Book Image

Data Analysis Using SQL and Excel - Second Edition

By : Gordon S. S. Linoff
Book Image

Data Analysis Using SQL and Excel - Second Edition

By: Gordon S. S. Linoff

Overview of this book

Data Analysis Using SQL and Excel, 2nd Edition shows you how to leverage the two most popular tools for data query and analysis—SQL and Excel—to perform sophisticated data analysis without the need for complex and expensive data mining tools. Written by a leading expert on business data mining, this book shows you how to extract useful business information from relational databases. You'll learn the fundamental techniques before moving into the "where" and "why" of each analysis, and then learn how to design and perform these analyses using SQL and Excel. Examples include SQL and Excel code, and the appendix shows how non-standard constructs are implemented in other major databases, including Oracle and IBM DB2/UDB. The companion website includes datasets and Excel spreadsheets, and the book provides hints, warnings, and technical asides to help you every step of the way. Data Analysis Using SQL and Excel, 2nd Edition shows you how to perform a wide range of sophisticated analyses using these simple tools, sparing you the significant expense of proprietary data mining tools like SAS.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Foreword
17
EULA

Look-Alike Models

The first modeling technique is look-alike models, which are used to measure similarity to a known good or bad instance.

What Is the Model?

The look-alike model produces a similarity score. The model itself is a formula that describes the similarity, and this formula can be applied to new data. Typically, the purpose of a look-alike model is to choose some groups of customers or zip codes for further analysis or for a marketing effort.

The similarity measure cannot really be validated quantitatively. However, we can qualitatively evaluate the model by seeing if the rankings look reasonable and if the historical ranking of something we care about—such as response—is similar to the rankings provided by the similarity score.

What Is the Best Zip Code?

This example starts with the question: Which zip codes have the highest penetration of orders and what are some of their demographic characteristics? For practical purposes, the zip codes are limited to those...