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Behavioral analytics is a recent advancement in
business analytics Business analytics (BA) refers to the skills, technologies, and practices for iterative exploration and investigation of past business performance to gain insight and drive business planning. Business analytics focuses on developing new insights ...
that reveals new insights into the behavior of consumers on
eCommerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile comm ...
platforms, online games, web and mobile applications, and Internet of Things ( IoT). The rapid increase in the volume of raw event data generated by the digital world enables methods that go beyond
demographics Demography () is the statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analysis examin ...
and other traditional metrics that tell us what kind of people took what actions in the past. Behavioral analysis focuses on understanding how
consumer A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or use purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. ...
s act and why, enabling predictions about how they are likely to act in the future. It enables marketers to make the right offers to consumer segments at the right time. Behavioral analytics can be useful for
authentication Authentication (from ''authentikos'', "real, genuine", from αὐθέντης ''authentes'', "author") is the act of proving an Logical assertion, assertion, such as the Digital identity, identity of a computer system user. In contrast with iden ...
as for security purposes. It uses non-identifiable but individually unique factors to confirm who the user is. The
identity Identity may refer to: * Identity document * Identity (philosophy) * Identity (social science) * Identity (mathematics) Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film * ''Identity'' (2003 film), an ...
of the user is authenticated in the background using factor such as mouse movement to typing speed and habits, login history network detail like
IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...
, browser used, etc. Behavioral analytics utilizes the massive volumes of raw user event data captured during sessions in which consumers use application, game, or website, including traffic data like navigation path, clicks,
social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
interactions,
purchasing decision Purchasing is the procurement process a business or organization uses to acquire goods or services to accomplish its goals. Although there are several organizations that attempt to set standards in the purchasing process, processes can vary gr ...
s and marketing responsiveness. Also, the event-data can include advertising metrics like click-to-conversion time, as well as comparisons between other metrics like the monetary value of an order and the amount of time spent on the site. These
data points In statistics, a unit of observation is the unit described by the data that one analyzes. A study may treat groups as a unit of observation with a country as the unit of analysis, drawing conclusions on group characteristics from data collected a ...
are then compiled and analyzed, whether by looking at session progression from when a user first entered the platform until a sale was made, or what other products a user bought or looked at before this purchase. Behavioral analysis allows future actions and trends to be predicted based on the collection of such data. Since the analysis requires collection and aggregation of large amounts of
personal data Personal data, also known as personal information or personally identifiable information (PII), is any information related to an identifiable person. The abbreviation PII is widely used in the United States, but the phrase it abbreviates has fou ...
, including highly sensitive one (such as sexual orientation or sexual preferences, health issues, location) which is then traded between hundreds of parties involved in
targeted advertising Targeted advertising or data-driven marketing is a form of advertising, including online advertising, that is directed towards an audience with certain traits, based on the product or person the advertiser is promoting. These traits can either ...
, behavioral analytics is causing significant concerns about
privacy violation The right to privacy is an element of various legal traditions that intends to restrain governmental and private actions that threaten the privacy of individuals. Over 185 national constitutions mention the right to privacy. Since the global ...
s. While business analytics has a more broad focus on the who, what, where and when of
business intelligence Business intelligence (BI) consists of strategies, methodologies, and technologies used by enterprises for data analysis and management of business information. Common functions of BI technologies include Financial reporting, reporting, online an ...
, behavioral analytics narrows that scope, allowing one to take seemingly unrelated
data Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted for ...
points in order to
extrapolate In mathematics, extrapolation is a type of estimation, beyond the original observation range, of the value of a variable on the basis of its relationship with another variable. It is similar to interpolation, which produces estimates between know ...
, predict and determine errors and future
trend A fad, trend, or craze is any form of collective behavior that develops within a culture, a generation, or social group in which a group of people enthusiastically follow an impulse for a short time period. Fads are objects or behaviors th ...
s. It takes a more holistic and human view of data, connecting individual data points to tell us not only what is happening, but also how and why it is happening.


