Database Marketing

Database Marketing

Dr. Ron Rymon

Marketing Communications Program

IDC, Herzliya

Overview

Goal: describe the framework, and touch on the current trends and buzzwords

Outline: Uses of the marketing database The Data Implementation technologies Analysis techniques Modeling techniques

Uses of the Marketing Database

The Marketing Database

• Comprehensive collection of interrelated data ...

• Arranged around each customer ...

• Allow timely and accurate retrieval ...

• Support analytical, predictive, operational needs ...

• Serving multiple applications …

Active Database:An Integrated Business Resource

Marketing

Distribution

CustomerService

SalesResearch

Finance

Database

Information is Power:Active databases drive the business…

• Identify your best customers– profitability analysis, clustering

• Develop new customers and cross-sell– similar to current, identify competitors’ customers

• Improve delivery of sales promotion– response modeling / targeting

• Personalize message– based on purchase patterns, volume

• Use as a research tool across the organization– customer, product, market research

Key Building Blocks

• Data– a database is only as powerful as its data

• Implementation technologies– hardware, networking, warehouses

• Analysis techniques– RFM, LTV, OLAP, Segmentation, Visualization

• Modeling– Regressions, Artificial Intelligence, Data Mining

The Data

A database is only as powerful as the data it houses.

• Every database is a collection of records• Each record is a collection of fields• Here, one record per customer and/or prospect

– unique identifier– general customer/account information

• including demographic, psychographic, socio-economic

– our offers+communications to the customer– customer’s actions: response, purchase, payment

Customer-centric Database

What Data To Hold

• Too often, data is collected based on availability, and not based on projected need

• Should accumulate internally– data that can be used to support current and future

strategies (mktg and otherwise, e.g., operations)

– …. data that may be valuable to other organizations

• Should source external data– unavailable internally

– too expensive to maintain/update

What’s in YOUR database?

Data Requirements

Basic Demo Usage Payment

Targeting

Retention

Mar

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Usageupgrading

Data Sources : Internal

• Operations / Sales– past usage/purchase, e.g., amount, variability

• Finance– payments, e.g., timeliness, amounts

• Customer service– e.g., inquiries, complaints

• Other data collection methods:– sales/orders, promotions/drawings, inquiries, surveys,

warranty cards, research panels...

Data Sources: Distribution Channels

• Many companies use distributors, retailers

• Problem: lack of direct communications with end-customer, no “relationship”

• Part-solution 1: keep tabs on channel + aggregate statistics on customers

• More aggressive solution: special marketing programs to reach customers

Data Sources : External Lists

• 50% of U.S. DMers sell their lists

• Use to enlarge universe : new names

– can buy segments by specific features (model)

• Enhance data : cross information

– U.S. census data

– Credit bureau

– Various marketers of related products

– List compilers / maintainers / sellers

John Smith 60 10.2

Eric Cohen 35 1.3

Jack Marshal 20 0

enhance data

enlargeuniverse

Other Data Sources

• Mass-advertised offers– TV call-ins, direct response

• Joint offers with other merchants– take-one brochures in banks, restaurants– drawings

• Trade shows, happenings, community activity

• Referrals!

Data Management

• Many sources:– conversions, transformations, cleaning, merge-purge

• Many “clients”– marketing, sales, product managers, operations

• Temporal issues– updates, audits, archives/deltas

• Quantities: huge databases– Storage, access, processing, communications

• Resolution, Enhancement

Merge-Purge : Example

• Palmer, Robert and Mary, 123 Sun Avenue, Apt 7, Key West, FL 31250

• Dr. Robert C. Palmer, Custom Engineers LLC, 123 Sun Avenue, 7th Floor, Key West, FL 31250

• Rob Charles Palmer, CE Inc., 123 Sun Ave #7, Key West FL 31250

• Bob Palmer Jr., 123 Sun #7, Key West, FL 31252• Maria Palmer, 123 Sun Avenue, Suite 7, Key

West, FL 31250

Other Issues

• Legal– Privacy Act– Anti-discrimination– Advertising Code– Telephone Consumer Protection Act

• Consumer groups– Right to be omitted (just write to DMA)– Environmental issues

• DMA invests in education:– Dmers: best practice– Customers: better image

Implementation Technologies

Computing Platforms

• Issues / Needs:– Information sources + integration

– Storage/access, maintenance, completeness, update

– Computation: process queries, algorithms

– Analyses and reports, feed to operations, customer/user interaction

• Trends:– Traditionally, all DMers used mainframes

– Today, some migration to mid-range (UNIX)

– PC-based computers gaining power (NT)

– Client/Server architectures

– Everything networked

Applications

• Database is a foundational software

• Must support variety of applications:– transaction processing

– analyses

– on-line interaction

• Trends:– Relational databases

– Data warehouses

– Data redundancy/multiplicity

Database

Database Management

O.S.

