FMTC Tech Corner: Deal Ranking System

At FMTC, our mission is to provide you with high-quality, real data, and lots of it.

We have over 180,000 active deals from 18,000 merchants — not to mention ten thousand brands and nearly 142 million products. But, with all that data, how do you decide what to promote to your audience? That’s where FMTC’s deal rankings come into play.

Each deal in our deal feed includes a rating that ranges from 1 to 25, with a higher value being a better deal.

Factors in FMTC’s Deal Ranking System

Our system analyzes each deal and considers many factors to determine the rating to apply. Here’s a peek under the hood into some of the attributes that make up our proprietary deal ranking score:

Is there a Coupon? 

Deals with coupon codes get the highest ratings. For example, a 15% percent-off coupon code deal will have a higher rating than a general 15% off. This deal may be further increased by other factors such as those listed here.

Offering Free Shipping? 

The deals with free shipping included will have a higher rating than those that do not offer free shipping. Offering site-wide free shipping can give an additional boost to a deal’s rating over those with free shipping only on particular items.

Is There a Sale? 

Deals that are sales not requiring a coupon code to use them will get a medium rating. The deal rating may be a bit less when the sale is restricted to a particular product or category.

Local Deal? 

A percent-off local deal will get a medium rating. Dollar-off local deals will get less of a deal rating than a percent-off.

For example: Consider a flower merchant offering a promotion for a dozen roses for $24.99 with a coupon code MOMSDAY. The other includes free shipping and the deal is running for the three days leading up to Mother’s Day. This deal would get a higher score than a deal for sympathy baskets that does not expire, has no coupon code, nor does it include free shipping.

Merchants:  Create deals with coupon codes and include free shipping. And post more frequent limited-time deals, rather than long-running deals that don’t expire.  

Publishers: Take advantage of our deal rankings and featured deals with the highest scores at the tops of your pages.

Now the secret’s out and you know how to “game” the system. 

– FMTC Tech Team