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Tool Mastery | ConsumerView Matching

JessicaS
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)
Created

1.pngThisarticle is part of the Tool Mastery Series, a compilation of Knowledge Base contributions to introduce diverse working examples for Designer Tools. Here we’ll delve into uses of theConsumerViewMatching Macro on our way to mastering the Alteryx Designer:

What is ConsumerView?

The ConsumerView Matching macro enables users to match their customer file to the Experian ConsumerView data. Starting with customer information such as name and address you can leverage the ConsumerView macro in Alteryx to append a variety of information about your customers such as household segmentation, home purchase price, presence of children in a home, estimated education and income levels, length of residence, and many more!

What kind of Information Does ConsumerView Return?

Experian’s Mosaic

Mosaic is a lifestyle segmentation that helps give valuable insight into customer behavior, preferences, and attitudes. Mosaic segmentation assigns US Households into one of 71 lifestyle segments.

Where can I find more information about Mosaic?

Data Install Documentation

It is highly recommended that customers read the full documentation for the Experian dataset. This documentation can be found inside a ‘documentation’ folder on the hard drive that ships with the data. Look inside the Experian >> Consumerview folder for the below documents.

Install Licensee User Guide – In depth information about the data set, data quality, methodology, and use guidelines

Mosaic Names and Short Descriptions – quick reference on mosaic segments

Mosaic USA Reference Guide – detailed information on mosaic segments

Visit Experian’s Segmentation Portal

Experian has a wealth of information available on their online segmentation portal including interactive dashboards with detailed information on each segment

For access visit http://www.segmentationportal.com/to register for access click on ‘How can I get Access’

Other Variables at the Household and Individual Level

ConsumerView will return the variables that are available and licensed at a household level when a match is produced at the household or address level. For name/address matches ConsumerView will also output variables at the individual level. For further information around the variables returned see the US Data Variable List.xlsx file in the documentation folder for the data vintage you are using.

In the file, be sure to reference the CV_Household tab or CV_Individual tab. The Description column will provide information around a particular variable and the value column will give an indication of what the contents of the field mean.

What if I have a question about a variable output from ConsumerView?

A sample use case: You are viewing the output of ConsumerView and you want to know what HOMEOWNER: COMBINED HOMEOWNER-RENTER is and what the values output from the ConsumerView macro mean.

Open the US Data Variable List.xlsx check both CV_Household and CV_Individual to locate the variable you are looking for more information around. You can find HOMEOWNER: COMBINED HOMEOWNER-RENTER on the CV_Household tab since it is a household level variable.

If you want to know what ‘HOMEOWNER: COMBINED HOMEOWNER-RENTER’ is then you can navigate to the row in the table corresponding to the variable and reference the description column to see that HOMEOWNER: COMBINED HOMEOWNER-RENTER is ‘A combination of known and modeled data. Confirmed homeowners are determined from tax assessor and deed information. Homeowner probability is calculated using a proprietary statistical model which predicts the likelihood of homeownership. Renter status is derived from self reported data. Unit numbers are not used to infer rented status because units may be owner condominium/coop. Probable renter is calculated using an algorithm based on lack of homeowner, the address type, and Census data’

If want to know what the values in the field mean, refer to the ‘Value’ column to get definitions for each code. After referring to the ‘Value’ column you can see that value ‘7’ means probable homeowner.

Also be sure to check out the consumerview rename macro available on gallery! This macro will allow you to replace the coded output values of ConsumerView with the verbose names. For example, it will recode the value of "P" in "PERSON TYPE" to "Primary Decision Maker"

https://gallery.alteryx.com/#!app/ConsumerView-Renaming-Macro/59c91ec4a18e9e08dc88f4fa
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What if I am looking for a variable that I do not see output from ConsumerView?

Reference the US Data Variable List.xlsx and refer to the ‘Fields Licensed in Data Install’ column.

If you locate a field that you are interested in that is listed as ‘no’ in the licensed column contact your Alteryx account executive for further information.

Configuring ConsumerView

To configure ConsumerView add a data source to the tool containing address or name and phone number. The ConsumerView Matchingmacro will match on up to three different match methods:

Name + Phone

Name + Address

Address only

Based on the fields specified by the user, the tool automatically chooses which match methods to apply. For example:

If an address is specified without any name or phone data, the tool will run the Address-Only match group.

If name and phone are specified without any address data, the tool will run the Name-Phone match group.

