Targeted marketing with cpe buydown

Abstract

When incentivizing vendors to give greater discounts on items or services offered or advertised to specific customers on a third-party website in exchange for reduced advertisement pricing, a vendor enters offer parameters (e.g., item or service for sale, price or discount amount, terms of the offer, a permitted number of acceptances of the offer, etc.) into a user interface along with target customer criteria (e.g., age, gender, minimum income, etc.). The target criteria is matched to customer profile data, and an advertisement generated using the offer parameter information is presented to customers whose profiles match the target criteria. In return for offering larger discounts, a cost per event (CPE) associated with the advertisement is reduced for the vendor. An invoice is generated and transmitted to the vendor, and upon receipt of payment, the advertisement provider remits a portion of the received payment to the website owner.

1 . A method of presenting targeted advertisements to qualified customers while providing a scalable, discount-dependent cost structure to a vendor placing the advertisements, comprising:
 receiving offer parameters from a vendor;   accessing a cost-per-event (CPE) lookup table (LUT) that includes pricing information for each instance of a predefined event associated with an advertisement according to the offer parameters;   identifying qualified customers by matching key lifestyle indicators (KLIs) in an anonymized customer profile to target customer KLIs specified by the vendor in the offer parameters;   presenting the advertisement to qualified customers when the qualified customers log on to a predetermined website;   tallying the number of advertisement-associated events that occur within a predetermined time period; and   periodically generating an invoice comprising the tally of events, the CPE for the events, and a total cost of the advertisements;   wherein the CPE for the events is adjustable as a function of the size of an offer or discount presented in the advertisement and specified by the vendor in the offer parameters.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the offer parameters further include information describing:
 one or more of an item and a service being offered;   an expiration date for the offer; and   one or more other terms of the offer.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the cost per event is inversely proportional to the size of the discount presented in the advertisement. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the event is a predetermined number of presentations of the advertisement to qualified customers. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the event is a predetermined number of clicks on the advertisement by qualified customers. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising transmitting the invoice to the vendor, receiving payment from the vendor, and remitting a portion of the received payment to an owner of the website on which the advertisements are placed. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the website is a financial institution website, and further including remitting the portion of the received payment to the financial institution. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the CPE LUT correlates discount values to CPEs, such that advertisements offering higher discounts have lower CPEs. 
     
     
         9 . A processor that executes, and a computer-readable medium that stores, computer-executable instructions for performing the method of  claim 1 . 
     
     
         10 . A system that facilitates presenting targeted advertisements to qualified customers while providing a scalable, discount-dependent cost structure to a vendor placing the advertisements, comprising:
 a server that is coupled to each of a vendor user interface (UI), a third party website, and a customer user interface, and which includes a processor that executes, and a memory that stores, computer-executable instructions, the instructions including:   receiving offer parameters from a vendor user interface (UI), the offer parameters including information related to an offer to be presented on the third party website;   generating an advertisement describing the offer based on the offer parameters;   matching customer profile key lifestyle indicators (KLIs) to target customer criteria specified in the offer parameters to identify qualified customers;   presenting the advertisement on the third party website to the qualified customers when the qualified customers log on to the third party website;   tallying a number of advertisement events that occur within a predetermined time period;   determining a cost per event (CPE) related to advertisement presentations for the advertisement by performing a table lookup on a CPE lookup table (LUT) that correlates CPEs to discount values; and   generating an invoice for the vendor that describes the tally of events for the advertisement, the CPE for the advertisement, and a total cost for the advertisement;   wherein the CPE is adjustable as a function of the size of an offer or discount by the vendor for an item or service described in the offer parameters.   
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the offer parameters further include information describing one or more of:
 an item and a service being offered;   an expiration date of the offer; and   a permitted number of acceptances of the offer.   
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the cost per event is inversely proportional to the size of the discount presented in the advertisement. 
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the event is a predetermined amount of revenue generated as a result the advertisement from qualified customers. 
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the event is a predetermined number of clicks on the advertisement by qualified customers. 
     
     
         15 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the server transmits the invoice to the vendor, receives payment from the vendor, and remits a portion of the received payment to an owner of the website on which the advertisements are placed. 
     
     
         16 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the website is a financial institution website, and wherein the server remits the portion of the received payment to the financial institution. 
     
     
         17 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the CPE LUT correlates discount values to CPEs, such that advertisements offering higher discounts have lower CPEs. 
     
     
         18 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the event is the occurrence of a predetermined number of presentations of the advertisement to qualified customers. 
     
     
         19 . The system of  claim 18 , wherein the predefined number is 1000.