Patent ID: 7844489
Filing Date: 2010-11-30
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A method for buyer-driven targeting by a system comprising: receiving from each of a plurality of buyer entities at least one respective third party purchase record or information derived therefrom, said purchase record or information derived therefrom comprising data associated with the purchase of products or services for which the payment was not carried out by the system, wherein the receipt of the third party purchase record or information derived therefrom occurs on the initiative and with the consent of the buyer entity associated with that purchase record; electronically storing, by computer, information associated with said data; for a plurality of product or service items offered for sale, wherein each different item in said plurality of items is either manufactured or marketed or distributed or provided by a different third party advertiser in a plurality of third party advertisers, and wherein said manufacture, marketing, distribution, point of sale payment or provision of the product or service is not carried out by the system in the ordinary course of business, electronically making, by computer, with respect to at least one of said buyer entities, based at least in part on said information, at least one decision associated with the offering of at least one from among a plurality of different preferential incentives, with each incentive associated with at least one of said product or service items and associated with at least one of the third party advertisers, wherein there is at least one different preferential incentive from each of a plurality of the different third party advertisers, each of said incentives offering at least one benefit in exchange for at least one action associated with a purchase of at least one of said items, said benefit not normally and publicly accessible to said buyer entity or other buyer entities in the same geographic region on terms which are at least objectively equivalent, and which do not include material conditions that are different from said at least one action, said decision regarding the at least one incentive that is to be offered to the buyer entity being based at least in part on stored information associated with the data relating to a purchase made by said buyer entity with a merchant other than the third party advertiser that is associated with the incentive; and facilitating the offering, by computer, of at least one of said preferential incentives to said buyer entity, without having transferred to said third party advertiser any full name associated with said buyer entity at the time that the incentive is offered but has not yet been responded to by said buyer entity, with a condition precedent for this step that the system has received from that buyer entity the at least one respective third party purchase record or information verifiably derived therefrom; wherein said making or helping to make at least one decision step further comprises the categorization of purchases listed from a plurality of independent third party merchants in the purchase records or information verifiably derived therefrom based on a set of categories; and further comprising: