SYSTEMS, METHODS, AND COMPUTER-READABLE MEDIA FOR A CUSTOMIZABLE REDEMPTION HEADER FOR MERCHANT OFFERS ACROSS BROWSER INSTANCES

SYSTEMES, PROCEDES, ET SUPPORTS POUVANT ETRE LUS PAR UN ORDINATEUR POUR UN EN-TETE DE REMBOURSEMENT PERSONNALISABLE

English Abstract

Systems, computer-implemented methods, and computer-readable media for a customizable redemption header for merchant offers, such as online coupons, across browser instances are provided. In some embodiments, a user may open a merchant website in a first browser instance executing on a user device. An offers website may provide offers, such as online coupons, in a second browser instance executing on a user device. When a user selects an offer, an offer identifier may be stored in a browser-accessible storage device. The modification to the browser-accessible storage may be detected and a customizable redemption header having an offer redemption identifier, e.g., a coupon code, and instructions may be provided on the merchant webpage in response to the detection. Additionally, the customizable redemption header may provide user feedback requests upon submission of the coupon code.

French Abstract

L'invention concerne des systèmes, des procédés mis en oeuvre par un ordinateur, et des supports pouvant être lus par un ordinateur pour un en-tête de remboursement personnalisable pour des offres de marchands, telles que des bons de réduction en ligne, par l'intermédiaire d'instances de navigateur. Dans certains modes de réalisation, un utilisateur peut ouvrir un site Web de marchand dans une première instance de navigateur s'exécutant sur un dispositif d'utilisateur. Un site Web d'offres peut fournir des offres, telles que des bons de réduction en ligne, dans une seconde instance de navigateur s'exécutant sur un dispositif d'utilisateur. Lorsqu'un utilisateur sélectionne une offre, un identifiant d'offre peut être mémorisé dans un dispositif de mémorisation accessible au navigateur. La modification de la mémoire accessible au navigateur peut être détectée et un en-tête de remboursement personnalisable ayant un identifiant de remboursement d'offre, par exemple, un code de bon de réduction, et des instructions peuvent être fournis sur la page Web de marchand en réponse à la détection. De plus, l'en-tête de remboursement personnalisable peut fournir des demandes de retour d'utilisateur lors de la soumission du code de bon de réduction.

Claims

CLAIMS
What is claimed is:
1. A computer implemented method, comprising:
providing, by one or more processors, on a user device a first and a second
browser
instance;
displaying, by one or more processors, in the first browser instance a webpage
of a
merchant, the webpage of the merchant being from a first domain;
displaying, by one or more processors, in the second browser instance data
transmitted
from an offers engine in a webpage of an offer publisher, the data comprising
a searchable
plurality of offers, each of the plurality of offers associated with a
merchant, each of the
plurality of offers having one or more associated offer redemption
identifiers, the webpage of
the offer publisher being from a second domain that is different from the
first domain;
providing within the first browser instance, in response to a selection by a
user in the
second browser instance, one of the plurality of offers and associated offer
redemption
identifier at least in part by:
storing, by code executed by the second browser instance while displaying the
webpage of the offer publisher, in a browser-accessible storage item, the
offer redemption
identifier;
repeatedly checking, by code executed by the first browser instance while
displaying the webpage of the merchant, for an occurrence of modification of
the browser-
accessible storage item; and
reading, by code executed by the first browser instance, upon a check that a
modification of the browser-accessible storage has occurred, the offer
redemption identifier
from the browser-accessible storage item, wherein the first and second browser
instances are
executed by a web browser with a security policy that prohibits cross-domain
access to
browser-accessible storage items;
storing, in response to an interaction by the user in the second browser
instance with
one of the plurality of offers, transaction data, said transaction data
including a compensation
identifier indicating compensation associated with the selected offer; and
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transmitting, in response to redemption of the selected offer, to a third
party data
reflective of the compensation associated with the selected offer.
2. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the transaction data
comprises a
basis of payment to the operator of the offers engine or to a third-party.
3. The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising storing
each of the
plurality of offers in a plurality of merchant-offer records, each of the
merchant-offer records
comprising term and conditions of the plurality of offers.
4. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the webpage of the
merchant
displayed in the first browser instance comprises an empty webpage element;
and
further comprising providing the offer redemption identifier within the empty
webpage
element.
5. The computer implemented method of claim 1, comprising:
retrieving from the browser-accessible storage item for display in the first
browser
instance a redemption bar associated with the offer redemption identifier.
6. The computer implemented method of claim 5, wherein:
repeatedly checking for the occurrence of modification comprises checking for
an
occurrence of modification of the browser-accessible storage item at periodic
intervals with a
script executed by the first browser instance.
7. The computer implemented method of claim 1, comprising:
receiving input from a user indicating selection of one of the plurality of
offers
associated with a merchant in the second browser instance; and
evaluating whether the merchant associated with the selected offer matches the
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merchant of the first browser instance, and upon a positive evaluation of a
match, providing
information related to the offer to the first browser instance.
8. The computer implemented method of claim 1, comprising:
loading a plurality of webpages associated with the merchant associated with
the offer
selected; and
retaining the offer redemption identifier on the plurality of webpages
associated with
the one of the plurality of merchants.
9. The computer implemented method of claim 8, wherein at least one of the
plurality of
webpages includes a plurality of fields for viewing and entering order
information, and wherein
at least some information associated with the offer redemption identifier is
automatically
populated into one or more of the fields.
10. The computer implemented method of claim 2, comprising:
verifying the transaction data indicates compensation should be paid on the
basis of
redemption of the selected offer; and
requesting, if compensation should be paid, that an affiliate should be paid.
11. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having executable computer
code stored
thereon, the executable computer code comprising instructions that, when
executed, cause one
or more processors to perform the following:
providing, by one or more processors, on a user device a first and a second
browser
instance;
displaying, by one or more processors, in the first browser instance a webpage
of a
merchant, the webpage of the merchant being from a first domain;
displaying, by one or more processors, in the second browser instance data
transmitted
from an offers engine in a webpage of an offer publisher, the data comprising
a searchable
plurality of offers, each of the plurality of offers associated with a
merchant, each of the
plurality of offers having one or more associated offer redemption
identifiers, the webpage of
the offer publisher being from a second domain that is different from the
first domain;
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providing within the first browser instance, in response to a selection by a
user in the
second browser instance, one of the plurality of offers and associated offer
redemption
identifier at least in part by:
storing, by code executed by the second browser instance, in a browser-
accessible storage item while displaying the webpage of the offer publisher,
the offer
redemption identifier;
repeatedly checking, by code executed by the first browser instance while
displaying the webpage of the merchant, for an occurrence of modification of
the browser-
accessible storage item; and
reading, by code executed by the first browser instance, upon a check that a
modification of the browser-accessible storage has occurred, the offer
redemption identifier
from the browser-accessible storage item, wherein the first and second browser
instances are
executed by a web browser with a security policy that prohibits cross-domain
access to
browser-accessible storage items;
storing, in response an interaction by the user in the second browser instance
with one
of the plurality of offers, transaction data, said transaction data including
a compensation
identifier indicating compensation associated with the selected offer; and
transmitting, in response to redemption of the selected offer, to a third
party data
reflective of the compensation associated with the selected offer.
12. A non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the
transaction data
comprises a basis of payment to the operator of the offers engine or to a
third-party.
13. A non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the
executable
computer code further comprises instructions that, when executed, cause one or
more
processors to store each of the plurality of offers in a plurality of merchant-
offer records, each
of the merchant-offer records comprising term and conditions of the plurality
of offers.
14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the
webpage of the
merchant displayed in the first browser instance comprises an empty webpage
element further
comprising, and the executable computer code further comprising instructions
that, when
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executed, cause one or more processors to perform the following:
providing the offer redemption identifier within the empty webpage element.
15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein:
repeatedly checking for the occurrence of modification comprises retrieving
from the
browser-accessible storage item for display in the first browser instance a
redemption header
associated with the offer redemption identifier with a script executed by the
first browser
instance and obtained from the second domain.
16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, the executable
computer
code further comprising instructions that, when executed, cause one or more
processors to
perform the following:
checking for modification of the browser-accessible storage item at periodic
intervals;
and
reading, upon a check that a modification of the browser-accessible storage
has
occurred, the offer redemption identifier from the browser-accessible storage
item.
17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, the executable
computer
code further comprising instructions that, when executed, cause one or more
processors to
perform the following:
receiving input from a user indicating selection of an offer associated with a
merchant;
and
evaluating whether the merchant associated with the selected offer matches the

merchant of the first browser instance, and upon an evaluation of a match,
providing
information related to the offer to the first browser instance.
18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, the executable
computer
code further comprising instructions that, when executed, cause one or more
processors to
perform the following:
loading a plurality of webpages associated with the merchant associated with
the offer
selected; and
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retaining the offer redemption identifier on the plurality of webpages
associated with
the one of the plurality of merchants.
19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein at
least one of the
plurality of webpages includes a plurality of fields for viewing and entering
order information,
and wherein at least some information associated with the offer redemption
identifier is
automatically populated into one or more of the fields.
20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 12, the executable
computer
code further comprising instructions that, when executed, cause one or more
processors to
perform the following:
verifying the transaction data indicates compensation should be paid on the
basis of
redemption of the selected offer; and
requesting, if compensation should be paid, that an affiliate should be paid.
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Description

PATENT APPLICATION
SYSTEMS, METHODS, AND COMPUTER-READABLE MEDIA FOR A
CUSTOMIZABLE REDEMPTION HEADER FOR MERCHANT OFFERS ACROSS
BROWSER INSTANCES
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] The present application is a PCT patent application claiming
priority to U.S.
patent application 13/839,066, filed March 15, 2013, and which is a non-
provisional of, and
thus claims the benefit of, each of the following pending U.S. provisional
patent applications:
provisional application 61/707,527, filed September 28, 2012; provisional
application
61/665,740, filed June 28, 2012; provisional application 61/658,408, filed
June 12, 2012;
provisional application 61/658,404, filed June 11, 2012; and provisional
application
61/658,387, filed June 11, 2012.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
100021 This invention relates generally to merchant offers for goods and
service and, more
particularly, to redemption of certain offers such as online coupons.
2. Description of the Related Art
[0003] Offer-discovery systems provide a service by which merchants infolin

customers of offers, for example deals (like discounts, favorable shipping
terms, or rebates) or
coupons (like printable coupons for in-store use or coupon codes for use
online). Typically,
the systems store information about offers from a relatively large number of
merchants and
provide an interface by which customers can identify offers in which the
customer is
interested. Merchants have found the offer-discovery systems to be a
relatively effective form
of marketing, as cost-sensitive consumers are drawn to such systems due to the
system's
relatively comprehensive listings of offers. Such offers may include coupons,
such as
traditional in-store coupons, and online coupons typically obtained via the
Internet, such as
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from merchant websites, e-mail distributions, or other sources. To use an
online coupon, a
customer typically provides an identifier, such as a coupon code, when
purchasing goods and
services from a merchant's online store. However, a customer may forget about
the existence
of the coupon and, as a result, fail to take advantage of the offer presented
by the coupon.
Additionally, it may be challenging for a customer to remember the identifier
presented by the
coupon and to use the online coupon in the manner specified by the online
store. Additionally,
the advent of smaller computing devices having different or limited interfaces
may increase
the challenges faced by customers attempting to use online coupons.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0003a]
In one aspect, there is provided a computer implemented method, comprising:
providing, by one or more processors, on a user device a first and a second
browser instance;
displaying, by one or more processors, in the first browser instance a webpage
of a merchant, the
webpage of the merchant being from a first domain; displaying, by one or more
processors, in the
second browser instance data transmitted from an offers engine in a webpage of
an offer publisher,
the data comprising a searchable plurality of offers, each of the plurality of
offers associated with
a merchant, each of the plurality of offers having one or more associated
offer redemption
identifiers, the webpage of the offer publisher being from a second domain
that is different from
the first domain; providing within the first browser instance, in response to
a selection by a user in
the second browser instance, one of the plurality of offers and associated
offer redemption
identifier at least in part by: storing, by code executed by the second
browser instance while
displaying the webpage of the offer publisher, in a browser-accessible storage
item, the offer
redemption identifier; repeatedly checking, by code executed by the first
browser instance while
displaying the webpage of the merchant, for an occurrence of modification of
the browser-
accessible storage item; and reading, by code executed by the first browser
instance, upon a check
that a modification of the browser-accessible storage has occurred, the offer
redemption identifier
from the browser-accessible storage item, wherein first and second browser
instances are executed
by a web browser with a security policy that prohibits cross-domain access to
browser-accessible
storage items; storing, in response to an interaction by the user in the
second browser instance
with one of the plurality of offers, transaction data, said transaction data
including a compensation
identifier indicating compensation associated with the selected offer; and
transmitting, in response
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to redemption of the selected offer, to a third party data reflective of the
compensation associated
with the selected offer.
10003b1 In another aspect, there is provided a non-transitory computer-
readable medium
having executable computer code stored thereon, the executable computer code
comprising
instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to perform the
following:
providing, by one or more processors, on a user device a first and a second
browser instance;
displaying, by one or more processors, in the first browser instance a webpage
of a merchant, the
webpage of the merchant being from a first domain; displaying, by one or more
processors, in the
second browser instance data transmitted from an offers engine in a webpage of
an offer publisher,
the data comprising a searchable plurality of offers, each of the plurality of
offers associated with
a merchant, each of the plurality of offers having one or more associated
offer redemption
identifiers, the webpage of the offer publisher being from a second domain
that is different from
the first domain; providing within the first browser instance, in response to
a selection by a user in
the second browser instance, one of the plurality of offers and associated
offer redemption
identifier at least in part by: storing, by code executed by the second
browser instance, in a
browser-accessible storage item while displaying the webpage of the offer
publisher, the offer
redemption identifier; repeatedly checking, by code executed by the first
browser instance while
displaying the webpage of the merchant, for an occurrence of modification of
the browser-
accessible storage item; and reading, by code executed by the first browser
instance, upon a check
that a modification of the browser-accessible storage has occurred, the offer
redemption identifier
from the browser-accessible storage item, wherein first and second browser
instances are executed
by a web browser with a security policy that prohibits cross-domain access to
browser-accessible
storage items; storing, in response an interaction by the user in the second
browser instance with
one of the plurality of offers, transaction data, said transaction data
including a compensation
identifier indicating compensation associated with the selected offer; and
transmitting, in response
to redemption of the selected offer, to a third party data reflective of the
compensation associated
with the selected offer.
10003c1 In another aspect, there is provided a computer-implemented
method,
comprising: providing a webpage element of a merchant webpage in a first
browser instance,
the merchant webpage being configured to repeatedly check for a modification
to a browser-
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accessible storage item; providing an offers webpage in a second browser
instance, the offers
webpage being obtained from a different domain from the merchant webpage,
wherein: the
offers webpage is configured to modify the browser-accessible storage item in
response to a
user selection of an offer displayed by the offers webpage, and the browser-
accessible
storage is local storage of a computing device executing the first browser
instance and the
second browser instance concurrently; detecting, by the merchant webpage
executed by the
first browser instance, that the offers webpage executed by the second browser
instance has
modified the browser-accessible storage item, the modification based on a user
selection of
an offer from an offers webpage provided in the second browser instance, the
offer
associated with a selected offer redemption identifier and a selected
merchant; reading an
offer identifier associated with the selected offer from the browser-
accessible storage item;
determining that a merchant associated with the selected offer identifier
matches a merchant
associated with the merchant website; and in response to the determination,
inserting, by one
or more processors, a redemption bar in the webpage element of the merchant
webpage, the
redemption bar including the selected offer redemption identifier associated
with the
selected offer, the redemption bar being displayed concurrent with the
merchant webpage in
the first browser instance.
[0003d]
In another aspect, there is provided a non-transitory computer-readable
medium having executable computer code stored thereon, the executable computer
code
comprising instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to
perform the
following: providing a webpage element of a merchant webpage in a first
browser instance,
the merchant webpage being configured to repeatedly check for a modification
to a browser-
accessible storage item; providing an offers webpage in a second browser
instance, the offers
webpage being obtained from a different domain from the merchant webpage,
wherein: the
offers webpage is configured to modify the browser-accessible storage item in
response to a
user selection of an offer displayed by the offers webpage, and the browser-
accessible
storage is local storage of a computing device executing the first browser
instance and the
second browser instance concurrently; detecting, by the merchant webpage
executed by the
first browser instance, that the offers webpage executed by the second browser
instance has
modified the browser-accessible storage item, the modification based on a user
selection of
an offer from an offers webpage provided in the second browser instance, the
offer
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associated with a selected offer redemption identifier and a selected
merchant; reading an
offer identifier associated with the selected offer from the browser-
accessible storage item;
determining that a merchant associated with the selected offer identifier
matches a merchant
associated with the merchant website; and in response to the determination,
inserting, by one
or more processors, a redemption bar in the webpage element of the merchant
webpage, the
redemption bar including the selected offer redemption identifier associated
with the
selected offer, the redemption bar being displayed concurrent with the
merchant webpage in
the first browser instance.
[0003e] In another aspect, there is provided a computer-implemented
method,
comprising: providing in a browser executing on a user device an offers
webpage from an
offers engine at a first website domain, the offers webpage comprising a
plurality of
electronic coupons associated with a respective plurality of merchants and a
respective
plurality of offer redemption identifiers; receiving a selection of one of the
plurality of
offers, the selected offer being associated with a selected offer redemption
identifier and a
selected merchant; directing the browser to a merchant webpage of the selected
merchant at
a second website domain different from the first website domain; determining,
after
directing the browser to the merchant webpage, that an offer identifier
associated with the
selected offer is stored in a storage item accessible by the browser in
browser memory,
wherein the offer identifier is stored in the storage item before directing
the browser to the
merchant webpage of the selected merchant at the second website domain; and
inserting,
with one or more processors, a redemption bar in a webpage element of the
merchant
webpage upon determining that the offer identifier is stored in the storage
item, the
redemption bar including the offer redemption identifier associated with the
selected offer,
the redemption bar being displayed on the merchant webpage.
[0003f] In another aspect, there is provided a non-transitory computer-
readable
medium having executable computer code stored thereon, the executable computer
code
comprising instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to
perform the
following: providing in a browser executing on a user device an offers webpage
from an
offers engine at a first website domain, the offers webpage comprising a
plurality of offers
associated with a respective plurality of merchants and a respective plurality
of offer
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redemption identifiers; receiving a selection of one of the plurality of
offers, the selected
offer associated with a selected offer redemption identifier and a selected
merchant;
directing, responsive to the selection, the browser to a merchant webpage of
the selected
merchant at a second website domain different from the first website domain;
determining,
with one or more processors, after directing the browser to the merchant
webpage, that an
offer identifier associated with the selected offer is stored in a storage
item accessible by the
browser in browser memory, wherein the offer identifier is stored in the
storage item before
directing the browser to the merchant webpage of the selected merchant at the
second
website domain; inserting a redemption bar in a webpage element of the
merchant webpage
if the offer identifier is stored in the storage item, the redemption bar
including the offer
redemption identifier associated with the selected offer, the redemption bar
being displayed
on the merchant webpage; and providing a different webpage element of the
merchant
webpage if the offer identifier associated with the selected offer is not
stored in the storage
item.
[0003g]
In another aspect, there is provided a system, comprising: one or more
processors; a non-transitory tangible computer-readable memory communicatively
coupled
to the one or more processors, the non-transitory tangible computer-readable
memory having
executable computer code stored thereon, the executable computer code
comprising
instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to send to a
user device
instructions to perform the following: providing in a browser executing on the
user device,
by one or more processors, an offers webpage from an offers engine at a first
website
domain, the offers webpage comprising a plurality of offers associated with a
respective
plurality of merchants and a respective plurality of offer redemption
identifiers; receiving,
by one or more processors, a selection of one of the plurality of offers, the
selected offer
associated with a selected offer redemption identifier and a selected
merchant; directing, by
one or more processors and responsive to the selection, the browser to a
merchant webpage
of the selected merchant at a second website domain different from the first
website domain;
determining, after directing the browser to the merchant webpage, that an
offer identifier
associated with the selected offer is stored in a storage item accessible by
the browser in
browser memory, wherein the offer identifier is stored in the storage item
before directing
the browser to the merchant webpage of the selected merchant at the second
website domain;
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inserting a redemption bar in a webpage element of the merchant webpage if the
offer
identifier is stored in the storage item, the redemption bar including the
offer redemption
identifier associated with the selected offer, the redemption bar being
displayed on the
merchant webpage; and providing a different webpage element of the merchant
webpage if
the offer identifier associated with the selected offer is not stored in the
storage item.
[0004]
Various embodiments of systems, computer-implemented methods, and
computer-readable media for a customizable redemption header for merchant
offers, such as
online coupons, across browser instances are provided. In some embodiments, a
computer-
implemented method is provided that includes providing a webpage element of a
merchant
webpage in a first browser instance and detecting a modification to a browser-
accessible
storage item modified by a second browser instance, the modification based on
a user
selection of an offer from an offers webpage provided in the second browser
instance and the
offer associated with a selected offer redemption identifier and a selected
merchant. The
method further includes reading an offer identifier associated with the
selected offer from
the browser-accessible storage item and determining whether the selected
merchant
associated with the offer identifier matches a merchant associated with the
merchant
website. The method also includes inserting, by one or more processors, a
redemption header
in the webpage element of the merchant webpage if the selected merchant
matches the
merchant associated with the merchant website. The redemption header includes
the selected
offer redemption identifier associated with the selected offer, the redemption
header being
displayed on the merchant webpage. Finally, the method includes providing, by
one or more
processors, the webpage element of the merchant webpage as an empty webpage
element if
the selected merchant does not match the merchant associated with the merchant
website and
receiving, by one or more processors, a selection of one of the plurality of
offers, the
selected offer being associated with a selected offer redemption identifier
and a selected
merchant.
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[0005] Additionally, in some embodiments, a transitory computer-readable
medium having
executable computer code stored thereon is provided. The executable computer
code includes
instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to perform the
following:
providing a webpage element of a merchant webpage in a first browser instance
and detecting a
modification to a browser-accessible storage item modified by a second browser
instance, the
modification based on a user selection of an offer from an offers webpage
provided in the second
browser instance and the offer associated with a selected offer redemption
identifier and a
selected merchant. The executable computer code further includes instructions
that perfonn the
following: reading an offer identifier associated with the selected offer from
the browser-
accessible storage item and determining whether the selected merchant
associated with the offer
identifier matches a merchant associated with the merchant website.
Additionally, the executable
computer code further includes instructions that perform the following:
inserting, by one or more
processors, a redemption header in the webpage element of the merchant webpage
if the selected
merchant matches the merchant associated with the merchant website. The
redemption header
includes the selected offer redemption identifier associated with the selected
offer, the
redemption header being displayed on the merchant webpage. Finally, the
executable computer
code further includes instructions that perform the following: providing, by
one or more
processors, the webpage element of the merchant webpage as an empty webpage
element if the
selected merchant does not match the merchant associated with the merchant
website and
receiving, by one or more processors, a selection of one of the plurality of
offers, the selected
offer being associated with a selected offer redemption identifier and a
selected merchant.
[0006] Further, in some embodiments, a system is providing having one or more
processors
and a non-transitory tangible computer-readable memory communicatively coupled
to the one or
more processors. The transitory computer-readable memory includes executable
computer code
stored thereon is provided. The executable computer code includes instructions
that, when
executed, cause one or more processors to perform the following: providing a
webpage element
of a merchant webpage in a first browser instance and detecting a modification
to a browser-
accessible storage item modified by a second browser instance, the
modification based on a user
selection of an offer from an offers webpage provided in the second browser
instance and the
offer associated with a selected offer redemption identifier and a selected
merchant. The
executable computer code farther includes instructions that perform the
following: reading an
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offer identifier associated with the selected offer from the browser-
accessible storage item and
deteimining whether the selected merchant associated with the offer identifier
matches a
merchant associated with the merchant website. Additionally, the executable
computer code
further includes instructions that perform the following: inserting, by one or
more processors, a
redemption header in the webpage element of the merchant webp age if the
selected merchant
matches the merchant associated with the merchant website. The redemption
header includes the
selected offer redemption identifier associated with the selected offer, the
redemption header
being displayed on the merchant webpage. Finally, the executable computer code
further
includes instructions that perform the following: providing, by one or more
processors, the
webpage element of the merchant webpage as an empty webpage element if the
selected
merchant does not match the merchant associated with the merchant website and
receiving, by
one or more processors, a selection of one of the plurality of offers, the
selected offer being
associated with a selected offer redemption identifier and a selected
merchant.
[0007] Moreover, in some embodiments, a computer-implemented method is
provided that
includes providing a webpage element of a first merchant webpage in a first
browser instance
and inserting, by one or more processors, a redemption header in the webpage
element of the
first merchant webpage, the redemption header including an offer redemption
identifier
associated with a selected offer and the redemption header being displayed on
the merchant
webpage. The computer-implemented method also includes detecting, by one or
more
processors, an input field in a second merchant webpage having the redemption
header and
determining whether the input field is configured to receive the offer
redemption identifier.
Finally, the method includes populating the input field with a value
corresponding to the offer
redemption identifier based on the deteunination.
[0008] Finally, in some embodiments a computer-implemented method is provided
that
includes providing, by one or more processors, a webpage element of a merchant
webpage in a
first browser instance and inserting, by one or more processors, a redemption
header in the
webpage element of the merchant webpage, the redemption header including an
offer redemption
identifier associated with a selected offer, the redemption header being
displayed on the
merchant webpage. The method also includes detecting, by one or more
processors, submission
of the offer redemption identifier for redemption and providing, by one or
more processors, a
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first user feedback request in the redemption header, the first user feedback
request including
first user feedback text, a first user feedback control, a first user feedback
field, or any
combination thereof. Additionally, the method includes receiving, by one or
more processors,
first user feedback in response to the first user feedback request and
determining, by one or more
processors, whether the first user feedback matches a condition. The first
user feedback includes
a selection of a user feedback control, an input into a user feedback field,
or a combination
thereof Moreover, the method includes providing, by one or more processors, a
second user
feedback request in the redemption header if the first user feedback matches
the condition, the
second user feedback request including second user feedback text, a second
user feedback
control, a second user feedback field. or any combination thereof, and
providing, by one or more
processors, an indication in the redemption header that the first user
feedback request is
complete.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0009] Figure 1 is a schematic block diagram of an example of an offer-
discovery system in
accordance with some embodiments;
[0010] Figure 2 is a block diagram of an example of a process by which an
offers engine in
the offer-discovery system of Figure I, in some embodiments, obtains and
processes data related
to offers;
[0011] Figure 3 is a block diagram of an example of a process by which a user
device in the
offer-discovery system of Figure 1, in some embodiments, obtains and presents
to users data
related to offers;
[0012] Figures 4A-4I are schematic diagrams illustrating screens of a user
device executing
browser instances in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;
[0013] Figures 5A and 5B are block diagrams illustrating user actions and a
customizable
redemption header process in accordance with an embodiment of the present
invention;
[0014] Figures 6A and 6B are block diagrams for providing a customizable
redemption
header in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;
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[0015] Figure 7 is a block diagram of a process for populating an input
field of a merchant
webpage with an offer redemption identifier in accordance with an embodiment
of the present
invention;
[0016] Figure 8 is a block diagram of a process for providing user feedback
requests in a
customizable redemption header in accordance with an embodiment of the present
invention;
[00171 Figure 9 is a block diagram of a system for customizing a redemption
header in
accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; and
[00181 Figure 10 is a block diagram of a computer in accordance with an
embodiment of the
present invention.
[00191 Although the invention is susceptible to various modifications and
alternative forms,
specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and
will herein be
described in detail. The drawings may not be to scale. It should be
understood, however, that
the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the
invention to the
particular form disclosed, but to the contrary, the intention is to cover all
modifications,
equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the
present invention as
defined by the appended claims.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0020] The above-mentioned deficiencies in existing offer-discovery systems
may be
mitigated by certain embodiments of an offer-discovery system 10 illustrated
by Figure 1. The
exemplary system 10 includes an offers engine 12 that, in some embodiments, is
capable of
reducing the burden on users attempting to identify offers relevant to them
from among a
relatively large pool of offers (e.g., more than 100, more than 1000, or more
than 10,000). To
this end and others, the offers engine 12 maintains device-independent user
profiles (or portions
of user profiles) by which offers interfaces may be consistently configured
across multiple user
devices with which the user interacts with the offers engine 12. Further, the
offers engine 12, in
this embodiment, includes a number of features expected to facilitate
relatively quick
identification of relevant offers by a user, features that include cached
storage of data related to
likely relevant offers, faceted presentation of offers by which users can
select among offers
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within various categories, and a number of other techniques described below
for identifying
relevant offers. The offers engine 12 is also expected to facilitate
relatively low operating costs
by, in some embodiments, automating parts of the process by which offer
related data is acquired
from sources, such as affiliate networks merchants, administrators, or users,
and parts of the
process by which transaction data indicative of acceptance, settlement, or
clearing of offers is
obtained and processed.
[0021] These and other benefits provided by the various embodiments of the
offers engine 12
are described in greater detail below after introducing the components of the
system 10 and
describing their operation. It should be noted, however, that not all
embodiments necessarily
provide all of the benefits outlined herein, and some embodiments may provide
all or a subset of
these benefits or different benefits.
[0022] In the illustrated embodiments, for example, the offers engine 12
includes a control
module 14, an application program interface (API) server 16, a web server 18,
and ingest module
20, an administration module 22, a data store 24, and a cache server 23. These
components, in
some embodiments, communicate with one another in order to provide the
functionality of the
offers engine 12 described herein. As described in greater detail below, in
some embodiments,
the data store 24 may store data about offers and users' interactions with
those offers: the cache
server 23 may expedite access to this data by storing likely relevant data in
relatively high speed
memory, for example in random-access memory or a solid-state drive; the Web
server 20 may
serve webpages having offers interfaces by which users discover relevant
offers; the API server
16 may serve data to various applications that process data related to offers;
the ingest module 20
may facilitate the intake of data related to offers from affiliate networks,
users, administrators.
and merchants; and the administration module 22 may facilitate curation of
offers presented by
the API server 16 and the web server 18. The operation of these components 16,
18, 20, 22, 24,
and 23 may be coordinated by the control module 14, which may bidirectionally
communicate
with each of these components or direct the components to communicate with one
another.
