Collecting and Storing Profiles

Article
11/12/2009

Profile data is collected at a Commerce Server site in two ways. Users visiting your site provide profile data about themselves; this is called explicit profiling. For example, when users purchase products from your site, they typically provide their name, mailing address, phone number, and e-mail address. This information is used to populate the user profile.

You can also collect data through implicit profiling. In implicit profiling, the actions of all users (anonymous and registered) are recorded in Web log files as the users interact with your Web site. For example, Web log files record the links that anonymous users click, the products they search for, the length of their sessions, and how long they visit a given Web page. Even though the users are anonymous — you do not know their names, e-mail addresses, or other information — how they use your site is still important information. For information about how cookies are used in Commerce Server, see Authentication Concepts.

The prediction and segmentation models perform other forms of implicit profiling. If information about a user is missing—for example, the Music Preference associated with a user— the Commerce Server Predictor can provide a guess. This guess is based on the information gathered about the aggregate properties of the user population who visits your site and the CDs they purchase, browse, and sample.

Segment models cluster users based on similar behaviors. You can use segment models to extract a list of users that behave similarly and then, for example, target them with a marketing campaign tailored for that group of users.

All the information that is collected during a specific user session is collected in a single profile, that is, one instance of a profile definition.

When explicit profile data is initially collected, it is first stored in the designated database, while implicit profile data is stored in Web server logs. The system administrator imports the profile data into the Data Warehouse on a regular basis. After the profiles are imported into the Data Warehouse, you can use Business Desk to analyze user data, and then use the results of your analysis to update your Web site and manage your profiling system.

For information about storing profiles in the Data Warehouse, see the following topics in Commerce Server 2002 Help:

Collecting and Storing Profiles

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