Patent ID: 7359866

Claim:
A method for promoting customer loyalty comprising: establishing on a customer loyalty server a first database for storing visitor identification data, the database comprising a registration table for storing unique identifiers of registered visitors; establishing on the customer loyalty server a second database for storing merchant identification data, the identification data including unique merchant identifiers of affiliate merchants; recording in the second database a unique merchant identifier and an associated profile of at least one affiliate merchant; the customer loyalty server generating and transmitting to the at least one affiliate merchant a digital file for integrating onto the affiliate merchant's website, the digital file comprising an HTML tag comprising a link to the customer loyalty server, the link being served by a common gateway interface (CGI) script; upon a visitor's access to the at least one affiliate merchant's website, executing the CGI script, the CGI script generating a second digital file comprising: the unique merchant identifier; and if the visitor is registered, a unique identifier of the visitor previously recorded on equipment of the visitor; transmitting the second digital file to the customer loyalty server for processing to determine whether the second digital file comprises the visitor's unique identifier, thereby signaling to the customer loyalty server whether the visitor is registered; if the visitor is registered, allocating reward points to the visitor according to the affiliate merchant's profile by incrementing a counter associated with the visitor; and transmitting to the visitor an active pictogram for displaying the allocated reward points, in the case where the visitor is registered, or transmitting a digital registration form to the visitor if the visitor is not registered.