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Jan
Loyalty Lobby highlights that Delta — like many major companies — engages with a data firm to assist them in analyzing their customers, assigning value to those customers, and targeting them for offers.
But unlike some companies, Delta isn’t very good with IT (witness: their broken award calendar, broken online award pricing engine). And so they have their consumer profile data online for you to see.
Since this is getting a bit of buzz at the moment, they’re likely to prioritize pulling down this information, so if you’re curious what Delta’s analytics folks know about you, you may want to have a look sooner rather than later.
- Log into your Skymiles account.
- Navigate to https://www.delta.com/databroker/bcdata.action in the same browser
You’ll get a bunch of data in a long string, copy and paste it into a text or word processing program for easier reading.
Here’s what Delta thinks they know about me, from Experian’s Mosaic targeting (pdf):
“actvtyPref”:”",
“bcInd”:”Y”,
“birthDt”:”[They have my correct birthdate]
“chldAgeRange”:”" [I don’t have kids, and they do not think I do]
“cobrandCardCd”:”STRW,AX,AX”, [interesting they know I don’t have a Delta American Express but do know that I have Amex cards – but I have more than they think I do, hah!
"ctryCd":"US",
"custID":"[redacted]
“custValSeg”:”1″ [well I guess that is better than zero!]
“dgtlLangPref”:”en”
“discSpndngAmt”:”0″ [that’s about right!]
“drvdGndr”:”M” [yep!]
“drvdHmArptCd”:”DCA” [also correct – I am DCA-based]
“hmArptPref”:”"
“homeValueAmt”:”647000″ [incorrect]
“htlBrndPref”:” [they could just read my blog?]
“incomeAmt”:”96″ [wrong]
“isLoggedIn”:”Y”
“isPwmElig”:”N” [I guess I am not eligible for PWN! Possible “Pay With Miles”]
“isSmCust”:”Y” [I am a Skymiles customer]
“mindsetSeg”:”MM” [I have an “MM” mindset!]
“mosaicCd”:”G25″ [I discuss this customer segment below]
“poCd”: [They know my zip code]“prefDestCity”:”"
“prefDestCtry”:”",
“savedSrchDest”:”"I’m not a Delta Skyclub member:
“skyClubFtrCntrctInd”:”N”
“skyClubMMSts”:”"
“skyClubMbr”:”N”
“skyClubRnwlDt”:”"
“skyPrtyInd”:”N”And more:
“smAmexCntrnInd”:”N” [I don’t have an Amex Centurion – relevant because Delta gives those cardholders status in the Skymiles program]
“smAmexInd”:”N”
“smBalance”:”24602″ [wow, they even get my Skymiles balance wrong!]
“smMqmBal”:”10146″ [and they get my elite qualifying miles wrong!]
“smMqsBal”:”1″
“smNbr”:” [they at least get my Skymiles account number right!]
“smSunTrstInd”:”Y” [I have a Suntrust account]
“smTierLvl”:”FF” [No elite status with them, natch]
“stProvCd”:”VA” [Yes, I live in Virginia]
Apparently church missions use this sort of data, too (.pdf)
Here’s the customer segment they think I fit into:
[L]iberal, eclectic, singles.. risk takers who are comfortable with insecure surroundings, and may travel off the beaten path for an extended period of time. …live in the present moment and are not particularly anxious about tomorrow. Although traditional moral norms are uncomfortable, they are notable for their commitments to peace, equality, human rights, the environment, and free speech. Most are college educated, with well paying jobs in business, education, creative arts, and healthcare.
Well I am not single, I tend to be risk averse, and while I do have a singificant commitment to peace and human rights I don’t think anyone would expect to find me involved in the creative arts — and oddly enough they don’t even get my geography right, I live in the suburbs rather than the city.
What’s your customer segment? Have they got you figured out?
Ninmurai said,
Well I have a 0 for CustValSeg. Does this mean I don’t exist?
Phil said,
“mosaicCd”:”A05″
“custValSeg”:”3″
“incomeAmt”:”(about double my actual income)”
SEGMENT A05: COUPLES WITH CLOUT
I’m actually single, but the rest of it pretty much matches up with me. I feel like a number. I’m not a number.
Here’s the link to the PDF with the segment descriptions. Interesting stuff.
http://www.missioninsite.com/PDF_Files/Mosaic_Descriptions%20Group-Segments_%20USA%20Final%20Cover%20081312.pdf
Tocqueville said,
Couples with Clout
Andrew S said,
“E20″ Thriving Boomers “who have typically lived at
the same address for more than 15 years and have deep roots in their communities.”
