customer's preference, over a predetermined period of time, to purchase products or services from a specific merchant 126 or a merchant type 128 (i.e., a category of merchants).
In specific embodiments, the spend analysis application 14 (or some other ancillary application) may be configured to provide a ranked listing 130 of the spending trends 38, such that, the most significant spending trend is listed first, followed by the next most significant and so on. The most significant spending trend being defined as the spending trend which would most likely trigger a purchase or a positive response to an advertisement (i.e., the customer is likely to activate a link associated with an electronic advertisement to access the merchant's website associated with the advertisement). In such embodiments of the invention, in which the anonymous cookie (64 of
A spending category 40 may be one of a plurality of spending categories defined/configured by the financial institution and/or the merchants/advertisers. Based on spending preferences a customer may be assigned to one of the spending categories. In specific embodiments of the invention, the spending categories may be associated with the amount and/or volume of purchases that a customer makes over a predetermined period of time. In other embodiments of the invention, the spending categories or sub-categories may be associated with specific products or services preferred by the customer, specific product or service type preferred by the customer, specific merchants preferred by the customer and/or specific merchant types preferred by the customer.
In additional embodiments of the invention, the spending analysis application 14 is configured to identify, based on transaction records, future events 118 associated with the customer (for example, a future trip/travel, future wedding, future house purchase, future graduation and the like) and a corresponding date 120 or period of time associated with the future event (i.e., a travel period, a wedding date, a graduation date or the like). In such embodiments of the invention, in which the anonymous cookie (64 of
In further embodiments of the invention, the spending trend analysis application 14 is configured to tie or otherwise associate specific products or services 132 purchased with a trend, such as a merchant trend, merchant type trend or a product/service type trend. In such embodiments of the invention, in which the anonymous cookie (64 of
Additionally, according to other embodiments of the invention, the spending analysis application 14 may be configured to determine, based on the transaction records 110 other purchasing/spend analytics 134 associated with the customer. For example, the spending analysis application may be configured to determine date/time purchase trends 136 (e.g., times of the week, month or year that the customer prefers to make purchases and/or times within a day that the customer prefers to make purchases). Additionally, the spending analysis application 14 may be configured to determine the customer's preference for electronic purchases versus physical (brick and mortar) purchases 138 (e.g., percentage of overall spend at electronic merchants versus brick and mortar merchants). In addition, the electronic versus physical purchase preference can be configured to be broken down on a specific product/service basis, a specific type of product service basis, a specific merchant basis, a specific type of merchant basis or the like. In addition, the spending analysis application 14 may be configured to determine the rate (amount over predetermined time) of purchase at a specific merchant or type of merchant 140 and or the percentage spend a specific merchant in comparison to the customer's overall spend or spend within a merchant type category. Additionally, spending analysis application 14 may be configured to determine any other purchase/spend-related analytical data 142 that may be instrumental to a website in determining what advertisements to display or instrumental for any other purposes (e.g., website usage analysis).
Thus, systems, apparatus, methods, and computer program products described above provide for delivering, to a website customer, targeted electronic advertisements by implementing anonymous cookies that serve to identify a customer's overall spending trends and/or preferences. Specifically, a financial institution, having access to a customer's transactional data, can analyze the data to determine spending trends and/or purchasing preferences. Once the customer authenticates (e.g., logs-in or the like) themselves at a financial institution website (e.g., online banking), a networked application (e.g., mobile banking) or any other website or application affiliated with the financial institution, an anonymous cookie having a unique identifier associated with the customer and the spending trends is generated and stored in the web browser cache. In response to the customer using the device to access a website that displays advertisements, the anonymous cookie is retrieved from the web browser cache and the unique identifier prompts a call-back to a financial institution server which retrieves data associated with the spending trends, and/or purchasing preferences customer's spending trend data related to the spending trends/purchasing preferences are used to determine which of the plurality of advertisements are to be to displayed to the customer while they visit the website is communicated to the customer's device, specifically the web browser application, along with instructions for generating an anonymous cookie that includes the data but does identify the customer.
While certain exemplary embodiments have been described and shown in the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood that such embodiments are merely illustrative of and not restrictive on the broad invention, and that this invention not be limited to the specific constructions and arrangements shown and described, since various other changes, combinations, omissions, modifications and substitutions, in addition to those set forth in the above paragraphs, are possible.
Those skilled in the art may appreciate that various adaptations and modifications of the just described embodiments can be configured without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. Therefore, it is to be understood that, within the scope of the appended claims, the invention may be practiced other than as specifically described herein.
