Empowering Decision Making And Strategy PlanningEmpowering Decision Making And Strategy PlanningNeda Farzinnia, Ph.D.

Director of Analytics, Ask.com

OverviewOverview

To Highlight a few examples of the applications of predictive analyses at Ask.com including:

The evaluation of product performance The identification of the growth opportunities The enhancement of products The improvement of visitors’ experiences

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Ask.com: Get Answers To Your Questions Ask.com: Get Answers To Your Questions

Ask.com is a Q&A site combining search and social interactions to offer the best Q&A experience.

Ask.com enables visitors to find the best answer to their questions – whether the answer comes from a traditional web search or from real people.

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Ask.com Community Q&A Improves Users’ Activities & Ask.com Community Q&A Improves Users’ Activities & Engagement Engagement

Ask has opened up its community Q&A portion of the site to everyone – so visitors of Ask.com can get answers from real people to their questions.

Ask.com community Q&A users are more engaged than the non-community users and have a higher retention rate and frequency.

Incentives such as contests, games and charity donations will further boost retention, frequency, and activities.

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What Attributes Increase the Likelihood of Repeat What Attributes Increase the Likelihood of Repeat Visits? Visits?

Matched sampling analysis and multivariate tests verified that answers influence repeat visits and increase frequency.

Various factors influence the degree of impact of answers on repeat visits including: Different answer types as well as the query types, quality of queries, category of queries, answer coverage,

and answer exposure

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Optimal Answer Coverage & Incremental VisitsOptimal Answer Coverage & Incremental Visits

Predictive models were used to estimate the expected incremental visits due to an increase in answer coverage.

Cluster analysis was also performed to identify the impact of query categories on repeat visits and frequency.

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Enhance Products and Answer Coverage By Query Enhance Products and Answer Coverage By Query Category Category

Non-parametric models were used to estimate the impact of answer coverage within a given query category.

Optimization algorithms were used to identify the optimal rate of increase in answer coverage within a given category.

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Consistency of Visitors’ Experience Within A Given Consistency of Visitors’ Experience Within A Given CategoryCategory

Ranking models were used to predict the likelihood of repeat visits as well as the quality of visitors’ experiences by query category. The learning from these models include: Review the quality and format of queries when a visitor’s likelihood of repeat visit is low For low quality queries/ambiguous queries, use news or other general relevant answers Use navigational links or answers when relevant and applicable Direct the open ended/conversational queries to the Ask.com Community Q&A to get answers from real people

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Questions ?Questions ?

Go to Go to Ask.comAsk.com

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Questions ?Questions ?

Go to Go to Ask.comAsk.com

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