Predictive Modeling Techniques Overview
Predictive Modeling Techniques Overview
Predictive Analytics
Dr. Uma Priya D
Assistant Professor Sr. Gr.-I
School of Computer Science and Engineering
Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore
Module-III : Predictive Modeling
• Propensity models
• Cluster models
• Collaborative filtering
• Statistical Modeling
• Formal Definition
• Model Comparison
• Classification
• Predictive models analyze input data to estimate how likely an outcome is, e.g.,
the chance a customer will buy a product.
• Example: If you're building a spam filter, the model predicts whether a new email
is "spam" or "not spam" based on patterns learned from previous emails.
• Examples:
• Will a customer buy this product?
1. What is the probability that someone buys the product given they clicked the email?
2. What is the probability that someone buys the product if they did NOT click the email?
3. Which feature seems most predictive of buying behavior? Age/Income/Clicked Email
4. Will the new customer buy the product?
Age: 27
Income: $48k
Clicked Email: 1
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Propensity Models - Example
Customer Age Income (k$) Clicked Email (0/1) Bought (0/1)
A 22 30 0 0
B 25 40 1 1
C 35 60 1 1
D 45 80 0 0
E 30 50 1 1
F 28 45 0 0
1. What is the probability that someone buys the product given they clicked the email? P(Buy/ClickedEmail) = 3/3 = 100
2. What is the probability that someone buys the product if they did NOT click the email? P(Buy/NotClicked) = 0/3 = 0
3. Which feature seems most predictive of buying behavior? Age/Income/Clicked Email
4. Will the new customer buy the product? Yes
Age: 27
Income: $48k
Clicked Email: 1
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Predictive Modeling – Clustering Models
• Groups similar individuals or items into segments or clusters based on shared
traits or behaviors.
• Examples:
• What are the different types of shoppers?
• K-Means Clustering – You choose how many clusters (k); algorithm groups data
accordingly
1. High-spending, Low-income: A, B, E
2. High-Income, Low-spending: C, D
• Examples:
• What product should we suggest to this customer?
• However, keep in mind that even propensity models are abstractions and do
not necessarily predict absolute true behavior.
• Algorithms can predict how much a customer will spend with you long before customers themselves
realizes this.
• At the moment a customer makes their first purchase you may know a lot more than just their initial
transaction record: you may have email and web engagement data for example, as well as demographic
and geographic information.
• By comparing a customer to many others who came before them, you can predict with a high degree of
accuracy their future lifetime value.
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Model 1: Predicted customer lifetime value
• CLV isn't just calculated based on the past — it’s predicted using data like:
• Transaction history (e.g., how much and how often they buy)
By comparing a new customer to historical customers with similar behavior, you can estimate:
• “How valuable is this customer likely to be over the next year, or five years?”
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Model 1: Predicted customer lifetime value
CustomerID Age Region FirstPurchase($) WebVisits EmailOpens PredictedCLV($)
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Model 2: Predicted share of wallet
CustomerID TotalCategorySpend ($) SpendWithUs ($) CurrentSOW (%) PredictedSOW (%)
C001 1000 200 20% 35%
C002 800 300 37.5% 50%
C003 1200 600 50% 60%
C004 700 100 14.3% 25%
C005 1500 1200 80% 82%
1. Which customer has the most growth potential? C001
2. Which customer is already close to
Current SOW: 20%, Predicted SOW: 35%
saturation? C005
Growth gap = 35% - 20% = 15%
Current SOW: 80%, Predicted SOW: 82%
This translates to a potential $150 increase in spend.
Already spending most of their total category
Also C004 has a good opportunity:
budget with you — very little room to grow (only
Current SOW: 14.3%
2%).
Predicted: 25% → $175 potential spend vs $100 now → $75
increase
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Top potential: C001, then C004
Model 2: Predicted share of wallet
CustomerID TotalCategorySpend ($) SpendWithUs ($) CurrentSOW (%) PredictedSOW (%)
C001 1000 200 20% 35%
C002 800 300 37.5% 50%
C003 1200 600 50% 60%
C004 700 100 14.3% 25%
C005 1500 1200 80% 82%
3. How much additional revenue can you expect if predictions
Summary
hold true?
Increase Over 1. Focus campaigns on C001 and C004 — large
CustomerID Predicted Spend ($)
Current ($)
room to grow.
C001 35% of 1000 = 350 350 - 200 = 150
2. Maintain loyalty for C005 — already a top
C002 50% of 800 = 400 400 - 300 = 100
C003 60% of 1200 = 720 720 - 600 = 120 spender.
C004 25% of 700 = 175 175 - 100 = 75 3. Medium potential in C002 and C003.
C005 82% of 1500 = 1230 1230 - 1200 = 30
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Model 3: Propensity to engage
• A propensity to engage model predicts the likelihood that a person will engage in
some activity.
• It allows you to evaluate the propensity of your leads and customers to show
proactive behavior. It may be a propensity score showing which website visitors are
expected to click on an ad or which citizens will possibly vote for a given party in
elections.
• For example, predict how likely it is that a customer will click on your email links.
• Armed with this information you can decide not to send an email to a certain “low
likelihood to click” segment.
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Model 3: Propensity to engage
CustomerID PastEmailsOpened TotalEmailsSent Age WebVisitsLastWeek PropensityToClick (%)
U001 5 10 25 3 70%
U002 0 8 42 1 15%
U003 7 10 34 5 85%
U004 2 9 29 2 40%
U005 1 12 50 0 10%
• U003 has a high propensity (85%) — definitely include in the email campaign.