Relational Database

ID Cust Name Address …1234 John Brown 123 Main St ….

ID Date Cust Product Quant. Price98765 3.5.98 1234 A703 5 150.0098766 4.5.98 1234 A707 2 240.0098767 4.5.98 1235 A703 1 30.00

Transactions for John Brown

3.5.98 5 Levis Jeans $1504.5.98 2 CK Jacket $120

Purchases of Levis Jeans

3.5.98 John Brown 5 $1504.5.98 Jane Doe 1 $30

ID Product Supplier …..A703 Levis Jeans S7003 ….

Tables

Reports (SQL Queries)

Data Warehouse

• Stores data for informational and analytical processing

– Separate from operations

– Subject-oriented

– Integrated

– Historical

Operational Data Warehouse

loans

credit card

savings customer

product

investments

Example: Computer-by-Mail Inc.

House Files

TelemarketersClient --- Server

mail

operations

Analyst

MktgExecutive

DataWarehouse

Analysis Techniques

Data Limitations

• Important: The data is a limited encoding of reality

• Many potholes:– Omission

– Errors, noise

– Representation

– Sampling bias

• Cannot be too careful !

Exploratory data analysis :Single-variable

• Descriptive statistics– Mean, Median– Variance

• Histograms– Shows distribution

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

0-20 20-30 30-40 40+

Exploratory data analysis:Multi-variable

• Examine relationship between two or more variables– Cross tabs

– Correlation

– Scatter plots

– Clustered histograms

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

0-20 20-30 30-40 40+

BuyerNoBuy

RFM Analysis

• RFM score– Recency: how close is the last purchase– Frequency: number of recent purchases– Monetary: dollars spent recently

• Example:– Recency: 10 pts if within 3 mos, 1 pt lower per additional

month, to 1– Frequency: 1 pt for each purchase within 12 months– Monetary: 1pt for each $100 in past year, to 10– Score=R*F*M, the higher the better

Life-Time Value of Customers

• LTV Goal:– recognize each customer’s contribution

• Method:– calculate the “expected” net revenue

– discounted:• risk of attrition

• probability of sales

• rate of money

• Typically computed per 1000, if possible by segment

OLAP Tools

• OLAP : On-Line Analytical Processing

• Goal: A database-driven system that provides– Fast

– Analysis• common business reports, statistics

– of Shared• same information available to many users

– Multi-dimensional• every piece of information is multiply categorized

– Information“The OLAP Report”

OLAP Tools

• Data represented internally as multi-dimensional cube

– e.g., customer’s attributes, purchases, payments, etc.

• User chooses presenting two dimensions at a time

– e.g., show $-sales, by geographic region and income

• Heavy use of hierarchical variables, with drilling capabilities:

– time: year, quarter, month, week, day, hour

– product: hardware, printers, small printers, PX-1000

– dollars: by ranges 0-1000, 1000-5000, 5000-25000, etc.

• Analyses, highlights of interesting cases, etc.

OLAP Tools: Example Screen

Data Visualization Tools

• Many relationships are best communicated visually:– histograms, pie-charts, scatter plots, graphs

– use color/texture, shapes

– temporal animations

• Visualization software allows– single-variable over time

– one variable as a function of another

– interaction detection

– segmentation

Modeling Techniques

Modeling Behavior

• Target variable– a.k.a. dependent/modeled/explained variable

– typically, whether bought/responded or not

• Goal:– Use other variables in a model to classify/predict

– other variables: a.k.a. independent, observable, explaining

– model: formula, algorithm

• Success criterion: future performance

Modeling and Validation Framework

• Data flow:– Historical data

– Modeling software

– Constructs model

– Tested on more historical data

– Repeat until satisfied

– Use model to predict

Training SetModel

Productionor Test Set

Output

Critical Success Factors

• Choice of data– scope: same/similar period, audience, offer,

communication

– explaining variables: available, useful, well-represented

• Choice of modeling technique– appropriate for the goal

– powerful: good fitting power

• Careful and “pessimistic” testing and validation

Validation

• NEVER test on same data set– avoid “memorizing” the data, overfitting

• Out-of-sample methods– separate training set and test set– cross-validation, a.k.a. jack-knifing– remember temporal aspect

• Evaluate the model’s robustness– estimate chance probability, bootstrapping

Classification v. Prediction Systems

• Classification systems:– distinguish few types of customers, e.g., responded or not– technically, target variable is discrete/categorical– validation through “hit rate”

• Prediction systems– predict probability of purchase, or purchase dollars– technically, target variable is continuous– validation through “closeness” measures

Linear Scoring Systems

• Use linear regression

• Coefficients evaluated using historical data

• Higher score interpreted as greater likelihood of responding

• Every coefficient measures “independent” contribution

• Classification variant: discriminant analysis– e.g., predict response if score is above 0.3

dcba AgesePastPurchaIncomeScore

Logistic Regressions

• Logistic regression (logit)

