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Rise of the Machine(learning algorithms)

data driven website optimization

Frank van LankveltSenior Big Data Engineer / Architect

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The B2B Customer Journey

discover compare

consider - business

consider - technical

buy

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Inbound / Advertising

discover

● SEA● Display● Affiliate● Social● Native

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Machine based Optimization

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SEA, Display

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Multi-armed Bandits

balancingExploitation

withExploration

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Bayes’ Theorem

Proposition A and evidence B,P(A), the priorP(A|B), the posteriorthe quotient P(B|A)/P(B) represents the support B provides

for A.

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Conversion rate Distribution

hit: 0miss: 0

hit: 10miss: 40

hit: 1miss: 4

hit: 100miss: 400

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With multiple options

Multiple distributionsA - the incumbentB - the challenger

How often should B be shown?

Thompson Sampling:sample distributionsshow variant with highest conversion rate Red: old configuration

Blue: new configuration

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Beyond the banner

discover compare

● A/B testing● content experiments

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Rinse & Repeat?

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Content Experiments - Setup

A B

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Content Experiments - Reporting

Experimentgoal / conversionconversion rateshistorical servings

Multi-armed / Contextual Bandit

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Train Model Visits

BanditModel

Content Experiments - Data flow

Site

Sessionize

Requestlog

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Personalizing

compare● targeting● personalization● recommendation● email marketing

consider - business

consider - technical

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Getting personal?

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Targeting & Personalization

Default

Amsterdam

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Behavioral Targeting

Use metadata / context on documents or visitor to personalize

Visitor looks mostly at clothing?show more clothing

Visitor looks mostly at shoes?show more shoes

I.e. use meta-data provided by the editor (a human) to augment the experience.

Based on rules, metadata => still much control for humans

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Audience Experiment

does audience configuration

improveconversion?

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Contextual bandit

Conversion rate depends on context:

x the contextw the weights𝚽 cdf of normal

dist.

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CTR prediction - under the hood

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CTR Context / Features

Ad featuresbid phrasesad titlead textlanding page URLlanding page itselfa hierarchy of advertiser, account,

campaign, ad group and ad

Query featuressearch keywordspossible algorithmic query expansioncleaning and stemming

Context featuresdisplay locationgeographic locationtimeuser datasearch history

Cardinalities varies● gender (2 values)● userID (billions)

x, w very large (sparse) vectors

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Persuasion Principles

Persuasion Principles

● Social Proof● Scarcity● Authority● Reciprocity● Commitment● Liking

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Persuasion API > In pictures

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Modeling the Visitor

Multi-armed bandit per visitor

● each principle gets an arm● model persuasion principle susceptibility

raise conversion by

10%

Authority

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The B2B Customer Journey

is this real?

or just fantasy?

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Work in Progress

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Mapping the Customer Journey

Man: behavioral targeting

annotate pages withpersona andphase

Machine: derived from data

cluster visitors - persona

cluster pages in visit - phase

do these agree?

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Log Likelihood Ratio - relatedness of pages

A not A

B x 20 - x 20

not B 40 - x 140 + x 180

40 160 200

LLR A, B

total # visitors

visitors of B

visitors of A

visitors of A & B

LLR as “weight” between vertices

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sonehippo.com pages

(inverse) distanceLLR

colorJourney phase(pink: no phase)Computer

says NO

Exploratory Analysis - Do man & machine agree?

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Summarizing

buy?

Algorithms to use in anger

● contextual / multi-armed banditparticularly in (realtime) reinforcement learning

● Log Likelihood Ratio

The Customer Journey is complex

● should it be left to man?

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Questions?