Commentary
Do Past Purchases Predict The Future?
- by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, April 29, 2014
Do past purchases predict future purchase behavior? A Tuesday morning panel at MediaPost’s Search Insider Summit agreed to disagree. Aside from staple products, the past absolutely does not inform future purchases, said Joelle Kaufman, Head of Marketing and Partnerships at BloomReach. “Historical purchase behavior is not a predictor,” she said. Just because someone bought a lighting fixture to redecorate their bedroom doesn’t mean they’re ever going to buy another light fixture, according to Kaufman. Not buying her argument were Shreya Kushari, SVP of Search Marketing at DigitasLBi, and Jeff MacGurn, SVP at Covario. It just requires that retailers take a more sophisticated approach to measuring purchase data, they said. A single lighting fixture is one thing, but a Baby Bjorn is something else entirely.
Gavin O'Malley edits MediaPost's Mobile Marketing Daily and MoBlog column. Follow him: @mp_gavin. You can reach Gavin at gavin@mediapost.com.
this could be the most absurd comment I have ever heard reported on. In a typical supermarket, there are 45,000 SKUs, a shopper buys 400 SKUs over the course of a year on average, and this Joelle person thinks past behavior doesn't predict the future? Wow. I have spoken at Mediapost events on the subject of analytics folks on the digital side simply not understanding basic consumer dynamics and that there is great value in bringing the two analytics "teams" (consumer and digital) together for cross-fertilization. I rest my case.