Systems and methods of ranking a plurality of credit card offers

Abstract

Prescreened credit card offers, such as offers for credit cards that a particular potential borrower is likely to be granted upon completion of a full application, are ranked based on expected values of respective prescreened offers. The expected value of a prescreened credit card offer may represent an expected monetary value to one or more referrers involved in providing the prescreened offer to the borrower. Thus, the referrer may present a highest ranked credit card offer to a potential borrower first in order to increase the likelihood that borrower applies for the credit card offer with the highest expected value to the referrer. Depending on the embodiment, the expected value of a credit card offer may be based on a combination of a bounty associated with the offer, a click-through-rate for the offer, and/or a conversion rate for the offer, for example.

1 . (canceled) 
     
     
         2 . A method of determining an expected value for each of a plurality of credit card offers, the method comprising:
 receiving an indication of a plurality of prescreened credit card offers associated with an individual;   receiving an indication of a plurality of attributes associated with each of the prescreened credit card offers; and   calculating an expected value for each of the prescreened credit card offers using at least two of the plurality of attributes for each respective prescreened credit card offer.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the attributes comprise values representing one or more of: a bounty, a historical click-through-rate, a historical conversion rate, a special interest of the borrower, a geographic location of the borrower, a click propensity of the borrower, a time of day, a day of week, and a desired display rate for respective prescreened credit card offers. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the at least two of the plurality of attributes comprise a bounty value associated with a bounty for respective prescreened credit card offers and a click-though-rate value associated with a click-through-rate for respective prescreened credit card offers, wherein the respective expected values for the prescreened credit card offers are calculated by multiplying respective bounty values and click-through-rate values. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the at least two of the plurality of attributes further comprises a conversion value associated with a historical conversion rate for respective prescreened credit card offers, wherein the respective expected values for the prescreened credit card offers are calculated by multiplying respective bounty values, click-through-rate values, and conversion values. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein respective expected values for the prescreened credit card offers are calculated by multiplying respective bounty values and respective values associated with one or more of the geographic location of the borrower, the time of day, the day of week, the click propensity, and the special interest. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the at least two of the plurality of attributes comprise only a click-though-rate value associated with a click-through-rate for respective prescreened credit card offers and a conversion value associated with a historical conversion rate for respective prescreened credit card offers, wherein the respective expected values for the prescreened credit card offers are calculated by multiplying respective click-through-rate values and conversion values. 
     
     
         8 . A method of ranking a plurality of credit card offers that have been prescreened for presentation to a potential borrower, the method comprising:
 receiving information regarding each of a plurality of prescreened credit card offers;   determining an expected value of each of the prescreened credit card offers, wherein the expected value for a particular credit card offer is based on at least (1) a money amount payable to a referrer if the potential borrower is issued a particular credit card associated with the particular credit card offer, (2) an expected ratio of potential borrowers that will apply for the particular credit card offer in response to being presented with the particular credit card offer, and (3) an expected ratio of potential borrowers that will be issued the particular credit card associated with the particular credit card offer; and   ranking the plurality of credit card offers based on the expected values for the respective credit card offers.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein only the credit card offer with the highest ranking is displayed to the potential borrower. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein two or more of the credit card offers are displayed to the potential borrower in an order based on their respective rankings. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein the two or more credit card offers are displayed in a user interface provided by a commercial website. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the expected value for a particular credit card offer comprises the product of values representing (1) the money amount payable to the referrer if the potential borrower is issued the particular credit card, (2) the expected ratio of potential borrowers that will apply for the particular credit card offer in response to being presented with the particular credit card offer, and (3) the expected ratio of potential borrowers that will be issued the particular credit card associated with the particular credit card offer.