Systems and methods for analyzing the effectiveness of a promotion

摘要

The invention provides systems and methods for collecting point-of-sale (POS) data, and then using this data to determine the effectiveness of a given promotion. The transaction data includes a merchant identifier for each of the merchants and a transaction amount for each transaction involving the merchants. One of the merchants is a promotion merchant that is offering a promotion involving transactions made with the merchant. A portion of the transaction data is aggregated into control merchant aggregated data involving control merchants, where the control merchant aggregated data comprises transaction data obtained other than from the promotion merchant. A characteristic of the purchases is calculated, both for transactions involving the promotion merchant and for the control merchants.

主权项

1. A computerized method for calculating the effectiveness of a promotion, the method comprising:
generating by a web site computer at least one promotional identifier that identifies a promotion being offered by a promotion merchant, wherein the promotional identifier is adapted to be entered into a point of sale terminal of the promotion merchant when redeeming the promotion; receiving at a host computer system transaction data from a plurality of point of sale terminals that are associated with a plurality of merchants, wherein the point of sale terminals are separate from the web site computer and are physically located in stores where goods are physically offered for sale, wherein the transaction data comprises a merchant identifier for each of the merchants and a transaction amount for each transaction involving the merchants, and wherein one of the merchants comprises a promotion merchant that is offering the promotion involving transactions made with the promotion merchant, and wherein the transaction data further comprises the promotional identifier for transactions where the promotion was redeemed by entering the promotional identifier that was generated by the web site computer into the point of sale terminal; aggregating a portion of the transaction data into control merchant aggregated data involving control merchants, wherein the control merchant aggregated data comprises transaction data obtained other than from the promotion merchant; calculating by the host computer system a characteristic of the purchases, both for transactions involving the promotion merchant and for the control merchants; providing an output showing a comparison of the calculation, wherein the report shows the comparison of a characteristic of the purchases made using the promotional identifier and those made without using the promotional identifier.