Communication may occur by transmitting data between separate computing
devices (e.g., via
transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) communication over a
network), by
transmitting data between separate applications on one computing device, or by
passing values to
and from functions, modules, or objects within an application, e.g., by
reference or by value.
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[0023] Among other things, the offers engine 12 of this embodiment presents
offers to users;
receives data from users about their interaction with the offers (for example
the user's favorite
offers or offer attributes; statistics about the offers the user has
identified, accepted, or otherwise
provided data about; or the identity of other users with whom the user
communicates about
offers and the content of those communications¨if users opt to have such data
obtained);
customizes the presentation of offers based on this received data; and
facilitates the processing of
compensation from merchants (either directly or through affiliate networks) as
a result of users
accepting (or taking a specific action like clicking or viewing, in some
embodiments or use
cases) offers. This interaction with users may occur via a website viewed on a
desktop computer,
tablet, or a laptop of the user; or a mobile website viewed on a smartphone,
tablet, or other
mobile user device, or native application executing on a smartphone, tablet,
or other mobile user
device. Presenting and facilitating interaction with offers across a variety
of devices is expected
to make it easier for users to identify relevant offers at the time the user
is interested in those
offers, which is often different from the time at which the user first
discovers the offer. In
particular, some embodiments allow users to store data indicative of offers
relevant to that user
using one device, such as a desktop computer in the user's home, and then view
those offers at a
later time, such as on a native mobile application when in a retail store.
[0024] To illustrate an example of the environment in which the offers
engine 12 operates, the
illustrated embodiment of the offer-discovery system 10 of Figure 1 includes a
number of
components with which the offers engine 12 communicates: mobile user devices
28 and 30; a
desktop user device 32; a third party server 34; an administrator device 36;
merchant servers 38,
40, and 42; and affiliate-network servers 44 and 46. Each of these devices
communicates with
the offers engine 12 via a network 48, such as the Internet or the Internet in
combination with
various other networks, like local area networks, cellular networks, or
personal area networks.
[0025] The mobile user devices 28 and 30 may be smartphones, tablets,
gaming devices, or
other hand-held networked computing devices having a display, a user input
device (e.g.,
buttons, keys, voice recognition, or a single or multi-touch touchscreen),
memory (e.g., a
tangible machine-readable non-transitory memory), a network interface, a
portable energy source
(e.g., a battery), and a processor (a term which, as used herein, includes one
or more processors)
coupled to each of these components. The memory of the mobile user devices 28
and 30 may
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store instructions that when executed by the associated processor provide an
operating system
and various applications, including a web browser 50 or a native mobile
application 52. The
native application 52, in some embodiments, is operative to provide an offers
interface that
communicates with the offers engine 12 and facilitates user interaction with
data from the offers
engine 12. Similarly, the web browser 50 may be configured to receive a
website from the offers
engine 12 having data related to deals and instructions (for example
instructions expressed in
JavaScriptTM ) that when executed by the browser (which is executed by the
processor) cause the
mobile user device to communicate with the offers engine 12 and facilitate
user interaction with
data from the offers engine 12. The native application 52 and the web browser
50, upon
rendering a webpage from the offers engine 12, may generally be referred to as
client
applications of the offers engine 12, which in some embodiments may be
referred to as a server.
Embodiments, however, are not limited to client/server architectures, and the
offers engine 12, as
illustrated, may include a variety of components other than those functioning
primarily as a
server.
[0026] The desktop user device 32 may also include a web browser 54 that
serves the same or
similar role as the web browser 50 in the mobile user device 30. In addition,
the desktop user
device 32 may include a monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, memory, a processor, and
a tangible,
non-transitory, machine-readable memory storing instructions that when
executed by the
processor provide an operating system and the web browser.
[0027] Third-party offer server 34 may be configured to embed data from the
offers engine 12
in websites or other services provided by the third-party offer server 34. For
example, third-party
offer server 34 may be a server of a social networking service upon which
users post comments
or statistics about offers with which the user has interacted or recommends
others to interact
consider or avoid. In another example, third-party offer server 34 may include
various services
for publishing content to the Web, such as blogs, tweets, likes, dislikes,
ratings, and the like. In
another example, third-party offer server 34 provides services by which third-
parties curate
offers hosted by the offers engine 12.
[0028] Merchant servers 38, 40, and 42 host websites or other user
accessible content
interfaces by which users can accept offers hosted by the offers engine 12. In
some
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embodiments, and in some use cases, the merchant servers 38, 40, and 42 host
retail websites
that present a plurality of items for sale by the merchant, a subset of which
may include items to
which offers apply, thereby generally making the item for sale more desirable
to cost-sensitive
consumers than under the terms presented by the merchant in the absence of the
offer. For
example, the offers may include free or discounted shipping, a discounted
price, a bulk discount,
a rebate, a referral award, or a coupon, such as a coupon acceptable by
presenting a coupon code
during checkout on the merchant website, or a printable or displayable coupon
(e.g., on the
screen of a mobile device) for in-store use, the printable coupon having, in
some cases, a
machine readable code (e.g., a bar code or QR code for display and scanning,
or a code passed
via near-field communication or BluetoothTm). In some embodiments, the
merchant website
includes a checkout webpage having an interface for the user to enter payment
information and a
coupon code, and the merchant website (either with logic on the client side or
the server-side)
may validate the coupon code entered by the user and, upon determining that
the coupon code is
valid, adjust the terms presented to the user for acceptance in accordance
with the offer.
[0029] Some merchants may limit the number of uses of a given coupon, limit
the duration
over which the coupon is valid, or apply other conditions to use of the
coupon, each of which
may add to the burden faced by users seeking to find valid coupons applicable
to an item the user
wishes to purchase. As noted above, some embodiments of the offers engine 12
are expected to
mitigate this burden.
[0030] Further, in some embodiments, the merchant servers 38, 40, and 42
provide data about
offers to the offers engine 12 or (i.e., and/or) data about transactions
involving offers. In use
cases in which the operator of the offers engine 12 has a direct affiliate-
marketing relationship
with one of the merchants of the merchant servers 38,40, or 42, the
transaction data may provide
the basis for payments by the merchant directly to the operator of the offers
engine 12. For
example, payments may be based on a percentage of transactions to which offers
were applied, a
number of sales to which offers were applied, or a number of users who viewed
or selected or
otherwise interacted with an offer by the merchant.
[0031] Affiliate-network servers 44 and 46, in some embodiments and some
use cases, are
engaged when the entity operating the offers engine 12 does not have a direct
affiliate-marketing
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relationship with the merchant making a given offer. In many affiliate
marketing programs,
merchants compensate outside entities, such as third-party publishers, for
certain activities
related to sales by that merchant and spurred by the outside entity. For
example, in some affiliate
marketing programs, merchants compensate an affiliate, such as the entity
operating the offers
engine 12, in cases in which it can be shown that the affiliate provided a
given coupon code to a
given user who then use that coupon code in a transaction with the merchant.
Demonstrating this
connection to the merchant is one of the functions of the affiliate-networks.
[0032] Affiliate-networks are used, in some use cases, because many coupon
codes are not
affiliate specific and are shared across multiple affiliates, as the merchant
often desires the
widest distribution of a relatively easily remembered coupon code.
Accordingly, in some use
cases, the merchant, affiliate network, and affiliate cooperate to use client-
side storage to indicate
the identity of the affiliate that provided a given coupon code to a user. To
this end, in some
embodiments, when a webpage offers interface is presented by the offers engine
12 in the web
browsers 50 or 54, that webpage is configured by the offers engine 12 to
include instructions to
engage the affiliate network server 44 or 46 when a user selects an offer, for
example by clicking
on, touching, or otherwise registering a selection of an offer. The website
provided by the offers
engine 12 responds to such a selection by, in some embodiments, transmitting a
request to the
appropriate affiliate-network server 44 or 46 (as identified by, for example,
an associated
unifornn. resource locator (URL) in the webpage) for a webpage or portion of a
webpage (e.g.,
browser-executable content). The request to the affiliate-network server may
include (e.g., as
parameters of the URL) an identifier of the affiliate, the offer, and the
merchant, and the returned
content from the affiliate-network server may include instructions for the web
browser 50 or 54
to store in memory (e.g., in a cookie, or other foiiii of browser-accessible
storage item, such as
an entry in a SQLite database or in a localStorage object via a
localStorage.setItem command) an
identifier of the affiliate that provided the offer that was selected.
100331 The webpage from the offers engine 12 (or the content returned by
the affiliate
network server 44 or 46) further may include browser instructions to navigate
to the website
served by the merchant server 38, 40, or 42 of the merchant associated with
the offer selected by
the user, and in some cases to the webpage of the item or service associated
with the offer
selected by the user. When a user applies the offer, for example by purchasing
the item or service
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or purchasing the item or service with the coupon code, the merchant server
38, 40, or 42 may
transmit to the user device upon which the item was purchased instructions to
request content
from the affiliate network server 44 or 46, and this requested content may
retrieve from the
client-side memory the identifier of the affiliate, such as the operator of
the offers engine 12,
who provided the information about the offer to the user. The affiliate
network may then report
to the merchant the identity of the affiliate that should be credited with the
transaction, and the
merchant may compensate the affiliate, or the affiliate network may bill the
merchant, and the
affiliate network may compensate the affiliate, such as the operator of the
offers engine 12. Thus,
the affiliate network acts as an intettnediary, potentially avoiding the need
for cross-domain
access to browser memory on the user device, a feature which is generally not
supported by web
browsers for security reasons. (Some embodiments may, however, store in client-
side browser-
accessible memory an identifier of the affiliate upon user selection of the
offer, with this value
designated as being accessible via the merchant's domain, and provide the
value to the merchant
upon a merchant request following acceptance of the offer, without passing the
identifier through
an affiliate network, using a browser plug-in for providing cross-domain
access to browser
memory or a browser otherwise configured to provide such access.)
(00341 A similar mechanism may be used by the native application 52 for
obtaining
compensation from merchants. In some embodiments, the native application 52
includes or is
capable of instantiating a web browser, like the web browser 50, in response
to a user selecting
an offer presented by the native application 52. The web browser instantiated
by the native
application 52 may be initialized by submitting the above-mentioned request
for content to the
affiliate-network server 44 or 46, thereby storing an identifier of the
affiliate (i.e., the entity
operating the offers engine 12) in a client-side storage item (e.g. a cookie,
localStorage object, or
a database) of the mobile user device 28 and navigating that browser to the
merchant website. In
other use cases, the operator of the offers engine 12 has a direct
relationship with the merchant
issuing the offer, and the selection of an offer within the native application
52 or the desktop or
mobile website of the offers engine 12 (generally referred to herein as
examples of an offer
interface) may cause the user device to request a website from the associated
merchant with an
identifier of the affiliate included in the request, for example as a
parameter of a URL
transmitted in a GET request to the merchant server 38, 40, or 42 for the
merchant's website.
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[0035] Administrator device 36 may be a special-purpose application or a
web-based
application operable to administer operation of the offers engine 12, e.g.,
for use by employees
or agents of the entity operating the offers engine 12. In some embodiments,
the administration
module 22 may communicate with the administrator device 36 to present an
administration
interface at the administrator device 36 by which an administrator may
configure offers
interfaces presented to users by the offers engine 12. In some embodiments,
the administrator
may enter offers into the offers engine 12, delete offers from the offers
engine 12, identify offers
for prominent placement within the offers interface (e.g. for initial
presentation prior to user
interaction), moderate comments on offers, view statistics on offers,
merchants, or users, add
content to enhance the presentation of offers, or categorize offers.
[0036] Thus, the offers engine 12, in some embodiments, operates in the
illustrated
environment by communicating with a number of different devices and
transmitting instructions
to various devices to communicate with one another. The number of illustrated
merchant servers,
affiliate network servers, third-party servers, user devices, and
administrator devices is selected
for explanatory purposes only, and embodiments are not limited to the specific
number of any
such devices illustrated by Figure 1.
[0037] The offers engine 12 of some embodiments includes a number of
components
introduced above that facilitate the discovery of offers by users. For
example, the illustrated API
server 16 may be configured to communicate data about offers via an offers
protocol, such as a
representational-state transfer (REST)-based API protocol over hypertext
transfer protocol
(HTTP). Examples of services that may be exposed by the API server 18 include
requests to
modify, add, or retrieve portions or all of user profiles, offers, or comments
about offers. API
requests may identify which data is to be modified, added, or retrieved by
specifying criteria for
identifying records, such as queries for retrieving or processing information
about particular
categories of offers, offers from particular stores, or data about particular
users. In some
embodiments, the API server 16 communicates with the native application 52 of
the mobile user
device 28 or the third-party offer server 34. In some embodiments, the offers
engine 12 may
include a content delivery network (CDN) for delivering static content to user
devices.
Additionally, or alternatively, in some embodiments the CDN may include a
cookieless domain
to aid in the faster delivery of static content.
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[0038] The illustrated web server 18 may be configured to receive requests
for offers
interfaces encoded in a webpage (e.g. a collection of resources to be rendered
by the browser and
associated plug-ins, including execution of scripts, such as JavaScriptTM,
invoked by the
webpage). In some embodiments, the offers interface may include inputs by
which the user may
request additional data, such as clickable or touchable display regions or are
display regions for
text input. Such inputs may prompt the browser to request additional data from
the web server 18
or transmit data to the web server 18, and a web server 18 may respond to such
requests by
obtaining the requested data and returning it to the user device or acting
upon the transmitted
data (e.g., storing posted data or executing posted commands). In some
embodiments, the
requests are for a new webpage or for data upon which client-side scripts will
base changes in
the webpage, such as XMLHttpRequest requests for data in a serialized format,
e.g.,
JavaScriptTM object notation (JSON) or extensible markup language (XML). The
web server 18
may communicate with web browsers, such as the web browser 50 or 54 executed
by user
devices 30 or 32. In some embodiments, the webpage is modified by the web
server 18 based on
the type of user device, e.g., with a mobile webpage having fewer and smaller
images and a
narrower width being presented to the mobile user device 30, and a larger,
more content rich
vvebpage being presented to the desktop user device 32. An identifier of the
type of user device,
either mobile or non-mobile, for example, may be encoded in the request for
the webpage by the
web browser (e.g., as a user agent type in an HTTP header associated with a
GET request), and
the web server 18 may select the appropriate offers interface based on this
embedded identifier,
thereby providing an offers interface appropriately configured for the
specific user device in use.
[0039] The illustrated ingest module 20 may be configured to receive data
about new offers
(e.g., offers that are potentially not presently stored in the data store 24),
such as data feeds from
the affiliate network servers 44 and 46, identifications of offers from user
devices 28, 30, or 32,
offers identified by third-party offer server 34, offers identified by
merchant servers 38, 40, or
42, or offers entered by an administrator via the administrator device 36. In
some embodiments,
the ingest module 20 may respond to receipt of a record identifying a
potentially new offer by
querying the data store 24 to determine whether the offer is presently stored.
Upon determining
that the offer is not presently stored by the data store 24, the ingest module
20 may transmit a
request to the data store 24 to store the record. In some cases, the data
about new offers may be
an affiliate datafeed from an affiliate network containing a plurality of
offer records (e.g., more
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than 100), each record identifying offer temis, and a merchant, a URL of the
merchant associated
with the offer, a product description, and an offer identifier. The ingest
module 22 may
periodically query such data feeds from the affiliate-network servers 44 or
46, parse the data
feeds, and iterate through (or map each entry to one of a plurality of
processes operating in
parallel) the records in the data feeds. Bulk, automated processing of such
data feeds may lower
operating costs of the offers engine 12.
