Triple Basics
Triple Overview
Triple Terms and Concepts
4min
Here are some important terms and concepts to know:
- Activation Tracking: See User Events/Activation Tracking.
- Affiliate Offers: Online offers that promote a service or product and are displayed alongside other card-linked offers. They appear as a customized web link that cardholders can click to initiate a purchase.
- Card Account: Account connected to a credit or debit card. Equivalent to a tokenized user ID. Multiple physical cards can be associated with a single account, such as when there are multiple authorized users or when there is a replacement for a lost, stolen, or expired card. Each transaction reported to Triple must specify the card account it is associated with.
- Card Linked Offer: Offers linked to credit or debit card purchases that offer rewards like cash back or points.
- Card Program: A logical grouping of issued payment cards that offer rewards like additional miles or cash back. Card programs often provide a simple way to organize card accounts.
- Card Registration: Process of sending card account data to Triple to determine enrollment in a card program. Card registration is one of Triple API’s six integration points.
- CLO - See Card-Linked Offer.
- Content Provider: Partner companies, merchants, retailers, and networks that provide offers to customers.
- Consumer: Individual cardholder. A consumer may be associated with multiple card accounts across a publisher's card programs, such as when an individual has both a “miles” and a "cash back" card with the same bank. Multiple consumers may be associated with the same card account.
- Current Transactions: Ongoing purchases or returns that are reviewed for potential rewards and to help target offers.
- Event Datastore: Triple component that stores data about user interactions with offers and affiliate links.
- External ID: Unique identifier from the publisher used in the Triple platform for entities like card accounts, card programs, etc.. Triple requires partners to specify external IDs for entities they create with the Triple API. Generally, these External IDs only need to be unique within the scope of an object's parent entity, but Triple encourages the use of UUIDs to avoid confusion. External IDs must be stable and never sensitive, as they cannot be updated through the API. Triple will also create a unique ID for each entity created through the API.
- FI: Financial Institution, like a bank or credit union.
- Historical Transaction: Transaction that has already gone through the rewards lifecycle and settlement process or is no longer eligible for offer rewards. Historical transactions help the targeting engine provide relevant offers to cardholders.
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- Integration Point: A connection between two or more applications that lets systems exchange data. The Triple API has six integration points: Card Registration, Transaction Engine, User Notifications, Settlement Processing, Offer Display, and User Events/Activation Tracking.
- Merchant: A buyer or seller of commodities, sometimes referred to as a retailer. They ensure transactions are qualified for rewards and pay marketing/advertising fees. Merchants play a key role in the Reward Lifecycle.
- Notification Engine: Triple component that generates notification data based on events during the Rewards Lifecycle and Settlement process. Webhooks can be used to send notification messages to customers using the publisher’s preferred method, such as text or email.
- Offer: Deals offered to credit and debit cardholders that offer beneficial rewards, like cash back, miles, or points. Triple selects offers for display based on information from the Targeting Engine.
- Offer Display/Visualization - Displays deals to the cardholder. Publishers can use the Triple API to add endpoints to their own customized user interface or they can white label the Triple User Interface. Offer Display is one of six integration points in Triple.
- Partner - Companies and institutions, such as Portfolio Managers, Publishers, and Content Providers, that Triple interfaces with.
- Portfolio Manager - Partner company that provides services to multiple separate financial institutions such as regional banks, credit unions, or companies running open-enrollment rewards programs. These partners manage a Portfolio of Publishers.
- Publisher - Partner that offers one or more payment card loyalty programs to consumers. Publishers are typically Financial Institutions (FI).
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- Qualified Transaction - See Reward Lifecycle.
- Retailer - See Merchant.
- Reward - Discounts, savings, and other special incentives offered to cardholders for transactions made. Rewards are intended to foster customer loyalty. Triple tracks the status of the reward as the transaction moves through the Reward Lifecycle.
- Reward Lifecycle - The four-stage process for transactions that, if successfully navigated, results in a reward for the cardholder. This process starts with Transaction Matching, during which Triple determines whether the transaction matches active offers and meets terms. It then proceeds to the Transaction Qualification stage, where the merchant or content provider reviews the transaction and approves or denies the reward. During the Funding stage, the merchant or content provider transfers funds for approved rewards. Finally, the Distribution stage is completed when Triple sends Reward funds to the Publisher and the Publisher issues the reward to the cardholder.
- Settlement Processing - Settlement is the process of the exchange of funds between the Publisher, Triple, and Content Provider. The settlement process lifecycle has eight statuses that overlap with the Reward Lifecycle. These include Pending Review, when the transaction is waiting for a manual review to determine its eligibility for reward, and Pending Merchant Approval, when the merchant or content provider approves or denies the reward. The Rejected status indicates that the transaction did not meet the offer terms and Denied by Merchant indicates that the merchant or content provider denied the reward. Pending Merchant Funding indicates that the reward has been approved but is awaiting funding by the merchant. Pending Transfer to the Publisher indicates that the reward has been funded and the funds are awaiting distribution to the publisher. Several final states are also part of settlement processing. Distributed to Publisher indicates that the reward funds have been sent to the Publisher. Distributed to Cardholder indicates that the reward has been given to the cardholder. Settlement Processing is one of six integration points in Triple’s API.
- Targeting Engine - Triple component that uses Transaction, Offer, and Event Datastore information to determine which offers to show the cardholder when they are viewing the offer user interface. The Targeting Engine delivers personalized offers to cardholders.
- Transaction - A customer purchase or a return. Note that transactions do not include cashback information. In Triple, transaction data contains information such as the time the transaction occurred, the type of currency, whether a credit or debit card has been used, as well as the merchant’s name and address. There are two types of transactions: current and historical.
- Transaction Engine - Ingests transactions and matches transactions so that they can be qualified. The Transaction Engine also sends transaction data to the Targeting Engine to further determine offers presented to cardholders. The Transaction Engine is one of Triple API’s six integration points.
- Transaction Matching - See Reward Lifecycle.
- User Events/Activation Tracking - Events that occur as the user interacts with the offer, such as whether the user likes or dislikes an offer. User Events/Activation Tracking is one of six integration points with the Triple API.
- User Notifications - Data about qualified events that can be used in messages sent to the cardholder and others. Publishers can use webhooks to receive and send reward status messages in the format they prefer.
- Webhook - Automated notifications or messages that are sent between apps. Publishers can use webhooks to send messages received from user notifications to cardholders.
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Updated 11 Jul 2023
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