A computing apparatus is configured to formulate and adjust offers to users of mobile devices that are configured to capture identification information of products, such as UPC codes. The transaction data of the user, the activities of the user capturing the identification information of products, the location of the user, and the user's reactions to the offers are used to incrementally adjust the offers according to offer rules specified by the merchants. The mobile devices can be used to initiate a checkout process for purchasing items identified by the captured identification information of the products from the physical retail store at which the user is currently located, or via an online store associated with an offer presented via the mobile device.

A method, apparatus, and computer program product are disclosed for receiving redemption selections from a consumer and scheduling redemption of a promotion. The method includes presenting one or more promotions for products or services offered by a merchant, and receiving an indication of a selection, by a consumer, of a promotion from the one or more promotions. The method further includes presenting one or more time slots based on predicted booking limits of a set of time slots including the one or more time slots, receiving a selection of a time slot from the one or more time slots, determining merchant time slot availability for the selected time slot, and scheduling a time slot for redeeming the promotion based on the determined merchant time slot availability. A corresponding apparatus and computer program product are also provided.

Systems, apparatus, and methods for providing prepurchase promotions to consumers are discussed herein. A prepurchase promotion may refer to preliminary promotional mechanism that may be accepted but is not an actual (e.g., redeemable) promotion until subsequent to merchant approval of one or more promotion parameters. Some embodiments may provide for an apparatus including circuitry configured to: provide a prepurchase impression of a prepurchase promotion to a consumer device, wherein the prepurchase promotion is associated with one or more promotion parameters including a promotional value; receive bid data from the consumer device indicating a consumer-defined accepted value and consumer acceptance of the one or more promotion parameters at the consumer-defined accepted value; and generate a request to offer a promotion including the one or more promotion parameters at the consumer-defined accepted value for transmission to a merchant associated with the prepurchase promotion.

The pull-type searching system provides an effective and efficient way to navigate deals and assist the user in identifying a deal for selection. The pull-type searching system further enables identification of one or more alternative deals to present to the user when no deals are identified for the selected search criteria. The pull-type searching system includes a method and apparatus. The method includes communicating ordered selectable search criteria, the search criteria including one or more categories, subcategories and deal types based on a user profile or available deals, or redemption goals. The method further includes receiving a selection from the search criteria and searching a deals database for results associated with the selection. Further, the method includes communicating the results associated with the selection, one or more alternative categories, or one or more alternative deals. A similar apparatus is provided.

Systems, apparatus, and methods for effectively allowing consumers to request promotions from a merchant are discussed herein. Some embodiments may provide for a networked device, apparatus, or server configured to: in response to determining that a merchant device is not associated with at least one available promotion, determine, via a processor, a promotion request threshold value indicating a required number of promotion requests for generating a promotion associated with the merchant device; receive a plurality of promotion requests from a plurality of consumer devices via the network; calculate, via the processor, a promotion request count associated with the plurality of promotion requests; and in response to determining that the promotion request count satisfies the promotion request threshold value, generate a promotion offer request indicating a request to generate the promotion.

Systems and methods for verifying an advertisement impression in a digital environment are provided. In some aspects, methods of the subject technology include operations for defining a portion of the digital environment as an impression area, wherein the impression area is associated with a tagged advertisement area, providing a stream of an advertisement to the tagged advertisement area, and updating advertising impression information stored in memory regarding the advertisement, wherein an advertising impression is based on the identification of the character within the impression area and the availability of an unobstructed line-of-sight between the character and the tagged advertisement area. In some aspects, computer readable media are also provided.

The subject matter of this specification can be embodied in, among other things, a method that receives at a server a first request to rebroadcast a first sponsored content item that was displayed on the social network to the first user to a second user. A second request to display at least one sponsored content item to the second user when the second user accesses an electronic document associated with the social network is received at the server. The first sponsored content item is retrieved for rebroadcast from one or more sponsored content items indicated for rebroadcast to the second user. The first sponsored content item is output to the second user of the social network in response to the second request to display and without requiring the second user to select the first sponsored content item for display.

The subject matter of this specification can be embodied in, among other things, a method that receives at a server a first request to rebroadcast a first sponsored content item that was displayed on the social network to the first user to a second user. A second request to display at least one sponsored content item to the second user when the second user accesses an electronic document associated with the social network is received at the server. The first sponsored content item is retrieved for rebroadcast from one or more sponsored content items indicated for rebroadcast to the second user. The first sponsored content item is output to the second user of the social network in response to the second request to display and without requiring the second user to select the first sponsored content item for display.

A system and method to enable a user to receive targeted ad based on user pre-selected categories. An end-user application sends and receives data from a backend server, an ad server and a content server. The end user application extracts a device ID from the end user device and sends it to the backend server. After the end user application initiates a user session on the backend server, the end user application retrieves a list of pre-determined ad targeting categories. The end user application presents the end user with the list of pre-determined ad targeting categories for selection by the end user. After the user selects at least one of the ad targeting categories, the end user application sends each of the user selected ad targeting categories to the backend server for storage on the backend server for subsequent use by the ad server when sending ads to the user.

Techniques for generating unbiased estimates of causal effects in online experiments are provided. In one technique, campaign data is received that includes a first set of targeting criteria and a second set of targeting criteria. An online experiment is established that comprises a content delivery campaign that is associated with a treatment group and a control group. Afterward, a content request is received and a first entity that initiated the content request is identified. In response to determining that the first entity is targeted by the campaign based on the first set of targeting criteria, the first entity is randomly assigned to the control group. In responses to second content request, a second entity is identified. In response to determining that the second entity is targeted by the campaign based on the first set of targeting criteria, the second entity is randomly assigned to the treatment group.