[0040] The administration module 22 may provide an interface by which an
administrator
operating the administrator device 36 curates and contextualizes offers. For
example, the
administration module 22 may receive instructions from the administrator that
identify offers to
be presented in the offer interface prior to user interaction with the offer
interface, or offers to be
presented in this initialized offers interface for certain categories of
users, such as users having
certain attributes within their user profile. Further, in some embodiments,
the administration
module 22 may receive data descriptive of offers from the administrator, such
as URLs of
images relevant to thc offer, categorizations of the offer, normalized data
about the offer, and the
like.
[0041] The illustrated data store 24, in some embodiments, stores data
about offers and user
interactions with those offers. The data store 24 may include various types of
data stores,
including relational or nonrelational databases, document collections,
hierarchical key value
pairs, or memory images, for example. In this embodiment, the data store 24
includes a user data
store 56, a session data store 58, an offers data store 60, and an analytics
data store 62. These
data stores 56, 58, 60, and 62 may be stored in a single database, document,
or the like, or may
be stored in separate data structures.
[0042] In this embodiment, the illustrated user data store 56 includes a
plurality of records,
each record being a user profile and having a user identifier, a list of
offers (e.g. identifiers of
offers) identified by the user as favorites, a list of categories of offers
identified by the user as
being favorites, a list of merchants identified by the user as being
favorites, account information
for interfacing with other services to which the user subscribes (e.g. a
plurality of access records,
each record including an identifier of a service, a URL of the service, a user
identifier for the
service, an 0Auth access token credential issued by the service at the user's
request, and an
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expiration time of the credential), a user password for the offers engine 12,
a location of the user
device or the user (e.g., a zip code of a user), and a gender of the user. In
some embodiments,
each user profile includes a list of other users identified by the user of the
user profile as being
people in whose commentary on or curation of offers the user is interested,
thereby forming an
offers-interest graph. In some embodiments, users have control of their data,
including what is
stored and who can view the data, and can choose to opt-in to the collection
and storage of such
user data to improve their experience with the offers engine 12.
[0043] In this embodiment, the session data store 58 stores a plurality of
session records, each
record including information about a session a given user is having or has had
with the offers
engine 12. The session records may specify a session identifier, a user
identifier, and state data
about the session, including which requests have been received from the user,
and what data has
been transmitted to the user. Session records may also indicate the IP address
of the user device,
timestamps of exchanges with the user device, and a location of the user
device (e.g., retail store
or aisle in a retail storc in which the user device is located).
[0044] The illustrated offers data store 60 in some embodiments includes a
plurality of offer
records, each offer record may identify a merchant, offers by that merchant,
and attributes of the
relationship with the merchant, e.g., whether there is a direct relationship
with the merchant by
which the merchant directly compensates the operator of the offers engine 12
or whether the
merchant compensates the operator of the offers engine 12 via an affiliate
network, and which
affiliate network. The offers by each merchant may be stored in a plurality of
merchant-offer
records, each merchant-offer record may specify applicable terms and
conditions of the offer,
e.g., whether the offer is a discount, includes free or discounted shipping,
requires purchase of a
certain number of items, is a rebate, or is a coupon (which is not to suggest
that these
designations are mutually exclusive). In records in which the offer is a
coupon, the record may
further indicate whether the coupon is for in-store use (e.g. whether the
coupon is associated with
a printable image for presentation at a point-of-sale terminal, a mobile
device-displayable image,
or other mediums) or whether the coupon is for online use and has a coupon
code, in which case
the coupon code is also part of the merchant-offer record. The merchant-offer
records may also
include an expiration date of the offer, comments on the offer, rankings of
the offer by users, a
time at which the offer was first issued or entered into the offers engine 12,
and values (e.g.,
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binary values) indicating whether users found the offer to be effective, with
each value or
ranking being associated with a timestamp, in some embodiments. The values and
rankings may
be used to calculate statistics indicative of the desirability of the offer
and likely success of
accepting the offer. The timestamps associated with the values, rankings, and
time of issuance or
entry into the offers engine 12 may also be used to weight rankings of the
offer, with older
values being assigned less weight than newer values and older offers being
ranked lower than
newer offers, all other things being equal, as many offers expire or have a
limited number of
uses.
[0045] The illustrated analytics data store 62 may store a plurality of
records about historical
interactions with the offers engine 12, such as aggregate statistics about the
performance of
various offers. In some embodiments, the analytics data store 62 stores a
plurality of transaction
records, each transaction record identifying, one or more of. for example, an
offer that was
accepted by a user at a merchant, the merchant, the time of presentation of
the offer to the user,
and an indicator of whether the merchant has compensated the entity operating
the offers engine
12 for presentation of the offer to the user. Storing and auditing these
transaction records may
facilitate relatively accurate collection of payments owed by merchants and
identification of
future offers likely to lead to relatively high rates of compensation for
prominent presentation
based on past performance of offers having similar attributes.
[0046] The cache server 23 stores a subset of the data in the data store 24
that is among the
more likely data to be accessed in the near future. To facilitate relatively
fast access, the cache
server 23 may store cached data in relatively high speed memory, such as
random access
memory or a solid-state drive. The cached data may include offers entered into
the offers engine
12 within a threshold period of time, such as offers that are newer than one
day. In another
example, the cache data may include offers that are accessed with greater than
a threshold
frequency, such as offers that are accessed more than once a day, or offers
accessed within the
threshold, such as offers accessed within the previous day. Caching such offer
data may facilitate
faster access to offer data than systems that do not cache offer data.
[0047] The illustrated control module 14, in some embodiments, controls the
operation of the
other components of the offers engine 12, receiving requests for data or
requests to add or
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modify data from the API server 16, the web server 18, the ingest module 20,
and the
administration module 22, and instructing the data store 24 to modify,
retrieve, or add data in
accordance with the request. The control module 14 may further instruct the
cache server 23 to
modify data mirrored in the cache server 23. In some embodiments, the cache
server 23 may be
updated hourly, and inconsistent data may potentially be maintained in the
cache server 23 in
order to conserve computing resources.
[0048] The illustrated components of the offers engine 12 are depicted as
discrete functional
blocks, but embodiments are not limited to systems in which the functionality
described herein is
organized as illustrated by Figure 1. The functionality provided by each of
the components of the
offers engine 12 may be provided by software or hardware modules that are
differently organized
than is presently depicted, for example such software or hardware may be
intermingled, broken
up, distributed (e.g. within a data center or geographically), or otherwise
differently organized.
[0049] Figure 2 is a flowchart of a process 64 for acquiring data related
to offers within some
embodiments of the offer engine 12 discussed above. In this embodiment, the
process 64 begins
with receiving offer data describing a plurality of offers from affiliate
networks, merchants, and
users, as illustrated by block 66. This step may be performed by the above-
mentioned ingest
module 20. As noted above, the received offer data may be received from one or
all of these
sources. The received offer data may be received via an offer interface by
which users associated
with these sources enter data about offers, or the received offer data may be
received in a
predefined format, such as a serialized data format, in an automatic data feed
pushed or pulled
periodically or in response to the availability of new data from affiliate
networks or merchants.
Receiving the offer data may include determining whether the offer data is
redundant to offer
data already received and normalizing the offer data.
[0050] The process 64, in some embodiments, includes normalizing and
enriching the offer
data. Normalizing may include normalizing field names of the data and
normalizing the way in
which dates are expressed, for example. Enriching may include associating
images with the
offers for presentation with the offers and adding metadata to the offers to
assist users searching
for offers.
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[0051] Next,
in the present embodiment, the received offer data is stored in an offers data
store, as indicated by block 68. Storing the offer data in the offers data
store may include
identifying a merchant to which the offer pertains and storing the offer in a
merchant-offer
record associated with that merchant. Further, some embodiments may include
inserting the offer
in order in a sorted list of offers for relatively fast retrieval of offers
using a binary search
algorithm or other techniques to facilitate relatively quick access to data
that has been
preprocessed (e.g., using a prefix trie). In some embodiments, storing the
received offer may
further include updating hash tables by which the offer may be retrieved
according to various
parameters, each hash table being associated with one parameter and including
a hash key value
calculated based on the parameter and paired with an address of the offer.
Such hash tables are
expected to facilitate relatively fast access to a given offer as the need to
iterate through
potentially all offers meeting certain criteria may be potentially avoided.
[0052] In
some embodiments, the process 64 further includes receiving a request from a
user
device for offers, as indicated by block 70. The request may specify criteria
for identifying
offers, such as categories of offers, search terms for offers, or requests for
offers designated as
favorites.
[0053] Next,
the present embodiment includes identifying offers in the offers data store
responsive to the user request, as indicated by block 72. Identifying offers
in the offers data store
may be perfoimed by the above-mentioned control module 14 (Figure 1) by
constructing a query
to the offers data store 60 based on a request received from the web server 18
or the API server
16. The query may be transmitted to the offers data store 60, or to the cache
server 23, each of
which may return responsive records.
[0054] Next,
the identified offers are transmitted to the user device, as indicated by
block 74.
Transmitting the identified offers may include transmitting the identified
offers in an offer
interface, such as a webpage, or an API transmission to a native mobile
application, for example
by the web server 18, or the API server 16 of Figure 1, respectively.
[0055] The
device receiving the identified offers may, in response, perform a process
described below with reference to Figure 3 by which additional offers are
requested or an offer is
selected and a purchase is executed. The process of Figure 3 and steps 70
through 74 of Figure 2
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may be repeated numerous times, in some use cases, before advancing to the
next steps. Further,
the steps 66 through 68 may be repeated numerous times independently of (e.g.,
concurrent with)
the performance of steps 70 through 74 of Figure 2 (which is not to suggest
that other steps
described herein may not also be executed independently). That is, the process
64 may undergo
step 66 and 68, for example 50 times within a given time, while performing
steps 70 through 74
500 times within that given time, and performing the remaining steps of
process 64 a single time.
[0056] In some embodiments, a user device undergoing the process of Figure
3 may indicate
to an offers engine 12 that the user has selected an offer (e.g., by clicking
on or touching a
selectable element in an offers interface associated with the offer) to the
offers engine 12. In
response, the offers engine may direct the user device to an affiliate-network
server or a
merchant server associated with the offer, as illustrated by block 75.
[0057] Next, this embodiment of the process 64 includes receiving from
merchants or affiliate
networks transaction data identifying offers accepted via the user device, as
illustrated by block
76. The transaction data may be pulled from these sources, for example by the
ingest module 20
of Figure 1, periodically, or in response to some threshold number of
transactions having
occurred.
[0058] Next, in this embodiment, the receipt transaction data may be stored
in an analytics
data store, as indicated by block 78. In some embodiments, this data may be
stored in the
analytics data store 62 of Figure 1. Storing the transaction data may
facilitate the identification of
attributes of relatively profitable offers, as the transaction data indicates
which offers historically
yielded compensable transactions. Further, storing the transaction data may
facilitate relatively
accurate auditing of payments from merchants or affiliate networks.
[0059] Figure 3 is a flowchart of an embodiment of a process 80 that
provides an example of
an offer interface at a user device. The process 80 may be performed by the
above-mentioned
native application 52 or web browser 50 or 54 in cooperation with the offers
engine 12.
[0060] Some embodiments of process 80 begin with receiving, at a user
device, instructions
that cause the user device to display an offers interface, as indicated by
block 82. The received
instructions may be in the form of a downloaded native application, such as
one downloaded
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from an application store hosted by a provider of mobile devices, or the
received instructions
may be in the form of a website received from the offers engine 12 and
rendered in a browser of
the user device.
[0061] In some embodiments, the process 80 further includes receiving, at
the user device, a
plurality of offers, as indicated by block 84, and displaying, at the user
device, the offers in the
offer interface, as indicated by block 86. The offers may be received at
approximately the same
time the instructions of step 82 are received, for example along with a
webpage, or the offers
may be received at a later date, for example during a session subsequent to
downloading the
native application.
[0062] The offers interface may include inputs by which the user may
search. filter, or
otherwise browse offers having various attributes. Some of these interfaces
are described below
with reference to steps performed to detelinine whether the user has engaged
these inputs. In
some embodiments, determining whether the user has engaged these inputs may be
performed by
an event handler executed by the user device, the event handler causing the
user device to
perform the corresponding, below-described requests to the offers engine 12
based on the type of
event, e.g. whether the user touched, clicked, or otherwise selected a
particular button on the
offers interface.
[0063] Illustrated process 80 includes deteimining whether the user is
searching for offers, as
indicated by block S. With the offers interface, the user may express an
intent to search for
offers by entering search terms in a text entry box and selecting a button to
request a search in
accordance with the entered search term. Upon selecting this button, the user
device may
transmit a request for offers satisfying the entered search criteria_ as
indicated by block 90. The
transmitted request may be in the form of a GET request or an API call to the
web server 18 or
the API server 16 of the offers engine 12 of Figure 1.
[0064] In some embodiments, the process 80 further includes determining
whether the user
requests offers within a collection of offers, as indicated by block 92. The
offers interface may
include selectable inputs that identify the collections, such as clickable
collection names,
collection selection buttons, or collection selection tabs. Examples of
collections include
categories of goods or services, such as sporting goods, house-wares,
groceries, and the like;
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collections of modes of coupon redemption, such as in-store coupon redemption
and online
coupon redemption; collections based on offer statistics, such as newest
offers, most popular
offers, highest ranked offers; collections of offers designated by a user or
other users; or
collections based the value conferred by the offer, such as discounts, free
shipping, rebates, and
referral fees. Upon determining that the user has requested offers within a
collection, the user
device may transmit a request for offers within the collection to the offers
engine 12, as indicated
by block 94, which may return data responsive to the request.
[0065] In some embodiments, the process 80 includes deteimining whether the
user requests
offers previously designated by the user, as indicated by block 96. In some
embodiments, the
offers interface may include an input by which a user can designate an offer,
such as designating
offers as being a user favorite, designating offers as being ranked in a
particular fashion, or
designating offers as likely being of interest to some other user, such as
users adjacent one
another in a social graph. The offers interface may include an input for a
user to make
dcsignations, such as a user selectable input labeled "add to my favorites,"
or "add to my wallet,"
and an input for a user to request offers having a designation, such as a user
selectable input
labeled "view my favorites." or "view my wallet." Upon determining that the
user made such a
request, the process R0 includes transmitting a request for the offers
previously designated by the
user, as indicated by block 98. The transmission may be made to the offers
engine 12, to the API
server 16 or the web server 18, as described above with reference to Figure 1,
and may include
an identification of the designation and the user.
[0066] The process 80, in some embodiments, further includes determining
whether the user
requests offers previously designated by another user, as indicated by block
100. The offers
interface, in some embodiments, may include an input by which a user make such
a request, such
as a user selectable input labeled "offers recommended by my friends." Upon
determining that
the user has made such a request, the process 80 transmits a request for
offers previously
designated by the other user (or users), as indicated by block 102. Again, the
transmission may
be to the offers engine 12 of Figure 1, which may store or otherwise have
access to offers
designated by other users and a social graph of the user by which the
transmitted offers were
identified. Further, the offers interface may include an input by which the
user may view
identifiers of other users and add the other users to an offer-interest graph
of the user. This offer
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interest graph may be referenced by the offers engine 12 to identify offers in
response to the
request of step 102.
