Examining the data (SPSS Modeler)

Examining the data

Each record contains:

Class. Product type.
Cost. Unit price.
Promotion. Index of amount spent on a particular promotion.
Before. Revenue before promotion.
After. Revenue after promotion.

The flow is simple. It displays the data in a table. The two revenue fields (Before and After) are expressed in absolute terms. However, it seems likely that the increase in revenue after the promotion (and presumably as a result of it) would be a more useful figure.

Figure 1. Effects of promotion on product sales

The flow also contains a node to derive this value, expressed as a percentage of the revenue before the promotion, in a field called Increase. A table shows this field.

Figure 2. Increase in revenue after promotion

For each class of product, and almost linear relationship exists between the increase in revenue and the cost of the promotion. Therefore, it seems likely that a decision tree or neural network could predict, with reasonable accuracy, the increase in revenue from the other available fields.