Cross-device geolocation sensing to geotarget offers

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9595049-B2
Application number	US-201414467590-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 25, 2014
Priority date	Jun 11, 2012
Publication date	Mar 14, 2017
Grant date	Mar 14, 2017

Abstract

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

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of distributing coupons or other offers to non-location-sensing devices based on a geolocation sensed by another device, the method comprising:
obtaining a geolocation of a user from a mobile device of the user, the geolocation being sensed with the mobile device of the user;
associating the geolocation of the user with an identifier of the user in an offers engine, the user having a user account in the offers engine associated with the identifier of the user;
receiving a request for an offer from another computing device of the user, the other computing device of the user being a different device from the mobile device of the user, the request including or prompting obtaining data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account;
retrieving the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device by identifying the user account with the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account;
selecting, with the offers engine, a responsive offer based on the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device, wherein the responsive offer is responsive to the request for an offer from the other computing device, wherein the selection uses cross-device geolocation sensing to customize the presentation of offers on the other computing device of the user without requiring the other computing device of the user to have a geolocation sensor; and
sending the responsive offer to the other computing device of the user.

2. The method of claim 1 , comprising:
receiving credentials of the user for accessing the user account from the mobile device of the user;
receiving the credentials of the user for accessing the user account from the other computing device.

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

4. The method of claim 1 , comprising:
sending to the other computing device a log-in interface configured to return the credentials of the user for accessing the user account to the offers engine;
receiving the credentials of the user for accessing the user account from the other computing device;
determining that the credentials match the user account; and
after determining that the credentials match the user account, sending the other computing device instructions to store the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account in persistent storage that retains data when the other computing device is turned off.

5. The method of claim 4 , comprising:
after receiving the request for an offer from the other computing device, sending the other computing device instructions that when executed cause the other computing device to perform operations comprising:
retrieving from persistent storage the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account; and
sending to the offers engine the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account.

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

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

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

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

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

11. The method of claim 1 , comprising:
retrieving the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account by cookie-syncing with a web domain different from a web domain of the offers engine.

12. The method of claim 1 , retrieving the data from the other computing device sufficient to identify the user account by cookie-syncing by:
obtaining an email address of the user when the user account is created during installation of a native mobile application on the mobile device of the user; and
sending a web browser of the other computing device instructions to retrieve content from another web domain different from a web domain of the offers engine, the other web domain being configured to respond to a request to retrieve the content from the web browser by causing an identifier of the email address to be sent to the offers engine.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein selecting, with the offers engine, a responsive offer based on the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device comprises:
selecting from a plurality of offer records, each offer record describing an offer and being associated with an offer geolocation, one or more offer records having an offer geolocation including the geolocation of the user or having an offer geolocation within a threshold distance to the geolocation of the user.

14. The method of claim 1 , comprising obtaining a plurality of time-stamped geolocations of the user are obtained from the mobile device, wherein selecting, with the offers engine, a responsive offer based on the geolocation of the user obtained from the mobile device comprises:
determining a measure of central tendency of user geolocations of at least some of the time-stamped geolocations; and
selecting from a plurality of offer records, each offer record describing an offer and being associated with an offer geolocation, one or more offer records having an offer geolocation including the measure of central tendency of user geolocations or having an offer geolocation within a threshold distance to the measure of central tendency of user geolocations.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the geolocation specifies a latitude and longitude of the user;
the mobile device of the user is a cell phone;
the geolocation of the user is obtained by a native application executing on the mobile device, the native application storing in memory of the mobile device user credentials by which the native application accesses the user account in the offers engine, wherein the native application monitors the geolocation of the user with an object that is an instance of a class of an operating system of the mobile device and sends the geolocation to the offers engine over the Internet with data from the mobile device sufficient to identify the user account;
associating the geolocation of the user with the identifier of the user comprises matching the data from the mobile device sufficient to identify the user account with the user account of the user and storing the geolocation of the user in the user account of the user with a time-stamp indicative of when the geolocation was obtained;
the identifier of the user uni

Assignees

• Retailmenot Inc

Inventors

• Showers Brian Keith
• Zilkha Eithan

Classifications

• G06Q30/0261 Primary

  based on user location · CPC title

• G06Q30/0255

  based on user history · CPC title

• G06Q30/0256

  User search · CPC title

• G06Q30/0267

  Wireless devices · CPC title

• G06Q30/0239

  Online discounts or incentives · CPC title