[0067] The process 80 further includes, in some embodiments, receiving, at
the user device,
one or more offers responsive to the request, as indicated by block 104, and
displaying the
responsive offers on the offers interface, as indicated by block 106.
[0068] In some embodiments and some use cases, a selection from the user is
received via the
offers interface, thereby identifying an offer among the displayed offers, as
indicated by block
108. In some embodiments, each of the offers may be displayed with an
associated input by
which the user selects the offer, such as a touchable or clickable button,
region, or text. The
selection, in some embodiments, may cause the offers interface to request
additional data from
the offers engine, such as instructions from the offers engine to navigate to
an affiliate-network
server associated with the offer or to navigate to a merchant server
associated with the offer. In
other embodiments, such instructions may be present within the offers
interface, e.g., in the form
of URLs linking to these servers.
[0069] The process 80 further includes deteimining whether the selected
offer is compensable
through an affiliate network, as indicated by block 110. This deteimination
may be made by the
offers engine 12, in some embodiments, for each of the offers being displayed
prior to
transmission of the offers to the user device. For example, each offer may be
associated with a
designation indicating whether the offer is compensable in this fashion, and
the designation may
be transmitted along with the offer, for instance, by associating the offer
with HTML or
JavaScriptTM that so designate the offer, or by including a field including
the designation in a
response to an API call for each offer. The user device, in some embodiments,
may take different
actions depending on the designation associated with the selected offer.
[0070] Upon deteimining that the selected offer is not compensable through
an affiliate
network, the process 80 of this embodiment includes determining whether the
selected offer is
compensable directly from the merchant associated with the offer, as indicated
by block 112.
Again, the determination of block 112 may be perfoimed, in some embodiments,
by the offers
engine 12 for each of the offers being displayed prior to transmission of the
displayed offers, and
each displayed offer may be associated with a designation based on the results
of the
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determination, such as different HTML or JavaScniptTM or a different field
value in an API
response. The user device may take different actions depending on this
designation.
[0071] Upon determining that the selected offer is not compensable directly
from the
merchant, the process 80 may proceed to block 118 described below. Upon
determining that the
selected offer is compensable, the process 80, in this embodiment, may proceed
to request the
website of the merchant issuing the selected offer with a request that
identifies the affiliate from
whom the selected offer was obtained, as indicated by block 114. The request
may be in the form
of a URL having as a parameter an identifier of the entity operating the offer
engine 12, thereby
indicating to the merchant that the affiliate should be compensated in
accordance with an
arrangement between the merchant and the affiliate. Upon performance of step
114, the process
80 of the present embodiment proceeds to step 120 described below.
[0072] As indicated by block 110, upon determining that the selected offer
is compensable
through an affiliate network, the process 80 proceeds to transmit a request to
the affiliate-
network server for instructions to store data identifying an affiliate from
whom the selected offer
was obtained, as indicated by block 116. This request may be a request for
content from the
affiliate-network server that is not displayed to the user, or is not
displayed to the user for an
appreciable amount of time (e.g., less than 500 ms), and the request may
include an identifier of
the affiliate, the merchant, and the offer. The requested content may cause
the user device to
store in persistent memory of the browser of the user device (e.g., memory
that lasts between
sessions, such as a cookie or a database of the browser) an identifier of the
affiliate operating the
offers engine 12. This value may be retrieved later by the affiliate-network
at the instruction of
the merchant upon the user accepting the offer, for example by the user using
a coupon code
associated with the offer at the merchant, thereby allowing the merchant (or
the affiliate
network) to identify the appropriate party to compensate for the sale.
[0073] Upon transmitting the request the affiliate network server, the
process 80 further
includes requesting the website of the merchant issuing the selected offer, as
indicated by block
118, and transmitting acceptance of the offer to the merchant via the
merchant's website, as
indicated by block 120. Accepting the offer, as noted above, may cause the
merchant to
compensate the affiliate operating the offers engine 12.
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[0074] The process 80 of Figure 3 is expected to facilitate relatively fast
access to offers
that are likely to be relevant to a user, as each of the determinations of
step 88, 92, 96, and 100
provide different paths by which the user can specify offers in which the user
is likely to be
interested. Further, the determinations of step 110 and 112 provide dual
mechanisms by which
the operator of the offers engine 12 can be compensated, thereby potentially
increasing revenue.
[0075] In some embodiments, as described further below, a website from the
offers
engine 12 (referred to as an offers website) that provides offers to users may
include
functionality to enable users to redeem certain types of offers, e.g., online
coupons. In such
embodiments, the offers engine 12 may provide a customizable redemption header
(also
referred to as a "traveling header") in a merchant website for easier and
faster redemption of
online coupons and elimination or reduction of complicated user actions needed
to redeem the
online coupons. Accordingly, the redemption header may result in improved
coupon
redemption and increased sales for merchants offering online coupons provided
by the offers
engine. The redemption header may be provided in merchant websites provided
from
merchant servers 38 to enable a user to easily view offer information after
leaving the offers
website, as described further in U.S. Patent Application Serial No. 61/665,740
entitled
"Devices, Methods, and Computer-readable Media for Redemption Header for
Merchant
Offers.''
[0076] The redemption header may be provided on a first browser instance in
response to a
user interaction with a second browser instance. For example, as described
below, a user may
open a merchant website in a first browser instance and may subsequently open
an offers website
in a second browser instance. Upon selection of an offer on the offers
website, the redemption
header may be provided on the merchant website in the first browser instance.
Additionally, after
redemption of the offer as aided by the redemption header, the redemption
header may detect
redemption and display user feedback mechanisms and redemption information to
a user.
[0077] Accordingly, Figures 4A-4I depict screens of multiple browser
instances
executing on a user device, such as mobile user device 28, desktop user device
32, and
other devices, illustrating the redemption of an offer, e.g., an online
coupon, and a
customizable redemption header in accordance with an embodiment of the present

invention. Although the redemption
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header described below is illustrated and referred to as "header," it should
be appreciated that
other embodiments may include a redemption bar having similar functionality
provided at any
location of a merchant webpage (e.g., a redemption footer). Thus, other
embodiments having a
redemption bar similar to the redemption header but in a different location
may be provided in
the manner described below.
[0078] Figure 4A depicts a screen 400 of an instance of a web browser,
e.g., an application
for receiving and viewing web content, in accordance with an embodiment of the
present
invention. As used herein, the teiin "browser instance" may refer to a window
of a web browser,
a tab of a web browser, or other instances of a browser capable of displaying
a webpage. As will
be appreciated, the screen 400 and other screens described below may be
presented in a display
of a user device that may receive inputs from a user and provide outputs on
the display. In some
embodiments, inputs may be received from a keyboard, a pointing device (e.g.,
a mouse) or other
input device. In some embodiments, a user interface may include a touchscreen,
software
modules, or any combination thereof, and inputs may be received as touches on
the touchscreen,
such as from a digit of a user, a stylus, etc.
[0079] The screen 400 displays a merchant webpage 402 of a merchant website
404, such as a
website of a retailer for goods, services, or both. As described in detail
below, a redemption
header may be added to the merchant website 404 to display an offer redemption
identifier
associated with an offer and text (e.g., instructions) associated with
redemption of an offer.
Additionally, the redemption header may be provided in response to a user
selection of an offer
in a different browser instance and may be retrieved asynchronously relative
to loading of the
merchant webpage 404 and other webpages of the merchant website.
[0080] As described below, the webpages of the merchant website 404, such as
webpage 402,
may include an empty webpage element, such as in a Document Object Model
associated with
the merchant webpage. For example, in some embodiments an inline frame may be
created via
the HTML <frame> tag. The webpages of the merchant website may include code
for providing
the redemption header within the empty webpage element in response to a
modification in a
browser-accessible storage item, as described below. In some embodiments, the
redemption
header code may include JavaScriptTM and may be inserted within an HTML
<script> tag. For
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example, in some embodiments the merchant webpage may retrieve code for the
empty webpage
element and the redemption header from the offers engine 12. In such
embodiments, the code
may be inserted asynchronously via JavaScriptTM provided in the webpages of
the merchant
website 404.
[0081] The merchant website 404 may include a variety of web content that
enables a user to
search or browse for goods, services, or both and select and order such goods
and services. As
shown in Figure 4A, for example, web content of the merchant website 404 may
include a search
field 406, search button 408. and a merchant storefront 410. It should be
appreciated that the
web content depicted in Figure 4A is merely an example and merchant websites
may include a
wide variety of web content, designs, and functionality. Such functionality
may include, for
example, the ability to search the merchant website 404 by entering a search
query into the
search field 406 and selecting (e.g., touching, clicking, etc.) the search
button 408. Additionally,
the merchant storefront 410 may display goods, services, or both offered by
the merchant and
available for order by a user. In some embodiments, a user may use the search
field 406 to find
the goods, services, or both associated with a selected offer.
[0082] A user may concurrently open another browser instance after retrieving
and viewing
the merchant webpage 402. Upon viewing the merchant webpage 402, for example,
a user may
open another browser instance to search for offers, such as coupons,
applicable to goods
services, or both purchased from the merchant. In some instances, a user may
not have an offer
readily available and may attempt to find an offer to provide a further
incentive to complete a
=
purchase from the merchant. The ready availability of such offers and the ease
of redemption of
such offers on the merchant website, as facilitated by the providing of the
redemption header in
the manner described herein, may increase merchant sales and aid in
encouraging a user to
complete a purchase.
[0083] With the foregoing in mind, Figure 4B depicts a screen 412 of another
web browser
instance (e.g., a new tab, a new window, etc.) and the screen 402 of the first
web browser
instance described above. As noted above, a user may have both web browser
instances
executing concurrently on a user device. A user may thus switch between each
instance of the
web browser using the appropriate switching mechanism present on the user
device. As
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mentioned above, a user may attempt to find offers for goods and services
offered by the
merchant associated with the merchant website 404. Accordingly, the screen 412
depicts an
offers webpage 414 provided by the offers engine 12 that may be opened by the
user. The offers
webpage 414 may include various elements to display information to a user, and
in some
instances, receive user input. For example, the offers webpage 414 may include
a search field
416, a search control 418, and an offers area 420. The offers webpage 414 may
also include
various other elements, such as navigation tabs, sign-up and login forms,
merchant-specific
areas, offer category-specific areas, highlighted offers, ranked offers, and
so on. The search field
416 may enable a user to enter a search query and execute a search by
selecting the search
control 418 (e.g., a search button). The search may include searches for
offers, categories of
offers, merchants, or any other suitable search queries.
[0084] The offers area 420 may present offers, e.g., online coupons 422,
for viewing and
selection by a user. The offers area 420 may include any number of offers
associated with
merchants providing goods, services, or a combination thereof. The offers area
120 may present
offers based on ranking criteria, user selections (e.g., selections of a
merchant, offer categories,
etc.) or other parameters. Each coupon 422 may be presented with information
associated with
the coupon 422, such as a merchant tile 424 and a descriptive text 426.
Additionally, each
coupon 422 may include a coupon code box 428 having an offer redemption
identifier, e.g., a
coupon code 430, associated with each coupon 422. The coupon code 430 may be
displayed in
the coupon code box 428 or other visual element, such as a circle, balloon,
etc. Other offer
redemption identifiers may also be displayed in a box or other visual element
in the offers area
420. As described in detail below, upon selection of one of the coupons 422,
the coupon code of
a selected coupon may be displayed in a redemption header loaded in the
merchant webpage 402.
The offer redemption identifier may also include, for example, discount
descriptions, rebate,
identifiers of free goods or, or any other identifier associated with an offer
that enables or
describes the redemption of the offer to a user.
[0085] The merchant tile 424 may include a text, image (e.g., a merchant
logo), or
combination thereof identifying the merchant associated with the coupon. The
descriptive text
434 may include information about the coupon, such as the goods, services, or
both associated
with the coupon, the discount or other offer provided by the coupon, the
expiration date, or any
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other suitable information or combination thereof. For example, as shown in
Figure 4B, the
coupon 422 may be presented with the merchant tile 424 (e.g., "Merchantl") and
descriptive text
426 (e.g., "Save up to 40% on select laptops"). Additionally, the coupon 422
may include the
coupon box 428 having the coupon code 430 ("PMPRSYT8") associated with the
coupon 422.
Other coupons presented on the offers webpage 414 may include similar
information, such as
merchant tiles, descriptive text, coupon code boxes, and so on.
[0086] To use a coupon, a user may select (e.g., touch, click, etc.) the
online coupon 422. For
example, a user may select any portion of the coupon 422, such as the merchant
tile 424, the
descriptive text 426, the coupon code box 428, etc. Upon selection of a
coupon, an offer
identifier associated with the selected coupon may be stored in a browser-
accessible storage item
(e.g., a cookie, a SQLite database, a localStorage object, etc.). The browser-
accessible storage
item may be created upon selection of the coupon 422, or in some embodiments,
upon loading of
the offers webpage 414. in some embodiments, for example, the browser-
accessible storage item
may be a session cookie that expires when a session ends (e.g., when the
browser is shutdown).
As shown Figure 4C, for example, an offer identifier associated with the
selected coupon 422
may be stored in browser-accessible storage item 432. As will be appreciated,
the browser-
accessible storage item may be accessible to all instances of a browser. In
some embodiments,
the browser-accessible storage item may be stored locally on the user device.
Additionally, in
some embodiments, upon selection of an offer from the offers webpage 414, a
value of the
coupon code may be copied to a clipboard or other temporary storage. For
example, upon
selection of the coupon 422, the value of the coupon code 430 ("PMPRSYT8") may
be copied to
a clipboard.
[0087] As described further below, upon modification of the browser-
accessible storage item
(e.g., modification of an existing browser-accessible storage item or creation
of a new browser-
accessible storage item) to include an offer identifier associated with the
selected offer, the
redemption header may be retrieved and displayed in the merchant webpage.
Figure 4D depicts
screen 400 of the first browser instance and screen 412 of the second browser
instance and
illustrates the addition of a redemption header 436 to the merchant webpage
402 in response to
the modification of the browser-accessible storage item 432. As described in
detail below, the
redemption header 436 may be added to the merchant webpage 402 to display the
offer
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redemption identifier associated with the selected offer and text (e.g.,
instructions) associated
with redemption of the selected offer. Additionally, the redemption header 446
may be retrieved
asynchronously relative to loading of the merchant webpage 402. As described
further below in
Figures 6A and 6B, the merchant webpage in the first browser instance may
periodically check
for modifications to the browser-accessible storage item 432. Upon
modification of the browser-
accessible storage item 432, the redemption header 436 may be retrieved and
displayed on the
merchant webpage 402.
[0088] As described above, the merchant webpage 402 may include an empty
webpage
element, such as an iframe, suitable for displaying the redemption header 436.
Upon detection of
the modified browser-accessible storage item, the redemption header 436 may be
asynchronously
retrieved and loaded in the merchant webpage 402. Thus, when a user selects
the selected
coupon 422 in a second browser instance, the merchant webpage 402 may remain
in the first
browser instance without interruption by the retrieval of the redemption
header 446. As also
described further below, this process may include evaluation of the offer
identifier to ensure the
selected offer corresponds to the merchant associated with the merchant
presently loaded in the
first browser instance. Additionally, the redemption header 436 may be
provided using
customizable attributes such as background colors, text colors, fonts, text,
text sizes, images,
image sizes.