This is so wrong in our case it is laughable. Must be an intern that wrote this up!
Dan A. said,
O54 Can you tell my wife that I am young single hipster? I think they have my profile and income NAILED! For 1997..
Plop said,
Dude, it’s all info you’ve chosen to give them either through your profile or through your purchase/website activites. Nothing creepy about it. If you don’t want tabs kept, don’t use a FF account. No different than other typical forms of customer profiles.
Andrew S said,
@Plop:
Income? Credit cards? Kids? A bit creepy if you ask me. Fortunately, most of the info except for my SM # is incorrect.
Marshall Jackson said,
Full pockets, empty nest. Love it.
I suspect other airlines have a similar profile on me, but perhaps they manage to keep it from becoming so easily accessible. I know AA has their “Eagle” count that indicates value (or at least they did). As for DL, they are pretty close on me. I am not personally troubled by it. At least I can’t access others’ information….or at least I don’t think I can.
schmerj said,
Experian assigned me C11 “Aging of Aquarius”. I’m under 30 and live in the city! They also expect me to spend over $30,000 year on Delta tickets…
oliver2002 said,
N46 here: TRUE GRIT AMERICANS lol!!!
Anyway, the categories are based on the Mosaic by Experian method, which can be researched at the following link. Theneed some personal data first, which is nt verified so you can write in anything you like:
http://www.experian.com/marketing-services/register-2012-mosaic-interactive-guide.html
Donald Rull said,
This may also be useful from Experion…
http://www.appliedgeographic.com/AGS_mosaic_2012/Mosaic_Descriptions.pdf
Donald Rull said,
Oh, and I’m labeled as a “soulful spender”, “Soulful Spenders consist of well-off African-American households living in suburban comfort.” Imaginemy surprise to find out that I’m African-American!
John Dough said,
Their data mining needs lots of work and the church piece reads like a horoscope.
The easiest is of those should have been the home value, but it was wrong. They must have sampled at the peak of the housing boom.
Jeff M said,
Frequent one-time charges on new loyalty credit card accounts, typically at gas stations, before card is canceled and another application made.
CDKing said,
Well they got my income off by about $6K. Home value is right around what my GF’s condo is worth. discSpndngAmt: was actually very close to my annual take home pay after mandatory expenses. I’m a G25 as well
Nick @ PFDigest said,
Wow, aside from my birthday, home airport and ZIP, Delta has nothing on me. They don’t even list me as having a Delta Amex, which I do.
Amol (@PointsToPointB) said,
I’m in my early 20s, travel for leisure, and tend to think of myself as a normal guy … But I’m mosaic A01 = American Royalty. My house value is hundreds of K’s off but probably because I still have my parents address on my SM profile (and don’t want to change it now). They think I spend $72,000 a year on whatever metric that is. They know I have an AXCP (Amex Consumer Platinum) though I have more Amex cards (they still think I have my Delta Amex since I’m PWM eligible but don’t currently have it). I have a DW mindset.
DJP_707 said,
D15: Middle-aged, ethnically-mixed suburban families and couples earning upscale incomes.
Everything in mine is pretty accurate, except they think I have three kids instead of two. (Don’t tell my wife?)
And the income, if it’s just for me it’s close to accurate but not for a family income?
brad k said,
Wow!! Thanks for the post. G24 – Status Seeking Single. Woohoo!!!
Chris said,
“mosaicCd”:”B09″… “Family Fun-tastic”. Hah, nothing could be further from the truth…
NotNancyDrew said,
I wish I lived the life Delta has painted for me. Most interesting my home value 1371000 . I rent a condo. Who’s living in my mansion?
Paul Robichaux said,
K39, which is laughably wrong in my case (though they did get the “single” part right). I hope DL gets this targeting data cheaply, given how much of it seems to be incorrect!
Bella said,
They’ve got me as J35 – “Rural Escape” – over 65 year old retired agricultural worker living in the country who rarely travels, uses the internet for orders at walmart and gunbroker.com and watches Little House on the Prairie re-runs! (I’m actually a 30-something internet geek who lives in a major metropolitan city, and spends half the year travelling internationally. hmmm. i don’t expect to be getting any exciting offers from delta with that profile!
Gavin said,
Home value amount – 9172416 (I wished); A06 – Jet set urbanites.
Albert said,
Delta apprently thinks I’m a Urban Jet Setting Member of the Power Elite (A06) – I’ll have to not let this get to my head!!
