METHODS, SYSTEMS, AND COMPUTER READABLE MEDIA FOR

AUTOMATICALLY COLLECTING, PROCESSING, AND REPORTING

GAMING WEBSITE OPERATOR AFFILIATE PROGRAM DATA

PRIORITY CLAIM

This application claims the priority benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Serial No. 62/091 ,459, filed December 12, 2014, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The subject matter described herein relates to collecting, processing and reporting gaming website operator affiliate program data.

BACKGROUND

Industry summary

The online gambling industry has been active for approximately 15 years. Today you can play on any device and on any type of game. The industry has had and extraordinary development and is now a well- established industry with greater than 20,000 employees, thousands of operators and with a global gross win for 2013 -€27.44 billion (H2 Gambling Capital).

The industry could be defined in different groups:

Gambling and platform software suppliers that deliver anything from slot games to fully working online gambling platforms. Playtech, Microgaming, and NetEnt are examples of gambling platform and software suppliers.

Operators that operate online gambling websites providing the possibility for people to play online. Pokerstars, Bet365, and Betsson are examples of gambling website operators. Each operator has an affiliate partner program where each affiliate is free to sign up to in order to start driving referral traffic to the gambling website operator. Affiliates who drive traffic to different operators. Traffic refers to connections from end users over the Internet to the gambling operator's websites. Traffic may include click through events where users click on a link to the gambling website operator's website, registration traffic, where the user registers with the gambling website operator after clicking though, and revenue generating traffic where the user spends money on the gambling operator's website. Affiliates have performance based advertising agreements with the different operators through the operators' affiliate partner programs. It is not uncommon that one affiliate can work with hundreds of different operators' affiliate partner programs.

Different software producers that deliver functionality for the affiliate industry in order simplify and structure their work. Adge, IncomeAcces, NetRefer, and StatsRemote are examples of such producers

Online gambling affiliates from around the world drive traffic (players) to various operators such as Bwin, Ladbrokes, Betfair, or Pokerstars. The affiliates then get an affiliate commission for the traffic they generate. This is the affiliates' core business and how they make money.

A typical affiliate today might work with dozens or hundreds of different affiliate programs (each operator has its own affiliate program). This implies that at the end of every month the affiliate must collect his commission from one hundred different back offices that each have a diverse design, look and feel.

This information can take a full day or longer to collect. This extremely time consuming and difficult task sometimes delivers inaccurate figures. The affiliate then must to contact the operator, wait for the response and then try to identify the inaccuracies in the data, which can waste days. This time is solely used to collect the data... logging the acquired information is a different matter.

In light of the need to periodically collect and process affiliate program data from tens or even hundreds of gaming website operator affiliate programs, there exists a need for improved methods, systems, and computer readable media for automatically collecting, processing, and reporting gaming website operator affiliate program data. SUMMARY

The subject matter described herein relates to methods, systems, and computer readable media for automatically collecting, processing, and reporting gaming website operator affiliate program data. One exemplary system includes at least one server having at least one processor. The server includes an affiliate program information collection configurator for receiving input regarding gaming website operator affiliate program servers from which affiliate program data is desired to be collected. The at least one server further includes an affiliate program information collection agent for automatically collecting, from the affiliate program servers, affiliate program information. The system further includes an affiliate program database for storing the collected affiliate program data. The at least one server further includes an affiliate program data report generator for generating reports from the collected data.

The subject matter described herein can be implemented in software in combination with hardware and/or firmware. For example, the subject matter described herein can be implemented in software executed by a processor. In one exemplary implementation, the subject matter described herein can be implemented using a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions that when executed by the processor of a computer control the computer to perform steps. Exemplary computer readable media suitable for implementing the subject matter described herein include non-transitory computer-readable media, such as disk memory devices, chip memory devices, programmable logic devices, and application specific integrated circuits. In addition, a computer readable medium that implements the subject matter described herein may be located on a single device or computing platform or may be distributed across multiple devices or computing platforms. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The subject matter described herein will now be explained with reference to the accompanying drawings of which:

