{
  "id": 9694,
  "title": " predict a probability that the customer repeat-purchased the product ",
  "url": "/competitions/acquire-valued-shoppers-challenge/discussion/9694",
  "author_name": "",
  "post_date": "2014-07-09T09:39:28.060Z",
  "votes": null,
  "comment_count": 10,
  "views": 4571,
  "content": "<p>In the evaluation link, it is written</p>\n<p><em>&quot;For each customer (id) in testHistory.csv, predict a probability that the customer repeat-purchased the product from the promotion they received.&quot;</em></p>\n\n\n<p>So we have to answer in terms of only 0 or 1 as the results would be compared with the actual outcomes (which will be in form of yes or no)? Or the probability for each offer can vary in the range from 0 to 1?</p>",
  "messages": [
    {
      "id": "50185",
      "postDate": "07/09/2014 09:39:28",
      "content": "<p>In the evaluation link, it is written</p>\n<p><em>&quot;For each customer (id) in testHistory.csv, predict a probability that the customer repeat-purchased the product from the promotion they received.&quot;</em></p>\n\n\n<p>So we have to answer in terms of only 0 or 1 as the results would be compared with the actual outcomes (which will be in form of yes or no)? Or the probability for each offer can vary in the range from 0 to 1?</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "50239",
      "postDate": "07/10/2014 05:08:05",
      "content": "<p>On Evaluation link it is written,</p>\n<p>Submissions are evaluated&nbsp;on&nbsp;area under the ROC curve&nbsp;between the predicted probability that a customer repeat-purchased and the observed purchase outcomes.</p>\n<p>Submission&nbsp;File<br>For each customer (id) in testHistory.csv, predict a probability that the customer repeat-purchased the product from the promotion they received. Your submission file must have a header and should&nbsp;look like the following:</p>\n<p>id,repeatProbability<br>12262064,0<br>12277270,0<br>12332190,0<br>...</p>\n\n<p><strong>My question is that this repeatProbabilty can only take value 0 (customer will not purchase the product) or 1 (customer will purchase the product)? Or the probability can vary between 0 and 1 i.e. we say that the probability of customer purchasing the product is 0.5? Is this valid? </strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>Waiting in anticipation for the reply.</strong></p>\n<p><strong>Please reply... </strong></p>\n<p><strong>I am confused.</strong></p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "50241",
      "postDate": "07/10/2014 05:30:32",
      "content": "<p>The probability (&quot;repeatProbability&quot;) may assume values different than 0 and 1. It depends on how you are modeling it.</p>\n<p>Take a look at&nbsp;<a href=\"http://www.kaggle.com/c/acquire-valued-shoppers-challenge/forums/t/7671/evaluation/\">http://www.kaggle.com/c/acquire-valued-shoppers-challenge/forums/t/7671/evaluation/</a>, it may help you as well.</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "50243",
      "postDate": "07/10/2014 05:50:43",
      "content": "<p>Thank you so much fzvinicius for the reply...</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "50262",
      "postDate": "07/10/2014 10:27:41",
      "content": "<p>I don't have much idea regarding AUC. If my test sample consists of either 0 or 1 only as &quot;repeatProbability&quot;, will the AUC give correct score for my test sample as well?</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "50268",
      "postDate": "07/10/2014 13:58:38",
      "content": "<p>The value doesn't have to be from 0 to 1. Only the ranking matters, not the actual value, for the calculation of AUC.&nbsp;</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "50331",
      "postDate": "07/11/2014 04:23:23",
      "content": "<p>Sorry I didn't get it. Can you please explain further?</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "50364",
      "postDate": "07/11/2014 18:19:38",
      "content": "<p>I too was confused but then I read the following on the Dashboard -&gt; Home-&gt;'Data' page.</p>\n\n<p>&#8226; testHistory.csv - contains the incentive offered to each customer but does not include their response (you are predicting the repeater column for each id in this file)</p>\n<p>Now since the repeater column in training history.csv contains only O and 1, it is clear that we have to predict either 0 or 1. Hope this helps.</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "50369",
      "postDate": "07/11/2014 19:35:03",
      "content": "<p>Do not submit only 1s and 0s if you want a good score.</p>\n<p>The competition metric is AUC, not raw plain accuracy.</p>\n<p>A high probability may have a prediction of 0.956213 for example and low proba 0.052311. If your model is not sure it should predict near 0.5.</p>\n<p>Also only the rank matters. If all your predictions are above 0.9 but your low-probability predictions are ranked below high-probability predictions, you will still get a good score.</p>\n<p>Look up area under curve and see the Kaggle wiki.</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "50386",
      "postDate": "07/12/2014 08:59:59",
      "content": "<p>To Triskelion,</p>\n<p>As pointed out by rashmirin, &quot;the repeater column&nbsp;in trainingHistory.csv contains only 0 or 1&quot;.</p>\n<p>I was building a model considering the repeater column as the CLASS label. So my testing data when submitted to that model, would return either 0 or 1.</p>\n<p>But now as pointed out by you, we have to predict the probability which can take any value between 0 and 1.</p>\n<p>So it means that after applying some pre processing on my training data, each repeater column indicating 1 value should return a high prob value and each repeater column indicating 0 in training data should return a low prob value.</p>\n<p>I am just a beginner in data analysis. Any guidance on this would be highly appreciated.</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "50396",
      "postDate": "07/12/2014 12:49:56",