[0089] As shown in Figure 4D, the redemption header 436 may include
descriptive text 438,
and a coupon code box 440 (additional content of the redemption header 436 is
illustrated in
Figure 4E and described further below). The descriptive text 438 may describe
the contents,
function, or both of the redemption header 436. For example, the descriptive
text 438 may
include the text -Here is your Coupon Code- describing the contents of the
coupon code box 440
presented in the header 436. Accordingly, the coupon code box 440 may include
the coupon
code 430 ("PMPRSYT8") associated with the selected coupon 422. The descriptive
text 438,
coupon code box 440, and coupon code 430 may be customized according to
customization
attributes retrieved from the offers engine 12. For example, the background of
the redemption
header 436 may have a first color, the descriptive text 438 may have a second
color and a first
font, the coupon code box 440 may have a third color, and the coupon code 430
may have a
second font and fourth color.
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10090] In some embodiments, the redemption header 436 may include additional
or
alternative content, such as user information. For example, the redemption
header 436 may
include a user identifier associated with a user (e.g., a user name), a user
selected image, a
shipping address, a billing address, a type of payment (e.g., credit card,
debit card, electronic
payment and the like), or other user information. In some embodiments, the
user information or
other content may be retrieved from the offers engine 12.
[0091] Figure 4E depicts the screen 400 of the first browser instance and
illustrates the
redemption header 436 in greater detail. The redemption header 436 may be
provided in the
merchant webpage 402, as described in Figures 6A and 6B below, and may remain
on the other
webpages of the merchant website 404 as a user navigates the website 404.
Thus, the
redemption header "travels" from the merchant webpage 402 to other webpages of
the merchant
website. By retaining the redemption header 436, a user may have access to the
coupon code
430 required to redeem the coupon 422 and instructions and other text
associated with the
selected coupon 422. As shown in Figure 4E, the redemption header 436 may
include the
descriptive text 438, the coupon code box 440, instructions 442, and a close
control 444 (e.g., a
close button). The instructions 442 may provide instructions to the user on
how to use the
coupon code 430 and redeem the selected coupon 422. For example, as shown in
Figure 4E, the
instructions 442 include the text "Copy & paste at checkout to see your
savings." Here again, the
additional content of the redemption bar illustrated in Figure 4E may be
customized according to
customization attributes retrieved from the offers engine 12.
[0092] As mentioned above, a user may navigate the merchant website 404 by
selecting the
search button 408, selecting links in the merchant storefront 410, and so on.
In response, various
webpages of the merchant website may be requested and displayed by the web
browser. The
redemption header 436 may remain in such webpages until the user selects the
close control 444.
Thus, regardless of the portion of the merchant website 404 displayed by the
web browser, the
redemption header 436 (and coupon code 420) may remain accessible to the user.
For example,
Figure 4F depicts another screen 446 of a browser illustrating another webpage
448 of the
merchant website 404 in accordance with an embodiment of the present
invention. As shown in
Figure 4F, the webpage 448 of the merchant website 404 may include a product
listing having
product text 450 and product images 452. For example, the webpage 448 may
include product
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text 450A and product image 452A associated with a first product, product text
450B and
product image 452B associated with a second product, and so on. A user may
navigate to the
webpage 448 by searching for a product, selecting links in the merchant
storefront 410, or other
navigation actions within the merchant website 404. Moreover, as shown in
Figure 4F the
redemption header 436 remains (i.e., travels to) in the webpage 448. Thus,
while a user is
viewing various products on the webpage 448, the redemption header 436 may
remain to allow
access to the infoimation associated with the selected coupon 422.
10093] As described above, a user may use the merchant website to order goods
and services
associated with the selected coupon, such as by adding the goods and services
to a virtual
"shopping cart" and selecting an option to checkout. Figure 4G depicts a
screen 454 of the
browser illustrating a checkout page 456 of the merchant website 404 in
accordance with an
embodiment of the present invention. As described above, web content such as
the checkout
page 456 may be retrieved from the Internet via a network accessible by a user
device executing
the browser, and this web content may be displayed by a browser. As shown in
Figure 4G, the
redemption header 436 may remain in the checkout webpage 456 and may include
the coupon
code box 440 and the coupon code 430. The redemption header 436 may remain
accessible while
a user completes a transaction, e g , an order for goods, services, or both
with the merchant. Here
again, a user may remove the redemption header 436 by selecting the close
control 444.
100941 The merchant checkout page may include various web content that enables
a user to
view and enter order information and complete an order for goods, services, or
both. For
example, the merchant checkout page 456 may include an order information
portion 458, a
shipping information portion 460, a code entry portion 462, and a checkout
button 464. The
merchant checkout page 456 enables a user to enter a shipping address, a
billing address,
payment information, and the like. By selecting the checkout button 464
("Place Your Order") a
user may submit an order for fulfillment by the merchant. The order
infoimation portion 458
may include order information, such as products or services in the order,
quantities, prices,
payment infoimation, etc., and may include a button or other control for
changing the order.
Similarly, the shipping information portion 460 may include shipping address,
a billing address,
and other shipping information and may include a button or other control to
enable a user to
change the shipping information. The code entry portion 462 may enable a user
to enter coupon
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codes, promotional codes, gift card codes, or any other codes that may be
applied to an order.
The code entry portion 462 may include an input field 466 (e.g., a text field
that receives text
input) and a submission button 468 ("Apply"). By entering a coupon code or
other code into the
input field 466 and selecting the submission button 468, a user may submit a
coupon code to
apply a coupon associated with the merchant. In some embodiments, the input
field 466 may
accept images or other input.
[0095] As shown in Figure 4G, the input field 466 may be automatically
populated ("auto-
populated") with a coupon code value 470 of the coupon code 430. For example,
the code
associated with the redemption header 436 may detect the input field 466 when
the code is
executed and the redemption header 436 is loaded, and the coupon code value
470 may be
automatically entered into the input field 466. In some embodiments. a <div>
tag, <form> tag,
<input> tag, or other element including the input field 466 may be detected to
detect the input
field 466. In yet other embodiments, a merchant may specifically identify the
webpage element
of the input field 466 or may identify the input field 466 using a
standardized identification.
[0096] In other embodiments, a user may enter the value associated with the
coupon code into
the input field 466 by pasting a value of the coupon code 430 from the
clipboard into the input
field 466. As mentioned above, the value 470 corresponding to the coupon code
430 may be
copied to a clipboard or other temporary storage upon selection of the
selected coupon. A user
may then paste the contents of the clipboard into the input field 466 to enter
the coupon code
value 470 into the input field 466, and a user does not need to memorize the
coupon code or
manually type the code directly into the input field 466. Alternatively, a
user may type or
otherwise enter the coupon code value 470 into the input field 466 and may
easily obtain the
coupon code from the redemption header 436 included in the checkout webpage
456. Thus, the
coupon code value 470 may be entered into the input field 466 by merely
pasting the contents of
a clipboard or other temporary storage into the input field 466 or by auto-
populating the input
field 466. A user may then select the submission button 468 to apply the
coupon code to the
order. After application of the coupon code 430, a user may submit the order
to the merchant by
selecting the checkout button 464.
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[0097] Although Figure 4G is described with reference to an input field of
a checkout
webpage associated with a merchant, it should be appreciated that the same
techniques may
apply to input fields located in any webpage associated with a merchant that
may receive a
coupon code and for which a user desired to enter the code. For example, a
shopping cart
webpage, a product webpage, or other merchant webpages may have an input field
that may be
processed in the manner described above.
[0098] In some embodiments, as shown in Figure 4H, the redemption header 436
may provide
a user feedback mechanism in response to submission of an offer redemption
identifier, e.g., the
coupon code 422. After an offer redemption identifier is submitted, the
redemption header 436
may change based on the different webpage or changed web content. Figure 4H
depicts a screen
472 of a browser illustrating an order confirmation webpage 474 in accordance
with an
embodiment of the present invention. For example, after a user submits an
order, such as from
the checkout page 456 depicted in Figure 4G, a user may be presented with the
order
confirmation wcbpage 474. The order confirmation webpage 474 may include order
information
478 and a "Continue Shopping" button 480. The order information 478 may
include a
verification of order submission ("Order successful!"), order information,
shipping information,
or any other information associated with an order. The "Continue Shopping"
button 480 may
enable a user to navigate to additional webpages of the merchant website 404,
such as by
returning to a merchant storefront or a product webpage.
[0099] As shown in Figure 4H, in response to the submission of the coupon code
430, the
redemption header 436 may include different content, such as a user feedback
request 484. As
shown in Figure 4H, the redemption header 436 may include confirmation text
482 ("You used
your coupon!-) and user feedback controls 486 (e.g., a thumbs-up button and a
"thumbs-down"
button). A user may indicate the success of the selected coupon by selecting
the feedback button
486A and the failure of the selected coupon by selecting the feedback button
486B. Upon
selection of one of the controls 486A or 486B, the selection may be
transmitted to the offers
engine 12. In this manner, user feedback regarding the success or failure of
an online coupon or
other offer may be collected and used for offer analysis, offer ranking,
affiliate payments,
merchant payments, or other purposes.
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1001001 As mentioned above, in some embodiments, submission of an offer
redemption
identifier, such as a coupon code, may be detected. In such an embodiment, for
example, the
code associated with the redemption header 436 may detect a click event
associated with the
submission button 468. Alternatively, in some embodiments a URL pattern for a
receipt page
responsive to the submission may be detected. Additionally, the data included
in the request
method may be parsed and analyzed to determine that the offer redemption
identifier was
submitted. Thus, if an offer redemption identifier is determined as being
submitted, then the user
feedback request 484 may be provided in the redemption header 436. In other
embodiments, the
submission of an order may be detected and the user feedback request may be
provided in the
manner described above in response to the order submission.
1001011 In some embodiments, additional user feedback requests may be provided
in response
to a user's feedback. For example, if a user provided feedback in response to
a user feedback
request, a second user feedback request 488 may be provided that requests
additional information
from the user. Figure 41 depicts the screen 472 of the order confirmation
webpage 474
illustrating a second user feedback request displayed in the redemption header
436. As shown in
Figure 41, after a user selects one of the feedback controls 486, such as the
"thumbs-up" button
486A to indicate that the coupon was successful, additional user feedback
requests 488 may be
retrieved and displayed in the redemption header 436. For example, a user
feedback request
488A may include a user feedback text 490 ("Thanks! How much did you save?")
and a
feedback field 492, such as a field that requests the amount of money saved by
the user. The
redemption header 436 may also include an additional user feedback request
488B ("And I
bought a...") that includes user feedback text 490B and user feedback field
492B, such as a text
field that requests the product purchased by a user. The redemption header 436
may also include
a user feedback control 494 that enables a user to submit a response to the
additional user
feedback requests 488. Additionally, a user may remove the redemption header
436, before or
after responding to the additional user feedback request 488, by selecting
(e.g., clicking,
touching, etc.) the close control 444. In some embodiments, the redemption
header 436 may be
removed after a user submits a response to the user feedback request 488. For
example, after
submitting user feedback by selecting (e.g., clicking, touching, etc.) the
close control 444, the
redemption header 436 may be removed from the order confirmation webpage 474
and any
subsequent web pages of the merchant website 404 accessed by the user.
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[001021 Figures 5A and 5B depict user actions 500 and a redemption header
process 502 in
accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Some or all steps of
the process 502
may be implemented as executable computer code stored on a non-transitory
tangible computer-
readable storage medium and executed by one or more processors of a special-
purpose machine,
e.g., a computing device programmed to execute the code. Initially a user may
open a merchant
webpage of a merchant website in a first browser instance (block 504), as
described above and
illustrated in Figure 4A. For example, as described above, a merchant webpage
may be requested
from one or more merchant webservers and provided to the browser.
Additionally, as noted
above, an empty webpage element capable of including a redemption bar, e.g., a
redemption
header, may be provided in the merchant webpage (block 506). Next, a user may
open an offers
webpage in a second browser instance (e.g., a new browser window, new browser
tab, etc.)
(block 508), such as described above and illustrated in Figure 4B. As
mentioned above, the
offers webpage may be requested from and provided by the offers engine 12.
1001031 After opening an offers webpage in a second browser instance, a user
may select an
offer, e.g., an online coupon, having an offer redemption identifier, e.g., a
coupon code (block
510). In some embodiments, after selection of an offer, a value corresponding
to the offer
redemption identifier, e g_, a coupon code, associated with the selected offer
may be copied to a
clipboard or other temporary storage. After the selection of an offer, an
offer identifier may be
stored in a browser-accessible storage item (e.g., a cookie, a SQI,ite
database, a localStorage
object, etc.) (block 512), as described above and illustrated in Figure 4C.
Next, modification of
the browser-accessible storage item, such as the storage of the offer
identifier in the browser-
accessible storage item, may be detected by the merchant webpage (block 514).
The offer
identifier may be read from the browser-accessible storage item (block 516),
as described above
and illustrated in Figure 4D. After reading the offer identifier, a redemption
bar may be provided
in the empty webpage element on the merchant webpage (block 518), as described
above and
illustrated in Figure 4E. A user may then perform other actions to interact
with the redemption
bar and merchant webpages. For example, a user may select the close control of
the redemption
bar and, in response, the redemption bar may be removed from the merchant
webpage.
[00104] Figure SB depicts additional user actions 500 and additional steps of
the redemption
process 502 in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. As
described above, a
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user may also search and browse a merchant website to purchase goods,
services, or both
associated with the coupon. Subsequently, a user may navigate to a merchant
webpage having
an input field to complete an order for goods, services, or both, such as a
checkout webpage, a
shopping cart webpage, or other merchant webp age having an input field
configured to receive
an offer redemption identifier, e.g., a coupon code (block 520). After a user
navigates to a
merchant webpage having a particular input field, the input field may be
detected (block 522), as
described below in Figure 7. After detection of the input field, the input
field may be populated
with the value of the offer redemption identifier of the selected offer (block
524).
[00105] After the offer redemption identifier, e.g. coupon code, is entered
into the input field, a
user may submit the offer redemption identifier for redemption or submit an
order to complete
the order (block 526). As described above in Figure 3. redemption of offers,
such as a selected
coupon, may occur through an affiliate network or directly from a merchant.
After a user selects
a submission, such as a submission of a coupon code, an order, etc., the
submission may be
detected (block 528). Based on the detection of the submission, a first user
feedback request
may be provided in the redemption bar (block 530), as described and
illustrated in Figure 4H.
Next, a user may submit user feedback (block 532), such as by entering input
into user feedback
fields and selecting a user feedback control. The user feedback may be
received (block 534) and
used for offer analysis. offer ranking, affiliate payments, merchant payments,
or other purposes.
Next, a second user feedback request may be provided in response to the
submission of the first
user feedback (block 536), as described above and illustrated in Figure 41.
The user feedback
request process is described further below in Figure 8. As will be
appreciated, second user
feedback may be received in response to the second user feedback request.
Moreover, in some
embodiments, additional user feedback requests may be provided. In some
embodiments, after
submission of user feedback in response to all user feedback requests, the
redemption bar may be
removed from the merchant webpage.
