Behavioral analytics

Behavioral analytics is a recent advancement in business analytics that reveals new insights into the
behavior of consumers on eCommerce 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 and other traditional metrics that tell us what kind of people took
what actions in the past. Behavioral analysis focuses on understanding how consumers 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 as for security purposes.[1] It uses non-identifiable but
individually unique factors to confirm who the user is. The identity 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, 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
interactions, purchasing decisions 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.[2] These data points 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, 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, behavioral analytics is causing significant
concerns about privacy violations.[3][4]

While business analytics has a more broad focus on the who, what, where and when of business
intelligence, behavioral analytics narrows that scope, allowing one to take seemingly unrelated data points
in order to extrapolate, predict and determine errors and future trends. 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 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 Visual Representation of Events that
representation of overall user behavior enables one to interpolate Make Up Behavioral Analysis
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 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.[5] Behavioral analytics is also used by Target 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.[5]

Amongst others, IBM and Intel are creating advanced analytics solutions. In retail, this is IoT for tracking
shopping behaviors (in-store tracking).[6][7]

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 – 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.[8]

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
A visualization component

See also
Analytics
Big data
Business intelligence
Business process discovery
 Cohort analysis
Customer dynamics
Data mining
Funnel analysis
Path analysis
Personalized marketing
Test and learn
Web tracking

References
1. Shah, Saleh, et al. "Compromised user credentials detection in a digital enterprise using
behavioral analytics. (https://zuscholars.zu.ac.ae/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2004&context=
works)" Future Generation Computer Systems 93 (2019): 407-417.
2. Yamaguchi, Kohki (6 June 2013). "Leveraging Advertising Data For Behavioral Insights" (htt
p://marketingland.com/leveraging-advertising-data-for-behavioral-insights-46467). Analytics
& Marketing Column. Marketing Land.
3. Biddle, Sam (2019-05-20). "Thanks to Facebook, Your Cellphone Company Is Watching
You More Closely Than Ever" (https://theintercept.com/2019/05/20/facebook-data-phone-car
riers-ads-credit-score/). The Intercept. Retrieved 2019-07-01.
4. "Goodbye, Chrome: Google's web browser has become spy software" (https://www.washingt
onpost.com/technology/2019/06/21/google-chrome-has-become-surveillance-software-its-ti
me-switch/). The Washington Post.
5. "Oh behave! How behavioral analytics fuels more personalized marketing" (https://web.archi
ve.org/web/20140714180534/http://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/zzw03004usen/
ZZW03004USEN.PDF) (PDF). Archived from the original (http://public.dhe.ibm.com/commo
n/ssi/ecm/en/zzw03004usen/ZZW03004USEN.PDF) (PDF) on 2014-07-14.
6. Gupta, Deepak (2021-12-08). "Council Post: In-Store Tracking: Is It A Threat To Consumer
Privacy?" (https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/12/08/in-store-tracking-is-it-
a-threat-to-consumer-privacy/). Forbes. Retrieved 2023-02-20.
7. Max, Ronny (2021-10-27). "19 Technologies of People Tracking" (https://behavioranalyticsre
tail.com/technologies-tracking-people/). Behavior Analytics Retail. Retrieved 2023-02-20.
8. Behrooz Omidvar-Tehrani; Sihem Amer-Yahia; Alexandre Termier (2015). "Interactive User
Group Analysis" (http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2806519). Proceedings of the 24th ACM
International on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management. International
Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM) 2015. pp. 403–412.
doi:10.1145/2806416.2806519 (https://doi.org/10.1145%2F2806416.2806519).
ISBN 9781450337946. S2CID 7675754 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:767575
4).

Further reading
Nagaitis, Mark. "Behavioral Analytics: The Why and How of E-Shopping" (http://www.ecomm
ercetimes.com/story/62061.html). eCommerce Times.
LeClaire, Jennifer. Rushin, Jason. "Behavioral Analytics For Dummies" (https://1lib.us/book/
2378494/925014?id=2378494&secret=925014). Z-Library.
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