Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: MARKETING ANALYTICS

Department: Management

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 1.5

Description: Marketing is evolving from an art to a science as data is now the key source of decision making. This course will teach you how to use analytics and data to address decisions by marketing managers, with emphasis on pricing and promotion decisions. A key part of the class is understanding how different types of data can—or can’t—be used to answer managerial questions, as well as how better planning can both simplify the analytics and increase your confidence in the findings. The course is organized around a hierarchy of topics. We begin with understanding pricing and promoting to an individual customer. This analysis provides the foundation as we move to more aggregate decisions, such as setting regular and promoted prices at the product level, managing category pricing, and store analytics. This class is designed to be very practical and hands-on. Most of the data we analyze is from real-world managerial problems, through collaborations with leading retailers and consulting firms who have brought problem-driven challenges to the classroom. Working knowledge of statistics (e.g., t-test and regression analysis) is required. You will learn and use R for data analysis, and no prior experience with R is necessary. The goal is not to train students to become experts in statistics or computer science; rather, students will learn to become a bridge between data scientists and managers.