Profiles

A profile is a set of characteristics that define any business-related item, such as a user, a company, or a context (date and time). For example, a user profile may include characteristics such as first name, last name, city, gender, age, and e-mail address. A company profile may include different characteristics, such as the company name, contact, city, and e-mail address. A context profile may include characteristics such as the date and time when a page is displayed, and the path the user takes to get to that page.

The following figure shows different types of profiles.

Click history
Length of session

Company Name
Contact
City
E-mail address
Click history
Length of session

First Name
Last Name
City
Gender
Age
E-mail address
Click history
Length of session

Company Profile

Anonymous User Profile

Registered User Profile

In the Commerce Server, you use profiles to store information about business-related items. For example, you use profiles to collect data from users on your Web site. You can also enter data directly into user and organization profiles by using Business Desk.

• Using Profiles in Web Site Management
  
  
• Collecting and Storing Profiles
  
  
• Analyzing User Data

Using Profiles in Web Site Management

Profiles are essential to Web site management because they provide information about the users who visit your site and how they use it. You use profiles to analyze user data, and you use them to target content to users.

Using Commerce Server Business Desk, you can:

• Determine what information to collect about users visiting your site.
  
  
• Analyze profile information.
  
  
• Create target expressions to match content to users.
  
  
• Create advertising, discount, and direct mail campaigns to target specific user groups.
  
  
• Deliver personalized direct mail messages to users.

For example, assume you have a site that sells sporting goods. The following workflow provides an example of how you can use Business Desk to analyze user activity and target content to users.

1. Your system administrator creates profile definitions for registered users and guest users.
   
   
2. After your site has been running for a period of time, you can analyze profile data to determine who is visiting your site:
   • Run reports to analyze who is visiting your site.
     
     
   • Run reports to analyze which products in your catalog are selling well, and which ones are not selling well.
3. Use the results of your analysis to create a campaign to target content to users:
   • Use the profiles to create target expressions and target groups.
     
     
   • Create a discount campaign to offer these specific users a discount.
4. After the discount has been in production for a period of time, analyze the results of the campaign.
   • Run reports to analyze the success of the campaign.
     
     
   • Run reports to find out whether this group of users increased their purchases of discounted items.
5. If your users did not increase their purchases of discounted items, create a direct mail campaign to deliver personalized messages offering the users a discount on a certain product.

For information about creating expressions and targeting content to users, see Targeting and Personalization.

Collecting and Storing Profiles

Profile data is collected at a Commerce site in two ways. Users visiting your site provide profile data about themselves; this is called explicit profiling. For example, when users purchase products from your site, they typically provide their name, mailing address, phone number, and e-mail address. This information is used to populate their user profile.

You can also collect data through implicit profiling. In implicit profiling, the actions of all users (anonymous and registered) are recorded in Web log files as the users interact with your Web site. For example, Web log files record the links that anonymous users click, what products they search for, the length of their sessions, and how long they visit a given Web page. Even though the users are anonymous — you do not know their names, e-mail addresses, or other information — how they use your site is still important information. For example, a click history provides a path through the Web pages visited; you can use this information to determine a particular set of interests. For information about how cookies are used in Commerce Server, see Cookies and Authentication.

Another form of implicit profiling is performed by the Commerce Server Predictor resource. If some information about a user is missing—for example, the Music Preference associated with a user—this information can be guessed by the Predictor resource based on the aggregate properties of the user population who visits your site and the CDs they purchase. For information about the prediction feature, see Prediction and Data Mining.

All the information that is collected during a specific user session is collected in a single profile, that is, one instance of a profile definition.

When profile data is initially collected, it is first stored in the Commerce Server database and the Web server logs. The system administrator imports the profile data into the Data Warehouse on a regular basis. After the profiles are imported into the Data Warehouse, you can use Business Desk to analyze user data, and then use the results of your analysis to update your Web site or apply values to user profile properties.

Analyzing User Data

You can analyze user data in reports, or in segment models. For information about analyzing segment models, see Analyzing Population Segments.

The following table lists the reports included with Commerce Server that you use to analyze user data.

See Also

Cookies and Authentication

Prediction and Data Mining

Targeting and Personalization

Analyzing Population Segments

Running Reports