Software Journal

It is generally said that targeting system is a degenerate classification system with only two labels.  However, this is misleading.  For example, consider that you are trying to identify a list of customers who are good prospects for an upselling opportunity.   So, you run the system and generate a list of the “to call” list.  The system has then separated your universe of customers into “good candidate” and “not good candidate” customer sets.  Based on the traditional definition, then the decision system is a targeting system.  However, consider the scenario in which, you decide to separate the list into three parts based on how strong prospects they are – “very likely”, “somewhat likely” and “not likely”.  Then, has the same system suddenly stopped being a targeting system, and become a broader classification system?  Of course not, and this example helps us refine the concept of targeting systems vis-à-vis classification systems.  A system can be a multi-level targeting system which is trying to assign of the possibly many levels of actions.  It is possible to have a targeting system with infinite levels, by simply requiring the system to output a “percent likelihood” instead of yes/no.

On the flip side, a two label classification system, which is trying to separate the given list of objects into two different labels shouldn’t really be considered a targeting system.  For example, consider the case in which the classification system is trying to classify a given fossil to be belonging to one of the many known dinosaur species.  As the age of the fossil and the other characteristics continue to get analyzed, the choice narrows down to either the Struthiomimus or Ornithomimus.  Since it now has two labels, does it suddenly become a targeting system?  We argue that it doesn’t, since the goal is to assign one of the labels to it.  The goal was not to target to do something based on that decision.

Thus, the real difference between a classification system and a targeting system is the intent. If you intend to target some objects out of given set to take one action (investigate, upsell, give a free upgrade, stop from boarding the plane), then that is a targeting system.  If you intend to assign one of the labels to the given object, then that is a classification system.

Posted on Monday, January 16th, 2012 at 9:02 PM in analytics, data mining, BI   |  RSS feed Pinging is disabled. But you can skip to the end and leave a response.