[00106] Figures 6A and 6B depict a process 600 for providing a customizable
redemption
header in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Some or all
steps of the
process 600 may be implemented as executable computer code stored on a non-
transitory
tangible computer-readable storage medium and executed by one or more
processors of a
special-purpose machine, e.g., a computing device programmed to execute the
code. As shown
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in Figure 6A, and as described above, an empty webpage element, such as an
empty inline frame,
may be provided on a merchant webpage in a first browser instance (block 602).
Next, a user
selection of a merchant offer on an offers webpage in a second browser
instance may be received
(block 606). A browser accessible storage item (e.g., a cookie, a SQLite
database, a localStorage
object, etc.) may be created and an offer identifier may be stored in the
browser-accessible
storage item (block 608).
[00107] Next, the browser-accessible storage item may be evaluated (block 610)
to determine
if the browser accessible storage item has been modified (decision block 612).
This
determination may include determining if the browser-accessible storage item
was created, if an
offer identifier was stored in the browser-accessible storage item, and so on.
For example, in
some embodiments a webpage may be requested from the offers engine 12 and the
existence of
the browser-accessible storage-element based on the request may be determined.
If the browser
accessible storage-item has not been modified or does not exist (line 614),
the process 600 may
continue to check for modification of the browser-accessible storage item
(block 610). In some
embodiments, for example, the modification of the browser-accessible storage
item may be
checked every second, every 2 seconds, every 4 second, every 5 seconds, every
30 seconds,
every minute, or every 5 minutes or greater. If the browser-accessible storage
item has been
modified (line 616), then the offer identifier may be read from the browser-
accessible storage
item (block 618).
100108] Figure 6B depicts further details of the process 600, as illustrated
by connection block
A. As shown in Figure 6B, after reading the offer identifier, the merchant
providing the offer
("offer merchant") associated with the offer identifier may be determined
(block 620). For
example, the offer merchant may be retrieved from the offers engine 12 based
on the offer
identifier. The offer merchant may be compared to the merchant associated with
the merchant
webpage loaded in the first browser instance (decision block 622). If the
offer merchant does not
match the merchant associated with the merchant webpage (line 626), then the
process 600 may
continue to check for modification of the browser-accessible storage item
(block 610), as
illustrated by connection block B in Figures 6A and 6B. Thus, if the offer
merchant does not
match the merchant associated with the merchant website, the redemption header
may not be
provided on the merchant website, as the offer is not applicable to the
merchant and cannot be
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used on the merchant website. In some embodiments, for example, the offers
engine 12 may
return a value of "false" if the offer merchant does not match the merchant
associated with the
merchant webpage and return a value of the offer redemption identifier if the
offer merchant
matches the merchant associated with the merchant webpage.
[00109] If the offer merchant matches the merchant associated with the
merchant website
loaded in the first browser instance (line 626), customizations for the
redemption bar may be
retrieved (block 628) from customization data 630. The customization data may
include, for
example, background colors, text colors, fonts, text, text sizes, images,
image sizes, and other
customizations to the redemption bar. After retrieving the specific
customizations for the
redemption bar, the redemption bar may be provided in the empty webpage
element on the
merchant webpage (block 632) loaded in the first browser instance. As
described above,
providing the redemption bar may include providing images, text, and other
components that
form the redemption header to the browser. In some embodiments, the static
content such as
images and text associated with the redemption header may be provided from a
CDN (e.g., a
CDN having a eookieless domain) and may be compressed to optimize transmission
and loading
time. Additionally, in some embodiments, the size and number of content
associated with the
redemption header may be minimized to facilitate faster transmission and
loading time. The
redemption header may then be displayed in the merchant webpage loaded in the
first browser
instance.
[00110] As described above, after the redemption header is provided, a user
may select the
close control to remove the redemption header from the merchant webpage. In
such
embodiments, a message may be asynchronously provided to remove the redemption
header (and
the associated webpage element) from the merchant webpage and to remove the
browser-
accessible storage item. The redemption header may remain removed from the
merchant
webpage until the user returns to the offers webpage and selects a new offer.
[001111 Figure 7 depicts a process 700 for populating an input field of a
merchant webpage
with an offer redemption identifier in accordance with an embodiment of the
present invention.
Some or all steps of the process 700 may be implemented as executable computer
code stored on
a non-transitory tangible computer-readable storage medium and executed by one
or more
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processors of a special-purpose machine, e.g., a computing device programmed
to execute the
code. As described above and illustrated in Figure 4C, a merchant webpage 702
having a
redemption bar may be loaded in a browser instance on a client device. As
described above, a
user may open a merchant webpage in a first browser instance, and a redemption
bar may be
provided on the merchant webpage in response to the selection of an offer in a
second browser
instance. As also described above, the merchant webpage may include one or
more input fields
for entering data, such as an offer redemption identifier, e.g., a coupon
code.
[00112] After the redemption bar is provided on the merchant webpage 702, a
field identifier
associated with the merchant may be retrieved (block 704), such as from
merchant data 706 of
the offers engine 12. For example, merchant data 706 may be a database or
other data repository
that stores a list of merchants and corresponding input fields for receiving
offer redemption
identifiers. The merchants may be identified by name, a numeric identifier, or
other suitable
identifiers. In some embodiments, the field identifiers may be provided
directly from a merchant
to the offers engine 12 or, in other embodiments, the identification of input
fields may be
determined (e.g., by scraping or other means") from the content of merchant
webpages.
[001131 Next, the input fields on the merchant webpage may be identified
(block 706). For
example, a webpage element associated with an input field, such as an HTML tag
or other
webpage element included in the merchant webpage, may be identified. The input
field may be
compared to the field identifier associated with the merchant to determine if
the input field
matches the field identifier (decision block 708). If the input field does not
match the field
identifier associated with the merchant (line 710), process 700 may continue
when another
merchant webpage is retrieved and loaded in the browser instance (block 712).
It should be
appreciated that although the process 700 illustrates the identification of an
input field, multiple
input fields may be identified in the process 700. For example, multiple field
identifiers may be
consecutively or concurrently retrieved, and multiple input fields may be
consecutively or
concurrently retrieved and matched to the field identifiers.
1001141 If the input field matches the field identifier associated with the
merchant (line 714),
the input field may be populated with the offer redemption identifier (block
716). As explained
above, the offer redemption identifier may be stored in clipboard or other
temporary memory and
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may be automatically pasted from the clipboard to the input field identified
by the field
identifier. Accordingly, as shown above in Figure 4G, when a user navigates to
a merchant
webpage having an input field for receiving an offer redemption identifier, a
value of the offer
redemption identifier displayed in the redemption bar may be automatically
populated into the
input field.
[00115] Figure 8 depicts a process 800 for providing user feedback requests in
a redemption
bar in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Initially, the
submission of an
offer redemption identifier, e.g., a coupon code, or other submissions may be
detected (block
802). In some embodiments, the submission of an order or other submission on a
merchant
webpage may be detected. After detecting submission of an offer identifier or
another
submission, a user feedback request may be provided in the redemption bar
(block 804). For
example, as described above, images, text, and other content for the user
feedback request may
be asynchronously retrieved from the offers engine 12 and provided in the
redemption bar. After
providing a user feedback request, user feedback may be received from a user
(block 806), such
as a selection of a user feedback control, text input in a user feedback
field, and the like.
[00116] Next, the user feedback may be evaluated to determine if the user
feedback matches a
condition (block 808). Such conditions may include, for example, if a specific
user feedback
control was selected, if text input matches a specific string, if a numeric
input is above or below
a specific value, or any other suitable conditions. If the user feedback does
not match the
specified condition (line 810), the user feedback requests may be ended and an
indication may be
provided to a user (block 812). For example, text and other content may be
retrieved and
provided in the redemption bar that indicates to the user that the transaction
and user feedback
requests are complete.
[00117] If the user feedback matches the specified condition (line 814), a
second user feedback
request may be provided in the redemption bar (block 816). Here again, as
described above,
images, text, and other content for the second user feedback request may be
asynchronously
retrieved from the offers engine 12 and provided in the redemption bar. Next,
second user
feedback may be received from the user (block 818), such as selection of a
user feedback control,
text input in an input field, and the like. After receiving the second user
feedback, the user
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feedback requests may be ended and an indication, such as text and other
content retrieved and
provided in the redemption bar, may be provided to a user (block 812).
Although only two user
feedback requests are described above and illustrated in Figure 8, it should
be appreciated that, in
some embodiments, three, four, five, or more user feedback requests may be
consecutively
provided in the manner similar to that described above. Alternatively, only
one user feedback
request may be provided in some embodiments.
[00118] As described above, in some embodiments a redemption bar may be
customized by
retrieving customization data from the offers engine 12. The customizations
may include
customizations to the appearance and content of the redemption bar.
Additionally, an
administrator, such as administrator associated with a merchant, may be able
to change the
customizations for a particular implementation of the redemption bar used on a
merchant
web site.
[00119] Figure 9 depicts a system 900 for providing redemption bar
customizations in
accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in Figure 9,
a screen 902 of
a browser instance depicts a merchant webpage 904 of a merchant website 906
loaded in the
browser instance in the manner described above. The merchant webpage 904 may
include, for
example, a search field 908, search button 910, and a merchant storefront 912
similar to the
embodiments described above. As also shown in Figure 9, a redemption bar 914
may be
provided on the merchant webpage 904 in the manner described above. The
redemption bar may
include, for example, descriptive text 916, a coupon code box 918, and an
offer redemption
identifier, e.g., a coupon code 920. It should be appreciated that the
redemption bar 914 may
include other content, such as text, images, and the like, as described above.
[00120] As shown in Figure 9, the offers engine 12 may include customization
data 922 that
includes customizations for the redemption bar 914. The customization data 922
may be stored
in a database or other data repository. For example, Figure 9 depicts a data
structure 924, such as
a table, object or other structure, that may store customization attributes
and corresponding
values. As shown in the data structure 924, such customizations may include a
"Backgnd color"
having a value of "Valuel", a "Text color" having a value of "Value2", a
"Coupon color" having
a value of "Value 3", a "Font" having a value of Value 4, and so on. Any
suitable customizations
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may be stored as customization data 922. In some embodiments, an attribute may
have a default
value if no value is specified for the attribute in the customization data 922
[00121] As described above, when the redemption bar 914 is provided on the
merchant
webpage 904, the customizations for the redemption bar 914 may be retrieved.
Thus, using the
example depicted in Figure 9, the redemption bar 914 may include a background
color of
"Value 1", a text color of "Value2", a coupon code of "Value3", and a font of
"Va1ue4." The
values may be retrieved and used during providing of the redemption bar 914.
Moreover, the
attributes and values may be transmitted in any suitable format similar to or
different than the
data structure 924, such as JSON, XML, or other suitable formats.
1001221 In some embodiments, a set of customization data 922 may be stored for
each
merchant and associated with a merchant identifier. Thus, when the
customization data 922 is
retrieved, a merchant identifier associated with the merchant webpage 904 may
be provided and
used to obtain merchant-specific customization attributes and values from the
customization data
922. For example, in embodiments, a merchant identifier may be associated with
an object
having various properties that correspond to the customizable attributes of
the redemption
header.
[00123] The system 900 may also provide for the editing of customization data
922 by an
administrator, such as administrator associated with a merchant. For example,
a merchant may
desire to customize the "look and feel" of the redemption bar 914 to match the
merchant website
406, to ensure that a user is made aware of the merchant associated with an
offer, to provide
merchant-specific instructions to a user, etc. Accordingly, the offers engine
12 may include a
web server 926 configured to provide a website 928 for redemption bar
customizations. The
website 928 may provide, for example, a user interface 930 for viewing and
editing the
customization data 922. As will be appreciated, an administrator may open the
website 928 and
edit customization data 922 associated with a merchant, such as by changing a
background color,
a text color, a coupon color, and so on. An administrator may submit changes
in the user
interface 930 to the web server 926 such that changes are written to the
customization data 922
Consequently, the redemption bar associated with the merchant may be provided
with the edited
customizations. It should be appreciated that the offers engine 12 may include
any suitable
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components suitable for facilitating the storage, viewing, and editing of
customization data, such
as database servers, application servers, web servers, network devices, and so
on.
[001241 Figure 10 depicts of a computer 1000 in accordance with an embodiment
of the
present invention. Various sections of systems and computer-implemented
methods described
herein, may include or be executed on one or more computers similar to
computer 1000. Further,
processes and modules described herein may be executed by one or more
processing systems
similar to that of computer 1000. The computer 1000 may include various
internal and external
components that contribute to the function of the device and which may allow
the computer 1000
to function in accordance with the techniques discussed herein. It should
further be noted that
Figure 10 depicts merely one example of a particular implementation and is
intended to illustrate
the types of components arid functionalities that may be present in computer
1000.
[00125] Computer 1000 may include any combination of devices or software that
may pedal in
or otherwise provide for the perfatmance of the techniques described herein.
For example,
computer 1000 may include a tablet, a mobile phone, such as a smartphone, a
video game device,
and other hand-held networked computing devices, a desktop user device, a
server, or other
computing devices. Computer 1000 may also be connected to other devices that
are not
illustrated, or may operate as a stand-alone system. In addition, the
functionality provided by the
illustrated components may in some embodiments be combined in fewer components
or
distributed in additional components. Similarly, in some embodiments, the
functionality of some
of the illustrated components may not be provided or other additional
functionality may be
available.
1001261 In addition, the computer 1000 may allow a user to connect to and
communicate
through a network (e.g., the Internet, a local area network, a wide area
network. etc.) and may
provide communication over a satellite-based positioning system (e.g., GPS).
For example, the
computer 1000 may allow a user to communicate using e-mail, text messaging,
instant
messaging, or using other forms of electronic communication, and may allow a
user to obtain the
location of the device from the satellite-based positioning system, such as
the location on an
interactive map.
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[00127] As shown in Figure 10, the computer 1000 may include a processor 1002
(e.g., one or
more processors) coupled to a memory 1004, a display 1006, and a network
interface 1008 via an
interface 1010. It should be appreciated the computer 1000 may include other
components not
shown in Figure 10, such as a power source (e.g., a battery), I/O ports,
expansion card interfaces,
hardware buttons, etc. In some embodiments, the display 1006 may include a
liquid crystal
display (LCD) or an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display. The display
1006 may display
a user interface (e.g., a graphical user interface), and may also display
various function and
system indicators to provide feedback to a user, such as power status, call
status, memory status,
etc. These indicators may be in incorporated into the user interface displayed
on the display
1006. In accordance with some embodiments, the display 1006 may include or be
provided in
conjunction with touch sensitive elements through which a user may interact
with the user
interface. Such a touch-sensitive display may be referred to as a
"touchscreen" and may also be
referred to as a touch-sensitive display. In such embodiments, the display
1006 may include a
capacitive touchscreen, a resistive touchscreen, or any other suitable
touchscreen technology.
[00128] The processor 1002 may provide the processing capability required to
execute the
operating system, programs, user interface, and any functions of the computer
1000. The
processor 1002 may include one or more processors that may include "general-
purpose"
microprocessors and special purpose microprocessors, such as one or more
reduced instruction
set (RISC) processors, such as those implementing the Advanced RISC Machine
(ARM)
instruction set. Additionally, the processor 1002 may include single-core
processors and
multicore processors and may include graphics processors, video processors,
and related chip
sets. A processor may receive instructions and data from a memory (e.g.,
system memory 1004).
Processes, such as those described herein may be performed by one or more
programmable
processors executing computer code to perform functions by operating on input
data and
generating corresponding output.
[001291 The memory 1004 (which may include tangible non-transitory computer
readable
storage mediums) may include volatile memory and non-volatile memory
accessible by the
processor 1002 and other components of the computer 1000. The memory 1004 may
include
volatile memory, such as random access memory (RAM), and non-volatile memory,
such as
ROM, flash memory, a hard drive, any other suitable optical, magnetic, or
solid-state storage
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medium, or a combination thereof. The memory 1004 may store a variety of
infounation and
may be used for a variety of purposes. For example, the memory 1004 may store
executable
code, such as the firmware for the computer 1000, an operating system for the
computer 1000,
and any other programs. The executable computer code may include instructions
executable by
a processor, such as processor 1002, and the computer may include instructions
for
implementing one or more techniques described herein with regard to various
processes. For
example, the memory 1004 may store an application 1012. For example, if the
computer 1000
represents a user device, the application 1012 may include a web browser and
may enable a user
to view offers, such as online coupons, and select and redeem online coupons
using the user
actions described above. In other embodiments, for example, the computer 1000
may represent a
server and the application 1012 may implement some or all of the processes
described above in
Figures 5A and 5B, 6A and 6B, 7 and 8. The executable code may be written in a
programming
language, including compiled or interpreted languages, or declarative or
procedural language,
and may be composed into a unit suitable for use in a computing environment,
including as a
stand-alone program, a module, a component, a subroutine. Such code program
may be stored in
a section of a file that holds other programs or data (e.g., one or more
scripts stored in a markup
language document), in a single file dedicated to the program in question, or
in multiple
coordinated files (e.g., files that store one or more modules, sub programs,
or sections of code).
Additionally, the copies of the executable code may be stored in both non-
volatile and volatile
memories, such as in a non-volatile memory for long-term storage and a
volatile memory during
execution of the code.
[00130] The interface 1010 may include multiple interfaces and may couple
various
components of the computer 1000 to the processor 1002 and memory 1004. In some

embodiments, the interface 1010, the processor 1002, memory 1004, and one or
more other
components of the computer 1000 may be implemented on a single chip, such as a
system-on-a-
chip (SOC). In other embodiments, these components, their functionalities, or
both may be
implemented on separate chips. The interface 1010 may be configured to
coordinate I/O traffic
between processor 1002, memory 1004, network interface 1006, and other
internal and external
components of the computer 1000. The interface 1010 may include functionality
for interfacing
via various types of peripheral buses, such as a variant of the Peripheral
Component Interconnect
(PCI) bus standard, the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard, and the like.
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[00131] The computer 1000 depicted in Figure 10 also includes a network
interface 1008, such
as a wired network interface, wireless (e.g., radio frequency) receivers, etc.
For example, the
network interface 1008 may receive and send electromagnetic signals and
communicate with
communications networks and other communications devices via the
electromagnetic signals.
The network interface 1008may include known circuitry for performing these
functions,
including an antenna system, an RF transceiver, one or more amplifiers, a
tuner, one or more
oscillators, a digital signal processor, a CODEC chipset, a subscriber
identity module (SIM)
card, memory, and so forth. The network interface 1004 may communicate with
networks, such
as the Internet, an intranet, a cellular telephone network, a wireless local
area network (LAN), a
metropolitan area network (MAN), or other devices by wireless communication.
The network
interface 1008 may suitable any suitable communications standard, protocol and
technology,
including Ethernet, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Enhanced
Data GSM
Environment (EDGE), a 4G network (e.g., based upon the IMT-2000 standard),
high-speed
downlink packet access (HSDPA), wideband code division multiple access (W-
CDMA), code
division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), a 4G
network (e.g.,
IMT Advanced, Long-Teim Evolution Advanced (LIE Advanced), etc.), Bluetooth,
Wireless
Fidelity (Wi-Fi) (e.g., IEEE 1002.11a, IEEE 1002.11b, IEEE 1002.11g or IEEE
1002.11n), voice
over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Wi-MAX, a protocol for email (e.g., Internet
message access
protocol (IMAP) or post office protocol (POP)), instant messaging (e.g.,
extensible messaging
and presence protocol (XMPP), Session Initiation Protocol for Instant
Messaging and Presence
Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE), Instant Messaging and Presence Service
(IMPS)), Multimedia
Messaging Service (MMS), Short Message Service (SMS), or any other suitable
communication
protocol.
[00132] Those skilled in the art will also appreciate that, while various
items are illustrated as
being stored in memory or on storage while being used, these items or sections
of them may be
transferred between memory and other storage devices for purposes of memory
management and
data integrity. Alternatively, in other embodiments some or all of the
software components may
execute in memory on another device and communicate with the illustrated
computer system via
inter-computer communication. Some or all of the system components or data
structures may
also be stored (e.g., as instructions or structured data) on a computer-
readable medium or a
portable article to be read by an appropriate drive, various examples of which
are described
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above. In some embodiments, instructions stored on a computer- readable medium
separate from
computer 1000 may be transmitted to computer 1000 via transmission media or
signals such as
electrical, electromagnetic, or digital signals, conveyed via a communication
medium such as a
network or a wireless link. Various embodiments may further include receiving,
sending or
storing instructions or data implemented in accordance with the foregoing
description upon a
computer-accessible medium. Accordingly, the present invention may be
practiced with other
computer system configurations.
[00133] Various embodiments may further include receiving, sending or storing
instructions
and/or data implemented in accordance with the foregoing description upon a
computer-
accessible medium. Generally speaking, a computer-accessible/readable storage
medium may
include a non-transitory storage media such as magnetic or optical media,
(e.g., disk or
DVD/CD-ROM), volatile or non-volatile media such as RAM (e.g. SDRAM, DDR,
RDRA1VI,
SRAM, etc.), ROM, etc., as well as transmission media or signals such as
electrical,
electromagnetic, or digital signals, conveyed via a communication medium such
as network
and/or a wireless link.
[00134] Further modifications and alternative embodiments of various aspects
of the invention
will be apparent to those skilled in the art in view of this description.
Accordingly, this
description is to be construed as illustrative only and is for the purpose of
teaching those skilled
in the art the general manner of carrying out the invention. It is to be
understood that the forms
of the invention shown and described herein are to be taken as examples of
embodiments.
Elements and materials may be substituted for those illustrated and described
herein, parts and
processes may be reversed or omitted, and certain features of the invention
may be utilized
independently, all as would be apparent to one skilled in the art after having
the benefit of this
description of the invention. Changes may be made in the elements described
herein without
departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as described in the
following claims.
Headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to
be used to limit
the scope of the description.
As used throughout this application, the word "may" is used in a permissive
sense (i.e., meaning
having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning
must). The words
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"include", "including", and "includes" mean including, but not limited to. As
used throughout
this application, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the include plural
referents unless the content
clearly indicates otherwise. Thus, for example, reference to "an element"
includes a combination
of two or more elements. Unless specifically stated otherwise, as apparent
from the discussion, it
is appreciated that throughout this specification discussions utilizing terms
such as "processing",
"computing", -calculating", "determining" or the like refer to actions or
processes of a specific
apparatus, such as a special purpose computer or a similar special purpose
electronic
processing/computing device. In the context of this specification, a special
purpose computer or
a similar special purpose electronic processing/computing device is capable of
manipulating or
transforming signals, typically represented as physical electronic or magnetic
quantities within
memories, registers, or other information storage devices, transmission
devices, or display
devices of the special purpose computer or similar special purpose electronic
processing/computing device.
[00135] The present application will be better understood with reference to
the following
enumerated examples of embodiments:
1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
providing a webpage element of a merchant webpage in a first browser instance;
detecting a modification to a browser-accessible storage item modified by a
second
browser instance, the modification based on a user selection of an offer from
an offers webpage
provided in the second browser instance, the offer associated with a selected
offer redemption
identifier and a selected merchant;
reading an offer identifier associated with the selected offer from the
browser-accessible
storage item;
deteimining whether the selected merchant associated with the offer identifier
matches a
merchant associated with the merchant website;
inserting, by one or more processors, a redemption header in the webpage
element of the
merchant webpage if the selected merchant matches the merchant associated with
the merchant
website, the redemption header including the selected offer redemption
identifier associated with
the selected offer, the redemption header being displayed on the merchant
webpage; and
providing, by one or more processors, the webpage element of the merchant
webpage as
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an empty webpage element if the selected merchant does not match the merchant
associated with
the merchant website
2. The computer-implemented method of embodiment 1, wherein the offers
webpage
comprises a plurality of offers associated with a respective plurality of
merchants and a
respective plurality of offer redemption identifiers.
3. The computer-implemented method of any of embodiments 1-2, wherein
inserting the
redemption header into the merchant webpage comprises inserting a script
executable by the first
browser instance in the merchant webpage, the script being configured to
insert the redemption
header in a document object model (DOM) of the merchant webpage.
4. The computer-implemented method of any of embodiments 1-3, wherein the
webpage
element comprises an inline frame.
5. The computer-implemented method of any of embodiments 1-4, wherein
inserting the
redemption header in the merchant webpage is performed asynchronously relative
to a loading of
the merchant webpage in the browser.
6. The computer-implemented method of any of embodiments 1-5, wherein the
browser-
accessible storage item comprises a cookie.
7. The computer-implemented method of any of embodiments 1-6, wherein the
redemption
header comprises an image, text, or a combination thereof.
8. The computer-implemented method of any of embodiments 1-7, wherein the
offer
comprises an online coupon, a discount, a rebate, or a combination thereof.
9. The computer-implemented method of any of embodiments 1-8, wherein the
offer
redemption identifier comprises a coupon code, a discount description, a
rebate instruction, or a
combination thereof
10. The computer-implemented method of any of embodiments 1-9, wherein the
selected
offer comprises an online coupon and the offer redemption identifier comprises
a coupon code.
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11. The computer-implemented method of any of embodiments 1-10, comprising
receiving,
at one or more processors, a request to submit the offer redemption identifier
for redemption and
transmitting the request over a network, to a server associated with an
affiliate or the merchant.
12. The computer-implemented method of any of embodiments 1-11, wherein
inserting the
redemption header comprises retrieving an attribute and a respective value for
customizing the
redemption header.
13. The computer-implemented method of embodiment 12, wherein the attribute
comprises a
background color, a text color, a text size, or a font.
14. The computer-implemented method of any of embodiments 1-13, comprising:

providing in the second browser instance executing on a user device, by one or
more
processors, the offers webpage from the offers engine; and
receiving, by one or more processors, the user selection of the offer, the
selected offer
being associated with the offer redemption identifier and the selected
merchant.
15. A non-transitory, computer-readable medium storing instructions that,
when executed by
a data processing apparatus, cause the data processing apparatus to effectuate
operations
comprising the methods of any of embodiments 1-14.
16. A system, comprising one or more processors and memory storing
instructions that when
executed by one or more of the processors cause the processors to effectuate
the methods of any
of embodiments 1-14.
17. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having executable computer
code stored
thereon, the executable computer code comprising instructions that, when
executed, cause one or
more processors to perform the following:
providing a webpage element of a merchant webpage in a first browser instance;
providing in a second browser instance executing on a user device, by one or
more
processors, an offers webpage from an offers engine, wherein the offers
webpage comprises a
plurality of offers associated with a respective plurality of merchants and a
respective plurality of
offer redemption identifiers;
receiving, by one or more processors, a user selection of the offer, the
selected offer
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being associated with an offer redemption identifier and a selected merchant.
detecting a modification to a browser-accessible storage item modified by the
second
browser instance, the modification perfoinied in response to the user
selection of the offer;
reading an offer identifier associated with the selected offer from the
browser-accessible
storage item;
deteimining whether the selected merchant associated with the offer identifier
matches a
merchant associated with the merchant website;
inserting, by one or more processors, a redemption header in the webpage
element of the
merchant webpage if the selected merchant matches the merchant associated with
the merchant
website, the redemption header including the selected offer redemption
identifier associated with
the selected offer, the redemption header being displayed on the merchant
webpage; and
providing, by one or more processors, the webpage element of the merchant
webpage as
an empty webpage element if the selected merchant does not match the merchant
associated with
the merchant website.
18. A method comprising the operations of embodiment 17.
19. A system, comprising one or more processors and memory storing
instructions that when
executed by one or more of the processors cause the processors to effectuate
the method of
embodiment 17.
20. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
providing a webpage element of a first merchant webpage in a first browser
instance;
inserting, by one or more processors, a redemption header in the webpage
element of the
first merchant webpage, the redemption header including an offer redemption
identifier
associated with a selected offer, the redemption header being displayed on the
merchant
webpage;
detecting, by one or more processors, an input field in a second merchant
webpage
having the redemption header;
determining whether the input field is configured to receive the offer
redemption
identifier; and

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populating the input field with a value corresponding to the offer redemption
identifier
based on the determination.
21. The computer-implemented method of embodiment 20, wherein dcteimining
whether the
input field is configured to receive the offer redemption identifier
comprising:
obtaining a field identifier associated with a merchant of the merchant
webpage; and
comparing the input field to the field identifier.
22. The computer-implemented method of any of embodiments 20-21, wherein
the offer
redemption identifier comprises a coupon code and the value comprises text
corresponding to the
coupon code.
23. A non-transitory, computer-readable medium storing instructions that,
when executed by
a data processing apparatus, cause the data processing apparatus to effectuate
operations
comprising the methods of any of embodiments 20-22.
24. A system, comprising one or more processors and memory storing
instructions that when
executed by one or more of the processors cause the processors to effectuate
the methods of any
of embodiments 20-22.
25. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
providing, by one or more processors, a webpage element of a merchant webpage
in a
first browser instance;
inserting, by one or more processors, a redemption header in the webpage
element of the
merchant webpage, the redemption header including an offer redemption
identifier associated
with a selected offer, the redemption header being displayed on the merchant
webpage:
detecting, by one or more processors, submission of the offer redemption
identifier for
redemption;
providing, by one or more processors, a first user feedback request in the
redemption
header, the first user feedback request comprising first user feedback text, a
first user feedback
control, a first user feedback field, or any combination thereof;
receiving, by one or more processors, first user feedback in response to the
first user
feedback request, the first user feedback comprising a selection of a user
feedback control, an
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CA 02876007 2014-12-05
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input into a user feedback field, or a combination thereof;
determining, by one or more processors, whether the first user feedback
matches a
condition;
providing, by one or more processors, a second user feedback request in the
redemption
header if the first user feedback matches the condition, the second user
feedback request
comprising second user feedback text, a second user feedback control, a second
user feedback
field, or any combination thereof; and
providing, by one or more processors, an indication in the redemption header
that the first
user feedback request is complete.
26. The computer-implemented method of embodiment 25, comprising receiving,
by one or
more processors, second user feedback in response to the second user feedback
request, the
second user feedback comprising a selection of a second feedback control, an
input into a second
feedback field, or a combination thereof
27. The computer-implemented method of any of embodiments 25-26, providing,
by one or
more processors, an indication in the redemption header that the second user
feedback request is
complete.
28. A non-transitory, computer-readable medium storing instructions that,
when executed by
a data processing apparatus, cause the data processing apparatus to effectuate
operations
comprising the methods of any of embodiments 25-27.
29. A system, comprising one or more processors and memory storing
instructions that when
executed by one or more of the processors cause the processors to effectuate
the methods of any
of embodiments 25-27.
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Representative Drawing