It ain't guessing anymore, folks

25 May 08 - Mark Klein

An interesting article, “Guessing the Online Customer’s Next Want” by Eric Taub, appeared last week in The New York Times. Taub starts out on the right track when he says, “Marketers have always tried to predict what people want, and then get them to buy it.” Many marketers do try to predict. Unfortunately many more don’t bother trying. As a result, you and I are inundated with uninteresting direct mail and email. Happily, Taub focuses on a retailer that does try, and on the methodology being used, collaborative filtering. Calling attention to this effort is worthwhile, and I’m pleased to see a spotlight on predictive analytics.

Once More and I'll Scream

16 May 08 - Mark Klein

This week, when I asked a new client what kinds of insights her company was expecting from using Longbow, I had to restrain myself from an offensive, too sharp reply. She said she wanted our analytics to identify her best customers. We get that request often, and sometimes it can drive me up the wall.

There were several reasons for my frustration. First, she should already know her best customers, because they are spending the most and buying often. How well could her company be managing if they don’t know their best customers? Second, if her company had been doing any segmentations at all, those top customers would stand out. Even unsatisfactory linear methods like RFM will identify best customers. Third, she was asking the wrong question.

Left vs. Right: Is Google heading for a fall?

05 May 08 - Mark Klein

Search pages in Google are divided into two parts. On the right are the paid search entries, advertisers who pay Google whenever someone clicks on their ad. On the left is what is commonly called organic search, results turned up by Google’s algorithms for searching the web based on your request. Most people start with organic search, often not going beyond the first five or ten entries. People use the left column results about three times more than the right column ads, according to some estimates. Your mileage may vary.