Personalized Promotion Allocation Using Intent and Budget Constraints

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing promotion systems fail to bridge the gap between customer preferences and purchasing behavior, resulting in irrelevant offers and low Return On Investment (ROI) due to non-personalized price discounts and lack of customer engagement, leading to increased churn rates and reduced profit margins.

Innovation Solution

A method and system for personalized promotion offer generation using RFM and AOV scoring, combined with a tree-based ensemble classifier and linear programming, to optimize promotion offer allocation based on customer segments, product categories, and inventory constraints, ensuring relevance and maximizing yield.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Ease of manufacture

If non-personalized price discounts are offered to all customers, then the implementation is simple and quick, but the relevance to customer preferences is low resulting in poor ROI

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveease of offer implementationVSAvoidcustomer preference relevance
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of manufactureVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments customers into distinct groups based on their purchase behavior, preferences, and engagement metrics. By dividing the customer base into segments, the system can tailor promotions to each segment's specific characteristics, thereby improving relevance without significantly increasing implementation complexity. This resolves the contradiction by enabling personalized offers through systematic customer classification.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent changes key parameters such as discount percentage, offer type, and timing based on customer segment attributes. Instead of applying a uniform discount to all customers, the system adjusts promotion parameters dynamically according to each segment's responsiveness and preferences, thereby improving ROI while maintaining manageable complexity through automated parameter adjustment.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

2Loss of information

If personalized promotion offers are generated based on customer segmentation, then the relevance to customer preferences is improved, but the system complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecustomer preference relevanceVSAvoidoffer generation system complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of informationVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent performs preliminary customer segmentation and preference analysis before generating promotions. By pre-processing customer data into segments and establishing preference profiles in advance, the system reduces the complexity of real-time offer generation. This preliminary action enables personalized promotions to be generated more efficiently, resolving the contradiction between personalization and system complexity.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent implements self-service mechanisms where the system automatically segments customers and generates personalized offers without requiring manual intervention. Through automated data processing and decision rules, the system serves itself in creating personalized promotions, thereby reducing operational complexity while maintaining high relevance to customer preferences.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

3Ease of operation

If manual rule-based promotions are used for customer segments, then the system is easy to manage, but the personalization level is insufficient resulting in increased churn rate

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvepromotion management easeVSAvoidcustomer retention rate
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of operationVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent incorporates feedback loops that track customer responses to promotions and continuously refine segmentation and offer strategies. By monitoring redemption rates, purchase behavior changes, and engagement metrics, the system adjusts personalization levels dynamically. This feedback mechanism improves customer retention through better personalization while maintaining ease of management through automated adjustments rather than manual rule changes.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

4Adaptability or versatility

If different promotion systems are maintained for different channels (online, store), then each channel can be optimized independently, but the overall system complexity increases and customer experience consistency is reduced

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvechannel-specific optimizationVSAvoidmulti-channel system complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements a universal customer segmentation framework that works across multiple channels simultaneously. By creating channel-agnostic customer segments based on unified behavioral metrics, the system enables consistent personalization logic to be applied across online, offline, and other channels. This universal approach reduces overall system complexity while maintaining the ability to optimize for each channel's specific characteristics through parameter adjustment rather than separate system maintenance.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Data Source

PatentEP4621693B1Personalized promotion offer generation by understanding customer buying intent to maximize return on investment
Publication Date: 2026.05.13 TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES LTD
  • EP4621693B1 patent drawingFigure 1A
  • EP4621693B1 patent drawingFigure 1B
  • EP4621693B1 patent drawingFigure 2A

AI summary

Unlike rule based offer generation in state of the art, a method and system for personalized promotion offer generation by understanding customer buying intent to maximize return on investment is disclosed. Product and associated customer details are obtained from product catalog and transaction data. RFM score is computed based on transaction data to create customer segments capturing demographics behavioral data for customer. A tree based ensemble classifier predicts promotion offer redemption probability for each customer segment. The linear optimization model assigns an optimal number of promotion offers, to attain an increasing profit margin, thereby generating offers as per relevance. Budget constraint is applied so that maximum revenue can be attained. The final per customer allocation of the offer is based on different rules of personalization as required from the industry. The eligibility of getting gift card is computed by setting threshold of what customer should spend to get gift card.