Data Sources for Predictive Analytics Projects

Data for a predictive analytics project can come from many different sources. Some of the most common sources are within your own organization; other common sources include data purchased from outside vendors.

Internal data sources include

• Transactional data, such as customer purchases

• Customer profiles, such as user-entered information from registration forms

• Campaign histories, including whether customers responded to advertisements

• Clickstream data, including the patterns of customers’ web clicks

• Customer interactions, such as those from e-mails, chats, surveys, and customer-service calls

• Machine-generated data, such as that from telematics, sensors, and smart meters

External data sources include

• Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

• Subscription services such as Bloomberg, Thompson Reuters, Esri, and Westlaw

By combining data from several disparate data sources in your predictive models, you may get a better overall view of your customer, thus a more accurate model.