Examples and real world applications

Data shows that a large percentage of users using a certain eCommerce platform found it by searching for “Thai food” on Google. After landing on the homepage, most people spent some time on the “Asian Food” page and then logged off without placing an order. Looking at each of these
events Event may refer to: Gatherings of people * Ceremony, an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion * Convention (meeting), a gathering of individuals engaged in some common interest * Event management, the organization of eve ...
as separate data points does not represent what is really going on and why people did not make a purchase. However, viewing these data points as a representation of overall user behavior enables one to interpolate how and why users acted in this particular case. Behavioral analytics looks at all site traffic and page views as a timeline of connected events that did not lead to orders. Since most users left after viewing the “Asian Food” page, there could be a disconnect between what they are searching for on Google and what the “Asian Food” page displays. Knowing this, a quick look at the “Asian Food” page reveals that it does not display Thai food prominently and thus people do not think it is actually offered, even though it is. Behavioral analytics is popular in commercial environments.
Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as Amazon, is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevu ...
is a leader in using behavioral analytics to recommend additional products that customers are likely to buy based on their previous purchasing patterns on the site. Behavioral analytics is also used by
Target Target may refer to: Warfare and shooting * Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports ** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports ** Aiming point, in field artille ...
to suggest products to customers in their retail stores, while political campaigns use it to determine how potential voters should be approached. In addition to retail and political applications, behavioral analytics is also used by banks and manufacturing firms to prioritize leads generated by their websites. Behavioral analytics also allow developers to manage users in online-gaming and web applications. Amongst others, IBM and Intel are creating advanced analytics solutions. In retail, this is IoT for tracking shopping behaviors (in-store
tracking Tracking may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Tracking, in computer graphics, in match moving (insertion of graphics into footage) * Tracking, composing music with music tracker software * Eye tracking, measuring the position of ...
).


Types

* Ecommerce and retail – Product recommendations and predicting future sales trends * Online gaming – Predicting usage trends, load, and user preferences in future releases * Application development – Determining how users use an application to predict future usage and preferences. *
Cohort analysis Cohort analysis is a kind of behavioral analytics that breaks the data in a data set into related groups before analysis. These groups, or cohort (statistics), cohorts, usually share common characteristics or experiences within a defined time-span. ...
– Breaking users down into similar groups to gain a more focused understanding of their behavior. * Security – Detecting compromised credentials and insider threats by locating anomalous behavior. * Suggestions – People who liked this also liked... * Presentation of relevant content (preferences, user groups, etc.) based on user behavior.


Components

An ideal behavioral analytics solution would include: * Real-time capture of vast volumes of raw event data across all relevant digital devices and applications used during sessions * Automatic aggregation of raw event data into relevant data sets for rapid access, filtering and analysis * Ability to query data in an unlimited number of ways, enabling users to ask any business question * Extensive library of built-in analysis functions such as cohort, path and
funnel analysis Funnel analysis involves mapping and analyzing a series of events that lead towards a defined goal, like an advertisement-to-purchase journey in online advertising, or the flow that starts with user engagement in a mobile app and ends in a sale on ...
* A visualization component


See also

*
Analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data, which also falls under and directly relates to the umbrella term, data sc ...
*
Big data Big data primarily refers to data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data processing, data-processing application software, software. Data with many entries (rows) offer greater statistical power, while data with ...
*
Business intelligence Business intelligence (BI) consists of strategies, methodologies, and technologies used by enterprises for data analysis and management of business information. Common functions of BI technologies include Financial reporting, reporting, online an ...
*
Business process discovery Business process discovery (BPD) related to business process management and process mining is a set of techniques that manually or automatically construct a representation of an organisations' current business processes and their major process varia ...
*
Cohort analysis Cohort analysis is a kind of behavioral analytics that breaks the data in a data set into related groups before analysis. These groups, or cohort (statistics), cohorts, usually share common characteristics or experiences within a defined time-span. ...
*
Customer dynamics In sales, commerce, and economics, a customer (sometimes known as a client, buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a good, service, product, or an idea, obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier via a financial transaction or an exchange ...
*
Data mining Data mining is the process of extracting and finding patterns in massive data sets involving methods at the intersection of machine learning, statistics, and database systems. Data mining is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and ...
*
Funnel analysis Funnel analysis involves mapping and analyzing a series of events that lead towards a defined goal, like an advertisement-to-purchase journey in online advertising, or the flow that starts with user engagement in a mobile app and ends in a sale on ...
* Path analysis *
Personalized marketing Personalized marketing, also known as one-to-one marketing or individual marketing, is a marketing strategy by which companies use data analysis and digital technology to show adverts to individuals based on their perceived characteristics and ...
*
Test and learn Test and learn is a set of practices followed by retailers, banks and other consumer-focused companies to test ideas in a small number of locations or customers to predict impact. The process is often designed to answer three questions about any tes ...
*
Web tracking Web tracking is the practice by which operators of websites and third parties collect, store and share information about visitors' activities on the World Wide Web. Analysis of a user's behaviour may be used to provide content that enables the op ...


References


Further reading

* *LeClaire, Jennifer. Rushin, Jason
"Behavioral Analytics For Dummies"
Z-Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Behavioral Analytics Applied data mining Business intelligence terms Business analytics Behavioral economics