• Target variable– historical data: 0 or 1

– future application: used as probability

• Independent variables: continuous or categorical• Probit: variation that relies on normal distribution

dcba

dcba

1

AgesePastPurchaIncome

AgesePastPurchaIncome

e

eyProbabilit

Presenting and Evaluating Results

• Lift table

Top Scoring % Respond %Non-Respond5% 26.8% 4.9%

10% 41.2% 9.8%15% 52.4% 14.8%20% 62.6% 19.8%

50% 87.9% 49.7%75% 96.5% 74.8%


0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

% Non-Responders

%R

es

po

nd

ers

• Lift curve (a.k.a. Receiver Operating Characteristic curve)


• Confusion Matrix (given a specific threshold)

• Accuracy=(Pr,r+Pn,n)/Total• Detection=Pr,r/(Pr,r+Pr,n)• Two error types: Pr,n and Pn,r

PredictedRespond

PredictedNon-Respond

Actual Respond Pr,r Pn,r

ActualNon-Respond

Pr,n Pn,n

Break-even Analysis

• Issue: how much to mail?• Solution: find break-even point• e.g.:

• Caution: use held-out data!

%mail %respond Income Cost ofproduct

Cost ofmail

MarginalProfit

5% 25% $1,250 $750 $50 $45010% 21% $1,050 $630 $50 $37015% 16% $800 $480 $50 $27020% 11% $550 $330 $50 $17025% 6% $300 $180 $50 $7030% 3% $150 $90 $50 $1035% 2% $100 $60 $50 -$10

Non-Linear Systems

• In regressions, a change in one independent variables always affects in same direction– e.g., if age affects positively, then the older the better, always

• One solution: transformations– e.g., if U-shaped relation, use quadratic form

• Or, use non-linear techniques:– Neural networks

– Decision trees

– Other: rule-based systems, genetic algorithms, Bayesian nets

Neural Networks

• Motivated by biological nervous system

• Perceptron = a model of a neuron

WiXi

WiXi

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eactivation

1

1x 2x 3x 4x 5x

1w5w

4w2w 3w

Classical Neural Net

• Multi-layer network of perceptrons

• Proper weights are “discovered” from random– forward propagation of training set

– compare output to actual target variable

– back propagation of error to adapt weights

50

Decision Trees

• Partition the data based on one attribute...

A B C D Resp.0 0 1 0 Buy0 1 1 1 Buy1 0 1 0 No1 1 0 0 Buy1 1 1 1 No

51

A=0

A=1

Induction of Decision TreesInduction of Decision Trees

Recursively, partition each of the nodes

A B C D Resp.0 0 1 0 Buy0 1 1 1 Buy1 0 1 0 No1 1 0 0 Buy1 1 1 1 No0 0 1 0 Buy

0 1 1 1 Buy1 0 1 0 No1 1 0 0 Buy1 1 1 1 No

52

0 0 1 0 Buy0 1 1 1 Buy

1 0 1 0 No1 1 1 1 No


Induction of Decision TreesInduction of Decision Trees

…until the node is homogeneous

1 1 0 0 Buy

1 0 1 0 No1 1 0 0 Buy1 1 1 1 No

A=0

A=1

C=0 C=1


53

Classification

• Go down a matching path...

A=0

A=1

C=0 C=1

Buy No

(A=1,B=0,C=0,D=1)

Buy

54

ClassificationClassification

Continue...

A=0

A=1

C=0 C=1

(A=1,B=0,C=0,D=1)

Buy

Buy No

55

Classification

A=0

A=1

C=0 C=1

No

(A=1,B=0,C=0,D=1)

NoBuy

Buy

…until reaching a leaf Use the leaf’s probability

56

Set of Rules, or Market Segments

A=0

A=1

C=0 C=1

A=0 => BuyA=1 and C=0 => BuyA=1 and C=1 => No

Buy

Buy

NoNo

• Each rule represents a market segment

Which Modeling Technique?

• Decision trees (ChAID, CART, C4.5)– symbolic: model is interpretable as set of rules

– essentially is a segmentation

– useful when few “classes”, e.g., based on action (send/not, or few offer types)

• Regressions, neural nets– numeric: allows fine-tuning, e.g., for prediction or ranking

– model is hard to interpret and used as “black-box”

– useful when target is continuous

Data Mining

• Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD)

• KDD is the process of identifying valid, novel, potentially useful, and ultimately understandable patterns in data

• Includes all steps of data preparation + management• Data mining step uses statistical techniques, decision

trees, neural nets, etc.

Summary

• Customer data can be leveraged to better understand and manage current customers, and target new ones

• Data analysis and visualization– insights about our customers

– business economics

• Modeling– “mined” insights

– classify/predict behavior

Documents

Database Marketing