Behavioral analytics is a subcategory of data analytics that looks at the way people behave, most often in regard to purchasing patterns. Behavior analytics tools are used to track users and the data they produce. Data can be gathered in a wide variety of ways, such as social media, online gaming, real time internet browsing, mobile applications, and even voice interaction with smart devices. A data analysis can then be performed to provide insights into ways of targeting these users.
A large volume of raw event data can be gathered any time a user interacts with a software system. This can track not only what they looked at, but also how long they looked at it, what interactions they had with it, and what they looked at immediately before and after. By tracking the customer journey, behavioral analytics can help predict future patterns or identify areas of concern. This type of data analysis is most often conducted as a cohort analysis. When conducting a cohort analysis, users are grouped together in ‘cohorts’ that share commonalities, such as a similar user journey or identifying characteristics like age. By performing a cohort analysis, companies can identify patterns across the life cycle of a user and make changes or recommendations as necessary as a way of increasing engagement.
Behavioral analysis can even be utilized to see how customers interact with different products. By looking at product analytics, businesses can see how effective, or ineffective, marketing strategies are. Then, companies can compare the product analytics to available behavioral data and make changes as necessary to help sell the product.
However, behavioral analytics is not just limited to the retail sector. Analytics solutions can help identify trends within political parties in order to determine how best to court new voters. These analytics can also help charity groups identify which leads from their websites are best worth following up on, and the order in which to do so.
This type of behavioral analysis allows for seemingly disparate data points to be woven together to create clear connections that can enhance the interaction between customer and company. While there are numerous benefits to behavioral analytics, some of the most impressive include: