Employing customer points to confirm transaction

Abstract

The claimed subject matter can provide a mechanism that facilitates a new advertising and / or referral architecture in the Internet advertising space, e.g., for advertising on search engine web pages and / or on content web pages. A mechanism is provided to confirm transactions even without monitoring them e.g., by issuing perishable, non-redeemable points to a merchant based upon an advertising budget. The points can then be issued as redeemable points to a customer, e.g., based upon the customer makes a purchase from the merchant. Points transferred to the customer can verify that a transaction occurred, and can be redeemed for products / services, including a convenient “micro-payment” mechanism.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60 / 764,618, filed Feb. 2, 2006, entitled “A COMPETITIVE PERSPECTIVE ON AD-AUCTION.” This application is also related to co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. (MSFTP1391US)______ entitled “MERCHANT RANKINGS IN AD REFERRALS”, (MSFTP1392US) ______ entitled “AD TARGETING AND / OR PRICING BASED ON CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR”, (MSFTP1393US) ______ entitled “SEARCH ENGINE SEGMENTATION”, and (MSFTP1430) ______ entitled “AD PUBLISHER PERFORMANCE AND MITIGATION OF CLICK-FRAUD”, filed on ______, ______, ______, and ______, respectively. The entireties of these applications are incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] One of the fundamental principles of a free market economy is that resources (e.g., products, services, money . . . ) will tend to be redistributed by voluntary transactions in a manner that maximizes wealth and / or utility to all partie...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0015] For example, certain convention search engine providers allow advertisers to bid for ad space, and the valuation (e.g., the amount charged) is simply a price-per click (PPC) bid. Another example is a function that multiplies the bid and the click-through-rate (CTR) to obtain the valuation. However, in both of these cases, the advertiser does not have an effective price-control mechanism, and further by employing CTR, the mechanism becomes susceptible to click fraud. In accordance with the claimed subject matter, a new valuation mechanism can be employed that utilizes, e.g., a function that is the product of the bid, CTR and advertiser ranking. This mechanism can give advertisers a price control mechanism and an incentive to satisfy customers, as well as mitigating click fraud because only customers who complete transactions with the advertiser can contribute to the advertiser ranking (e.g., by way of customer satisfaction feedback).

[0017] In accordance with another aspect of the claimed subject matter, the points customers redeem to the SEP can be used to purchase products, services, memberships, etc. offered by the SEP as well as promotions by third parties. In one aspect, the product offered can be non-transferable software in which a licensing key can be linked to information pertaining to the customer. As an additional advantage, the information obtained by virtue of feedback and / or points can be used to implement a frequent buyer program to provide more incentives to customers. As can be seen, the SEP has a strong incentive to obtain feedback from customers (e.g., to get reliable data about the quality of merchants). Accordingly, the SEP can optionally require the customer to give feedback about the underlying transaction when points are redeemed to the SEP.

Problems solved by technology

Conventionally, in the Internet advertising space, monitoring transactions has not been feasible because from the perspective of the search engine provider (SEP), the transaction occurred remotely between two third-parties, with the provider acting only as an agent to unite the buyer and seller.

As such there was no convenient way to monitor those types of transactions.

However, in both of these cases, the advertiser does not have an effective price-control mechanism, and further by employing CTR, the mechanism becomes susceptible to click fraud.

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