If name, phone, and address are specified, the tool will run all three match groups: Name-Phone, Name-Address, and Address-Only.

A sample configuration for each match method is attached (v11.3 BasicMatch.yxmd).

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Interpreting Results

To view aggregate summary information for the ConsumerView match rate, place a browse after the results ( R ) output of the ConsumerView macro. The Match Summary will give you a match rate at the Match Level (for example name-address, name-phone, and address-only). Additionally, The report gives a total match rate.

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Common Use Cases

How can I tell what my top mosaic segments are ?

With Predictive Tools:

If you have predictive installed you can quickly calculate this using the Frequency Table Tool, setting Mosaic Household as the frequency variable.

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If you need predictive, visit downloads.alteryx.com to download, ensuring that you select the correct version to match your designer.

Without Predictive Tools

If you do not have predictive installed, you can summarize your customers by segment and compare against the total counts to get a percent by segment and rank by mosaic as in the attached v11.3 workflow. (FindTopSegments.yxmd)

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How do I calculate an Index to help me target segments?

Since indexes are based on percentages they are useful to identify segments that may not show up in your customer file in large counts. For example, if 3% of your customer file is segment A01 but only 0.05% of the population around your store/site is A01 then you may want to research targeting this segment.

To learn how to calculate indexes in Alteryx, reference the attached v11.3 workflow (CalculateIndex.yxmd) to view a sample workflow illustrating the process:

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Can I interact with the underlying data that powers ConsumerView?

Absolutely. All the underlying data is stored in Calgary files. Drag a Calgary Input Tool onto the canvas and click the drop down to connect to either the Household or the Individual file. Additionally, you can open the ConsumerView macro by right clicking and choosing ‘open macro’ to explore the data further.

Looking at the Calgary databases for ConsumerView, how would I join the Household file to the Individual file?

You can use household zero based ID to join the household and individual files from the same vintage. PLEASE NOTE: This is not a persistent field and gets reassigned with each data shipment. Do not join two different vintage data sets together using HH Zero based Record ID

Common Errors

The Melissa Data CASS Engine appears not to be installed (can’t find dll).

Solution: download and install the latest CASS. Cass gets updated roughly every 8 weeks. You can find the latest CASShere!

By now, you should have expert-level proficiency with the ConsumerView Matching Macro! If you can think of a use case we left out, feel free to use the comments section below!

Consider yourself a Tool Master already? Let us know atcommunity@alteryx.comif you’d like your creative tool uses to be featured in the Tool Mastery Series.

Stay tuned with our latest posts every#ToolTuesdayby following@alteryxon Twitter! If you want to master all the Designer tools, considersubscribingfor email notifications.

Attachments
Comments
kpuser
7 - Meteor
Is this tool still available? I couldn't find it in the gallery
javila
7 - Meteor
@kpuser looks like it's gone according to this, doesn't seem as if an explanation was given: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Location-Data-Knowledge-Base/Renaming-ConsumerView-Values/ta-p/9211...
mweik
Moderator
Moderator

Hi @kpuser and @javila ,

 

The ConsumerView Matching macro is still available and is shipped with the data install (It can be found in the Join tab).  Additionally, the ConsumerView Renaming macro is currently being revamped.  

 

Best!

royhampton
6 - Meteoroid
@mweik can you give an approximate date for when the ConsumerView Renaming macro will be available please?
babegeman
6 - Meteoroid
@royhampton Seconded.
mweik
Moderator
Moderator

Our goal is to have the updated version of the ConsumerView Rename macro tested and available in Q4 2019.

royhampton
6 - Meteoroid
Thanks for the update @mweik. Can you update this post when the macro is available please?
YZHE
6 - Meteoroid

@JessicaS @mweik  Hello, I am not able to access the ConsumerView Rename macro with the link: https://gallery.alteryx.com/#!app/ConsumerView-Renaming-Macro/59c91ec4a18e9e08dc88f4fa

 

Please kindly provide further instructions of downloading the macro and the use cases. Thanks!

mweik
Moderator
Moderator

Hi @YZHE,

 

The ConsumerView Rename macro has been updated to the ConsumerView Output  Decoder macro and was initially released with the Q4 2019 data install.  The only location for this new macro is within our data install and it is not possible to download it from Gallery at this time.

Here is the community link for the new version of the tool: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Location-Data/ConsumerView-Output-Decoder-Released/ta-p/525665