Figure 1 is a network diagram illustrating a system for automatically collecting, processing, and reporting gaming website operator affiliate program data according to an embodiment of the subject matter described herein;

Figure 2 is a flow chart illustrating an exemplary process for collecting, processing, and reporting gaming website operator affiliate program data according to an embodiment of the subject matter described herein;

Figure 3 is a drawing of a computer screen shot illustrating an exemplary interface for configuring an agent to collect affiliate program data according to an embodiment of the subject matter described herein;

Figure 4 is drawing of a computer screen shot illustrating an exemplary report generated based on automatically collected affiliate program data according to an embodiment of the subject matter described herein; and

Figure 5 is a drawing of a computer screen shot illustrating an exemplary data source report generated based on collected affiliate program data according to an embodiment of the subject matter described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The subject matter described herein includes methods, systems, and computer readable media for automatically collecting, processing, and reporting gaming website operator affiliate program data. The term "gaming" refers to online gambling or other online service where users play games for money or credits. Figure 1 illustrates an exemplary system for performing such collection, processing, and reporting according to an embodiment of the subject matter described herein. Referring to Figure 1 , gaming operator web servers 100 provide online gambling and other gaming services to end users 102. One way that gaming operator web servers 100 receive new traffic is through referrals through affiliate web servers 104. Affiliate web servers 104 drive traffic to the operators by hosting web pages with links and advertisements to websites hosted by gaming operator web servers 100. In return for driving traffic to gaming operator web servers 100, the affiliates that operate affiliate web servers 104 are compensated through what is referred to as an affiliate program.

Accordingly, each gaming website operator includes an affiliate program server 106 through which affiliates register for an affiliate program and can later access affiliate program data. The affiliate program data includes metrics of traffic that is referred by each affiliate web server 104 to a particular gaming website operator. The information that is collected may include the number of users referred, the amount of money deposited by each user, and/or the revenue generated to the gaming website operator on a per user basis.

As stated above, affiliates may participate in affiliate programs with many different gaming website operators and even multiple different programs with the same operator. In order to collect revenue and determine which operators are providing the most revenue for a particular affiliate, the affiliate must obtain the affiliate program data from each affiliate program server associated with each operator. Manual collection of such data involves logging in to each affiliate program server and downloading the information.

To reduce the burden caused by manual data collection, the subject matter described herein includes at least one server that automatically collects, processes, and reports gaming website operator affiliate data. In the illustrated example, a web server 108 includes an affiliate program information collection configurator 110. Affiliate program information collection configurator 110 receives, from an affiliate program information source 112, information regarding affiliate programs in which a particular affiliate participates. In one example, an affiliate program information source 112 may be the affiliate and may provide a list of information regarding affiliate programs in which the affiliate participates. In another example, the affiliate may provide the information to the operator of web server 108 offline, and an administrator of web server 108 may input the information. The information that is provided to affiliate program information collection configurator 110 may include the URL of each affiliate program server 106 corresponding to an affiliate program in which a particular affiliate participates and logging credentials to access the affiliate program information for the particular affiliate. After receiving this information, affiliate program information collection configurator 110 may make the information available to an affiliate program information collection agent 114, which collects the information from affiliate program servers 106. Affiliate program information collection agent 108 may reside on the same server as information collection configurator 110 or on a different server. In the illustrated example, affiliate program information collection agent 114 resides on a middleware server 116 that is separate from web server 108. At predetermined time intervals, such as daily, weekly, or monthly or in response to a request from an end user, affiliate program information collection agent 114 collects affiliate program data from affiliate program servers 106. As stated above, the data may indicate metrics of referrals from a particular affiliate to a gaming operator website and/or revenue measures associated with the referrals. Collecting the data may be effected by sending HTTP requests to each of affiliate program servers 106, receiving the responses, and storing data from the response in a file. The format for each file may be particular to the particular affiliate program.