• U002 and U005 have very low propensities — might exclude them to save cost and reduce spam
complaints.
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Model 4: Propensity to unsubscribe
• A propensity to unsubscribe model tells you which customers not to touch: if there are high value
customers you are at risk of losing to unsubscribe, you need to find other ways to reaching out to them
that are not by email.
• For example, you can predict how likely it is that a customer will unsubscribe from your email list at
any given point in time.
• Armed with this information you can optimize email frequency. For “high likelihood to unsubscribe”
segments, you should decrease send frequency; whereas for “low likelihood to unsubscribe” segments,
you can increase email send frequency.
• You could also decide to use different channels (like direct mail or LinkedIn) to reach out to “high
likelihood to unsubscribe” customers.
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Model 5: Propensity to buy
• The propensity to buy model tells you which customers are ready to make their purchase, so you
can find who to target. Goal: Target the right customers with the right offers, at the right time.
• Moreover, once you know who is ready and who is not helps you provide the right aggression in
your offer.
• Those that are likely to buy won’t need high discounts (You can stop cannibalizing your margin)
while customers who are not likely to buy may need a more aggressive offer, thereby bringing you
incremental revenue.
• For example, a “propensity to buy a new vehicle” model built with only data the automotive
manufacturer has in their database can be used to predict percent of sales.
• By incorporating demographic and lifestyle data from third parties, could improve the result to 70%
in the top five deciles. the accuracy of that model can be improved. That is, if the first model
predicts 50% sales in the top five deciles (there are ten deciles), then the later.
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Model 6: Propensity to churn
• Companies often rely on customer service agents to “save” customers who call to say they are taking
their business elsewhere.
• But by this time, it is often too late to save the relationship. The propensity to churn model tells you
which active customers are at risk, so you know which high value, at risk customers to put on your
watch list and reach out.
• Armed with this information, you may be able to save those customers with preemptive marketing
programs designed to retain them.
• For example, you may want to do an aggressive customer win back campaign for customers who
have both a high likelihood to unsubscribe and a high predicted lifetime value.
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Model 6: Propensity to churn
CustomerID ChurnProb (%) CLV ($) UnsubscribeProb (%)
C301 85 1200 60
C302 10 500 15
C303 75 2000 80
• But unlike classification, clustering doesn’t use predefined labels. Instead, it automatically
discovers patterns or groupings in the data.
• Clustering segments customers into similar groups based on their behavior, demographics, or any
other features.
• Bargain shoppers
• High spenders
• Infrequent visitors
• Behavioral clustering
• Examples:
• Frequency of visits or purchases
• Examples:
• Someone buying mostly electronics
• Examples:
• Customers loyal to Apple vs. Samsung
• Fashion lovers (C3, C7, C11) → Send latest trends, flash sales
• Electronics shoppers (C1, C5, C9) → Offer bundle deals, new launches
• Grocery buyers (C2, C4, C8, C12) → Weekly offers, subscription services
• Home category (C6, C10) → Furniture, decor sale alerts
• If two users have shown similar reactions to certain items, they are likely to agree on other
items as well.
• Applications:
• Movies: Netflix, IMDb, etc.
• Cosine Similarity
• U2 likes {A, B, D}
• If we assume data comes from a univariate Gaussian distribution, the model is:
Where
• μ∈R = mean
• A semi-parametric model also has infinite dimensional parameters, but is not dense in the
space of distributions.
• For example, a mixture of Gaussians with one Gaussian at each data point is dense in the
space of distributions. Formally, if 𝑑 is the dimension of the parameter, and 𝑛 is the number
of samples, if 𝑑 → ∞as 𝑛 → ∞ and 𝑑 /𝑛→ 0 as 𝑛 → ∞, then the model is semi-parametric.
Assume height grows linearly with age for Linear age + gender (still parametric) Gender is still modeled as a fixed numbe (parametric).
everyone, ignoring gender. Adds a fixed offset for gender but still Age is modeled flexibly using a smooth curve (spline),
Mathematically: assumes a straight-line age–height which can capture rapid childhood growth, teenage
Height=β0+β1×Age relationship. spurts, and plateaus.
Example: boys might be, on average, 3 cm
This is simple but unrealistic — it ignores taller than girls at any age. Mathematically:
that growth slows after teenage years. Mathematically: Height=β0+f(Age)+β1×Gender
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Model Comparison
• When we have multiple candidate models, we need criteria to choose the “best” one.
• Exploratory analysis: Formulate all possible models and see which describes the data best.
• Confirmatory analysis: Test a specific model (or set of models) you hypothesized before data
collection.
Common Approaches:
• heighti = b0 + b1⋅agei + εi
• In exploratory analysis: We try all possible predictors (e.g., age, gender, nutrition) and pick
the best.
• Nested Model: Model 1 is nested inside Model 2 because Model 1 can be obtained by setting
b2=0.
• Interpretation
• If Model 2 is significantly better:
Criteria Used:
• By completeness:
• Complete models: Number of equations = number of endogenous variables.
• By type of variables:
• General Linear Model (GLM): Continuous dependent variables.
• Generalized Linear Model (GzLM): Allows other types, e.g., logistic regression.
• Structural Equation Models (SEM): Complex relationships among observed and latent variables.
• Instead of predicting the actual height in cm, we predict whether someone is tall or not tall.
• Let’s define:
• Yi=1 if the person is tall (e.g., above 170 cm).
• Interpretation
• If adding gender significantly improves classification accuracy and likelihood, Model 2 is better.