@Plop Even if you didn’t use an FF number, Delta could still track you using your Secure Flight data (full name, gender, birthdate) which you’re required to provide in order to travel. So unfortunately cash on a Greyhound might be the only anonymous travel option.
riverchica said,
Hmmm, they pegged me at O51 – the description says that I’m undereducated (cough, cough, my medical school loans would beg to differ), underemployed (?), and underpaid (well, they have me there). Oh, and also a decade younger – I’m flattered, really. But not sure how they concluded that this O51 would spend $12k+ with them!
Lynn said,
They got my salary almost right but my condo price was about 100,000 off. I am a J34 which is Aging in Place. I am not a Senior (they missed by over 15 years).
AndyP said,
Does anyone know what the “SS” means for mindsetSeg?
Gary had: “mindsetSeg”:”MM” [I have an “MM” mindset!]
Nun said,
Wow. Everything is so wrong in my profile. Now I have to locate those 5 kids Delta thinks I have somewhere. I’m dying to meet them.
Scott said,
@AndyP, Not sure, but I had an “SS” mindset too…
My wife’s and my profiles are identical and they have us pegged as A06. They even have the exact same “SpndngAmt” for us down to the dollar….but it’s in the $24k range…which is more than $23k extra what we actually spend on Delta in a year. Still, our ValueSegement is “0″.
LC said,
Wow, Most of my info correct. My CustValSeg is 2 and my mindset is FL. Does anyone know what this means?
Kim A said,
Incredible.
The customer segment(Mosaic) has me as an A02, Platinum Elite, just one notch down from “Royalty” as part of the Power Elite in this country, a measly 1.43% of our population.
I’m part of the top 2% !!! (not)
Like you, my mindset is MM. What does that mean–aiming for the Million Miles? Or I’m a mouthy misanthrope? one can only guess.
Truly a testament of marketing algorithms gone wrong.
Dave K. said,
A06 – Jet Set Urbanite
Used to live in Manhattan and now moved across the river to Hoboken, so they got that pretty good. Although I wish my condo was worth $2.8MM.
Easy Victor said,
“But unlike some companies, Delta isn’t very good with IT (witness: their broken award calendar, broken online award pricing engine).”
This is where we disagree. I think they know exactly what they are doing and nothing is really “broken”. We sat down with the big wigs at the first FT Delta Do almost 5 years ago. They knew about the issues then and said they were going to fix it. They’ve redesigned their website twice since then, and the same problems still exist.
CD said,
O53 – Colleges and Cafes
Apparently I’m an undereducated and underemployed “aspirational consumer” living in a college town with a SkyClub membership and a few AMEX cards…
To be fair, Chicago is kind of a college town…
This pretty much made my day though!
Chase said,
Thank you so much for publishing this, Gary. I love this kind of stuff, and it’s so refreshing to read articles like this about things other than credit card offers ad nausem. Thanks!
Sheri said,
They pegged me correctly – A01 American Royalty. Seriously.
Thanks for interesting look at this. Off to check my son’s…
Arcanum said,
My gender is “U”. Should I be concerned?
Chris B. said,
It isn’t just Delta, here is the customer segment Mosaic breakout from Experian (a near and dear company for the miles crowd):
http://www.experian.com/assets/marketing-services/brochures/mosaic-brochure.pdf
Better they think you are worth more then you really are?
Sheri said,
How do I decipher the “mindset” code?
Paul Robichaux said,
No one’s figured out the exact meaning of “mindset” yet, though a number of people over on Flyertalk are guessing pretty hard. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta-skymiles/1431632-delta-new-dl-com-profiles-lot-about-you-20.html
Gary said,
@Chris B – i linked to that in my post
Chris B. said,
Cool, here is a better breakout
http://www.experian.com/assets/marketing-services/product-sheets/mosaic-usa.pdf
Chris B. said,
You the man, Gary! This is actually good information to know, as it could potentially drive card offer and approvals.
mikeef said,
My wife and I have different mindsets, whatever that means.
My customer value is “2″ and hers is “8,” which makes me thing that customer value has less to do with dollars spent and more with physical attractiveness.
Henry H. said,
I don’t have children. In the kids’ age range field, it states “POCT03.” Does anyone know what that means?
They have me in segment A03, “Kids and Cabernet.” Half right (though I prefer Shiraz…).
My home value estimate is about 2X its actual value – how I wish DL was correct here!
nsx at FlyerTalk said,
My mindset is “”.
Sounds about right!
easy victor said,
Arcanum- Is “U” for undecided, unknown, ? !!!
easy victor said,
My wife’s account had no relevant data at all. No SM number, no birthday, almost nothing. She’s a silver with 173,000 SM’s. Weird.