      "content": "<p>@Trisco7</p>\n<p>Not sure what you mean there but the Target / label doesn't change. It remains 0 and 1. But what Triskelion is advising is to submit probabilities of between 0 and 1. Where 1 is 100% confidence that the likelihood of the label is 1.</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "",
      "votes": null
    }
  ],
  "comments": [
    {
      "id": 50239,
      "author_name": "trisco7",
      "author_url": "",
      "post_date": "07/10/2014 05:08:05",
      "content": "<p>On Evaluation link it is written,</p>\n<p>Submissions are evaluated&nbsp;on&nbsp;area under the ROC curve&nbsp;between the predicted probability that a customer repeat-purchased and the observed purchase outcomes.</p>\n<p>Submission&nbsp;File<br>For each customer (id) in testHistory.csv, predict a probability that the customer repeat-purchased the product from the promotion they received. Your submission file must have a header and should&nbsp;look like the following:</p>\n<p>id,repeatProbability<br>12262064,0<br>12277270,0<br>12332190,0<br>...</p>\n\n<p><strong>My question is that this repeatProbabilty can only take value 0 (customer will not purchase the product) or 1 (customer will purchase the product)? Or the probability can vary between 0 and 1 i.e. we say that the probability of customer purchasing the product is 0.5? Is this valid? </strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>Waiting in anticipation for the reply.</strong></p>\n<p><strong>Please reply... </strong></p>\n<p><strong>I am confused.</strong></p>",
      "votes": null,
      "replies": []
    },
    {
      "id": 50241,
      "author_name": "fzvinicius",
      "author_url": "",
      "post_date": "07/10/2014 05:30:32",
      "content": "<p>The probability (&quot;repeatProbability&quot;) may assume values different than 0 and 1. It depends on how you are modeling it.</p>\n<p>Take a look at&nbsp;<a href=\"http://www.kaggle.com/c/acquire-valued-shoppers-challenge/forums/t/7671/evaluation/\">http://www.kaggle.com/c/acquire-valued-shoppers-challenge/forums/t/7671/evaluation/</a>, it may help you as well.</p>",
      "votes": null,
      "replies": []
    },
    {
      "id": 50243,
      "author_name": "trisco7",
      "author_url": "",
      "post_date": "07/10/2014 05:50:43",
      "content": "<p>Thank you so much fzvinicius for the reply...</p>",
      "votes": null,
      "replies": []
    },
    {
      "id": 50262,
      "author_name": "trisco7",
      "author_url": "",
      "post_date": "07/10/2014 10:27:41",
      "content": "<p>I don't have much idea regarding AUC. If my test sample consists of either 0 or 1 only as &quot;repeatProbability&quot;, will the AUC give correct score for my test sample as well?</p>",
      "votes": null,
      "replies": []
    },
    {
      "id": 50268,
      "author_name": "mikeskim",
      "author_url": "",
      "post_date": "07/10/2014 13:58:38",
      "content": "<p>The value doesn't have to be from 0 to 1. Only the ranking matters, not the actual value, for the calculation of AUC.&nbsp;</p>",
      "votes": null,
      "replies": []
    },
    {
      "id": 50331,
      "author_name": "trisco7",
      "author_url": "",
      "post_date": "07/11/2014 04:23:23",
      "content": "<p>Sorry I didn't get it. Can you please explain further?</p>",
      "votes": null,
      "replies": []
    },
    {
      "id": 50364,
      "author_name": "rdatascientist",
      "author_url": "",
      "post_date": "07/11/2014 18:19:38",
      "content": "<p>I too was confused but then I read the following on the Dashboard -&gt; Home-&gt;'Data' page.</p>\n\n<p>&#8226; testHistory.csv - contains the incentive offered to each customer but does not include their response (you are predicting the repeater column for each id in this file)</p>\n<p>Now since the repeater column in training history.csv contains only O and 1, it is clear that we have to predict either 0 or 1. Hope this helps.</p>",
      "votes": null,
      "replies": []
    },
    {
      "id": 50369,
      "author_name": "triskelion",
      "author_url": "",
      "post_date": "07/11/2014 19:35:03",
      "content": "<p>Do not submit only 1s and 0s if you want a good score.</p>\n<p>The competition metric is AUC, not raw plain accuracy.</p>\n<p>A high probability may have a prediction of 0.956213 for example and low proba 0.052311. If your model is not sure it should predict near 0.5.</p>\n<p>Also only the rank matters. If all your predictions are above 0.9 but your low-probability predictions are ranked below high-probability predictions, you will still get a good score.</p>\n<p>Look up area under curve and see the Kaggle wiki.</p>",
      "votes": null,
      "replies": []
    },
    {
      "id": 50386,
      "author_name": "trisco7",
      "author_url": "",
      "post_date": "07/12/2014 08:59:59",
      "content": "<p>To Triskelion,</p>\n<p>As pointed out by rashmirin, &quot;the repeater column&nbsp;in trainingHistory.csv contains only 0 or 1&quot;.</p>\n<p>I was building a model considering the repeater column as the CLASS label. So my testing data when submitted to that model, would return either 0 or 1.</p>\n<p>But now as pointed out by you, we have to predict the probability which can take any value between 0 and 1.</p>\n<p>So it means that after applying some pre processing on my training data, each repeater column indicating 1 value should return a high prob value and each repeater column indicating 0 in training data should return a low prob value.</p>\n<p>I am just a beginner in data analysis. Any guidance on this would be highly appreciated.</p>",
      "votes": null,
      "replies": []
    },
    {
      "id": 50396,
      "author_name": "ejlok1",
      "author_url": "",
      "post_date": "07/12/2014 12:49:56",
      "content": "<p>@Trisco7</p>\n<p>Not sure what you mean there but the Target / label doesn't change. It remains 0 and 1. But what Triskelion is advising is to submit probabilities of between 0 and 1. Where 1 is 100% confidence that the likelihood of the label is 1.</p>",
      "votes": null,
      "replies": []
    }
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