A preprocessor 118 preprocesses the collected affiliate program data and prepares the data for parsing. Middleware server 116 then sends the preprocessed data to extract, transform, load (ETL) server 120 where the data is cleaned according to a schema tailored to process data in the format of the particular affiliate program. A parser 122 then parses the cleaned data and stores the data in affiliate program database 124.

A console 126 allows users, such as affiliates, to generate reports using a report generator 128 based on data stored in database 124. Console 126 offers a high level of flexibility when choosing how the end user wishes the sort the particular affiliate data and can be used to generate a number of reports that provide meaningful feedback on the performance of affiliate marketing campaigns. As all of the affiliate's data from the day the affiliate opens the affiliate program account to the present day may be stored, the affiliate may view historical data and compare it to other data sets. Examples of reports that may be generated by using console 126 will be described in detail below.

Figure 2 is a flow chart illustrating an exemplary process for collecting, processing, and reporting affiliate program data according to an embodiment of the subject matter described herein. Referring to Figure 2, in step 200, information is received for collecting affiliate program data. As stated above, the information may include the URL and login credentials of each affiliate program server 106 corresponding to an affiliate program with which a particular affiliate is registered. The credentials may be received via a graphical user interface accessible via web interface, in one embodiment. Figure 3 is a drawing of a computer screen shot illustrating an example of a graphical user interface provided by affiliate program information collection configurator 110 to collect affiliate program data. In the illustrated example, the computer screen shot allows the user to input the affiliate program name, the user name, and the password and also to verify access to the particular affiliate program web server 106. The interface illustrated in Figure 3 indicates whether or not the connection with the particular affiliate program server 106 is successful. The interface illustrated in Figure 3 also allows the user to input the type of currency and the collection start date. The interface also allows the user to enable data interrogation and provides a start date for the data interrogation. An update button at the bottom allows the user to add the affiliate data to a list of affiliate program accounts for which affiliate program data collection is desired. The user may use the interface illustrated in Figure 3 multiple times to input data from multiple affiliate accounts to configure automatic program data collection for each account.

Returning to Figure 2, in step 202, agents are configured to automatically collect affiliate program data based on the information entered in step 200. In step 204, the agents automatically collect the affiliate program data. Steps 202 and 204 may be performed by middleware server 116 and agent 114. As stated above, agent 114 may send HTTP messages to each affiliate program server 106 to collect affiliate program information. In one embodiment, one agent 114 may be created for each affiliate program server 106. In an alternate embodiment, a single agent 114 may handle the connection and information collection from multiple affiliate program servers 106.

In step 206, the collected data is preprocessed, cleaned, and stored.

As stated above, the data may be stored in an affiliate program database 124. Steps 204 and 206 may be performed automatically and periodically (e.g., daily) such that the affiliate program data will be up to date.

In step 208, reports generated from the collected affiliate program database input received via the consol. Figures 4 and 5 illustrate examples of reports that may be generated. More particularly, Figure 4 illustrates an affiliate program report for different affiliate programs. The report includes number of clicks to a particular gaming operator website, the percentage of clicks that went to a registration, the number of registrations, percentage of registrations to FTD, clicks to FTD, player FTD, net revenue and commission. The commission is a monetary amount that is calculated under the formula specified by the affiliate program agreement for the particular affiliate program. The data can be displayed in graphical format, as illustrated by the upper pane of the user interface. The report can be changed for different time periods.

Another type of report that might be generated using console 126 is a data source report, as illustrated in Figure 5. The data source report lists the data source files for a given set of parameters. In the illustrated example, the report lists the source file for each affiliate program, such as supercasino, jackpot247.com, etc.

Thus, the subject matter described herein includes a special purpose computing platform, i.e., a one or more servers for automatic affiliate program information collection, processing, and report generation that improves the technological field of data collection from multiple sources and providing meaningful visualizations of the collected data.

It will be understood that various details of the presently disclosed subject matter may be changed without departing from the scope of the presently disclosed subject matter. Furthermore, the foregoing description is for the purpose of illustration only, and not for the purpose of limitation.