JohnnieD said,
@Chase…no cc ads….lol
Steve said,
It doesn’t seem to be working for me. I’ve tried it in IE and Chrome. But this is a JSON dump of properties.
Cory said,
E20 here. Evidently I am a 33 year old Thriving Boomer, No Place Like Home.
Ummm, right. I have lived in my house for less than 5 years, had 4 or 5 different addresses in about 6 years in 2 different cities. But, yeah, No place like home
Debra D. said,
This was interesting – and I just spent at least an hour trying to figure it out.
I still haven’t cracked the mindset segment (Mine was FL). Anyone else have better luck (looks like still speculating at FT, too)
The Moasic code was within reason, but seems to be based largely on my zip code and age.
The income was off, but is exactly the median reported for the Mosaic code that they had for me (K37).
Bob W said,
I have a moasic of A2 ( not quite American Royalty, but always royal shafted by Delta) and a value score of 19
What Delta thinks they know about you.. | Paul's Down-Home Page said,
[...] to this post over at View from the Wing, I now know a little about what Delta thinks it knows about me as a [...]
DJP_707 said,
@henry h
I’m guessing “Parent of child (age) to (age)”
mine said POC7T9,POC10T12,POC13T18
Henry H. said,
Your explanation makes sense, @DJP_707, thank you.
Ryan said,
Data seems to be going offline now, as discussed in the FT thread where BallardFlyer first broke this news yesterday…
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta-skymiles/1431632-delta-new-dl-com-profiles-lot-about-you.html
Looks like I’m late to the party, as always!
Paul Skrbec said,
I’m a spokesperson for Delta.
Like many companies, Delta uses demographic and other data to help provide a personalized experience for our customers, improve how we communicate with them and design offers customized to their interests. While the data displayed was only available to the specific user, we sincerely regret that this code displayed and the confusion it may have caused for our customers. We worked to resolve the issue promptly upon discovering it.
easy victor said,
Paul- I think the problem is that the data you’re using to target a personalized experience is often way off. So what you think you’re targeting isn’t really the market that sees it.
For instance, my wife is Silver and has 173000 Skymiles. But her record is virtually blank.
Bits ‘n Pieces for January 25, 2013 - View from the Wing said,
[...] Express Membership Rewards Point Signup Bonus with Amex Business Gold Rewards CardPaul Skrbec on Look Up The Creepy Data Mining Profile that Delta Keeps On YouLK on Last Chance Weekend for 75,000 American Express Membership Rewards Point Signup Bonus with [...]
Mary said,
I am just disappointed that I was late to the party and missed my chance to see what Experian Mosiac profile I was assigned. Sounds like it would have been good for a laugh!
ben senise said,
amazing that anecdotally, according to the responses in this comments section, that experian have it so wrong yet that delta is probably paying good money for this data.
this really looks like a bunch of snake oil to me. those names on that list are laughable. but i guess experian sends some good salespeople to delta and delta’s execs just gobble this stuff up instead on spending money where it counts; i.e. the customers. it never ceases to amaze me that large corporations spend so much money on so many things that are really not related to their core business. in delta’s case, that would be flying people from point A to point B. maybe if they actually paid attention to their customers rather than trying to peg them to some ridiculous marketing group name, they could actually develop a good reputation and people would want to fly with them. “Generational Soup?” “Birkenstocks and Beemers?” seriously? this is so pathetic.
Paul S said,
All mine says is:
{“bcInd”:”Y”}
Chase said,
@johnnied, if I’m understanding your comment correctly, I’d say that Gary’s blog has the most diverse content and is among the the least amount of CC referrals and articles that are strictly about credit cards. Why the “lol”?
Edward said,
@Paul Skrbec, more promptly than you are working to resolve the award calendar issue?
JetsetterFL said,
I am getting {“bcInd”:”Y”} only… I guess they closed the loophole!
Gary said,
Yes, they fixed it yesterday afternoon.
Wow, they're sure selling a lot of upgrades - Page 163 - FlyerTalk Forums said,
[...] Maybe United is taking DL's data mining a few steps further… http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfr…-keeps-on-you/ [...]
Interesting finds of the Week [Week of the 20January 2013] | skh:tec said,
[...] BoardingArea found that it is to pull your basic marketing profile from Delta. This didn’t work for me, I can only assume that the data end point has been fixed. [...]
It’s My Birthday and Hotels are Saying Happy Birthday - Very Good Points said,
[...] I can, and do talk about these topics all the time. A few weeks ago I read a post from Gary at View From the Wing about Delta’s data mining practices (which were made public somehow and you too can see what [...]
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