An auto-login system and process enable maintaining user accounts on a server without a user having to register or create a user name, password, or other authentication method. An account may be created without user knowledge. The server may transmit a content item to a target user, along with a link. A server identifies the target user from use of the auto-login link and collects interaction or “engagement” data while the user is logged in, to assess user interest in products, for example, a mutual fund investment product, which may be characterized by tags and/or categories. The system may quantify a product salience metric for a given product relative to a target user's interest profile to focus marketing efforts and support engagement with interested target users, especially securities funds and financial advisors.

In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure, a method for leveraging a social network to search for local inventory includes communicating with a first mobile communication device over a network, the first mobile communication device associated with a user, and communicating with a second mobile communication device over the network, the second mobile communication device associated with a social network contact. The method further includes obtaining a geo-location of the second mobile communication device, processing a search request from the first mobile communication device, obtaining a radius of coverage for a merchant, determining whether the geo-location of the second mobile communication device is within the radius of coverage of the merchant, and providing a listing to the first mobile communication device of one or more items for sale by the merchant when the second mobile communication device is within the radius of coverage of the merchant.

Methods and systems are disclosed for interacting with advertisements on a virtual keyboard. An advertisement appears in a position that is proximate to a virtual key of the virtual keyboard. A user can manipulate the advertisement based on performing one or more types of gestures or key presses on or near the virtual keys. One type of gesture triggers an interaction with the advertisement and another type of gesture or key press performs a standard keyboard function.

To provide more useful additional information to the user at a more effective timing. Provided is an information processing apparatus including an output control unit that controls an output of additional information related to a product purchased by a user. The output control unit controls an output of the additional information on the basis of delivery information about the product. In addition, provided is an information processing method that is executed by a processor, the information processing method including controlling an output of additional information related to a product purchased by a user. The controlling of an output includes controlling an output of the additional information on the basis of delivery information about the product.

Disclosed are systems and methods for monitoring and policing online advertisements. Content of a website is evaluated and assigned a score. The content evaluated may be either first-party content or third-party content or both. If the score fails predetermined criteria, a report is generated. Synthetic user profiles can be generated using a browser (or other software) to visit a number of predetermined or pseudo-random sites and accumulate user-specific data as it visits each of the sites. The browser stores off the accumulated user-specific data in conjunction with a synthetic user profile.

One or more computing devices, systems, and/or methods for generating and providing recommendations of products are provided. For example, content is extracted from a message sent to a user. The content is evaluated to identify a product identifier corresponding to a product title of a product. If the product identifier is a truncated version of the product title, then a database of product titles and frequencies of occurrence of the product titles is used to complete the product title. A model is used to infer a product category for the product title. Matching scores are assigned to products within a product category based upon weighted attributes. A recommendation is provided to the user for a product having a matching score greater than a matching threshold.

Technologies for attributing purchases to a targeted marketing campaign include associating a captured payment card number and a captured cardholder identifier with a globally unique identifier. Additional payment card numbers related to the captured payment card number are associated with the globally unique identifier. A cardholder-specific marketing message associated with a targeted marketing campaign is transmitted to the captured cardholder identifier based on the globally unique identifier. The targeted marketing campaign is for an advertised product, which corresponds to a product identifier. A purchase transaction is attributed to the targeted marketing campaign in response to determining that a payment card number associated with the purchase transaction matches any of the payment card numbers associated with the globally unique identifier and determining that a product identifier corresponding to a purchased product of the purchase transaction is associated with the targeted marketing campaign. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

A method, apparatus, and computer program product are disclosed to identify editorial content that is compatible with a promotion. The method includes receiving a selection of a promotion structure. The method further includes identifying editorial content that is compatible with the selected promotion structure. The promotion structure may optionally be selected from a list of promotion structures relating to a deal context. The method further includes transmitting the compatible editorial content to a user. Optionally, the method may include receiving a selection from the compatible editorial content, and transmitting a claim confirmation to a promotion and marketing service. A corresponding apparatus and computer program product are also provided.

Provided are various mechanisms and processes for generating dynamic merchant similarity predictions. In one aspect, a system is configured for receiving historical datasets that include a series of merchants from historical browsing sessions generated by one or more users. The merchants are converted into corresponding vector representations for training a predictive model to output associated merchants based on a generated weighted vector space. Once sufficiently trained, data from a new browsing session may be received, which may include a target merchant. The target merchant is input into the predictive model as a vector to output one or more context merchants having vectors with the highest cosine similarity value to the target merchant vector. Selected context merchants may then be transmitted to the user device as targeted merchant suggestions in the new browsing session. The predictive models may be continuously trained using data received from subsequent browsing sessions.

Disclosed herein is a platform utilizing data processing to accelerate sales by personalizing user interactions based on user behavior. Network-based sales platforms allow merchants to offer goods or services to customers online. However, existing technical solutions may lack the functionality that allows determining what goods and services would be of interest to a particular customer. The lack of such functionality may result in low conversion rates. As a result of the poor conversion rates, merchants incur unnecessary expenses in blanket advertising to customers who are unlikely to buy the advertised goods and services.