MBAD6525 – Marketing Analytics

Spring 2018
ONLINE SECTION

Instructor:
Yanbin Tu, Ph.D. FRM
227 Massey Hall
tu@rmu.edu
(412) 397-6367
Office Hours: Online by Appointment

Course Description:
The course deals with how marketers can extract useful information and intelligence from marketing
data for designing marketing strategies. The emphasis in the course is on advanced data analysis relevant
for marketing decisions. Students will also be exposed to a collection of current practices and computer
applications used to run data mining programs for marketing intelligence discovery to support the
business decision-making process. The course along with other MBA courses is positioned for those
students who are looking at careers in consulting, business development, or other areas where analytic
skills are highly valued. (Prerequisite: MBAD6520-Business Analytics)

Course Learning Objectives:

The objectives of this course are to equip students with strong analytic skills, expose them to large
datasets where they can engage in mining as it relates to customer relationship management, brand
marketing, customer segmentation, sales promotion, social media marketing and other marketing topics.
Upon successful completion of this course, a student will be able to:

 Familiarize yourself with a variety of texting mining tools for marketing

 Provide students with exposure to models and techniques designed to deal with panel data
 Learn to use the basics of an association model as used in a market basket analysis
 Understand choice models, and learn to apply them in marketing
 Learn to apply sentiment analysis to marketing problems
 Know to estimate, interpret and evaluation a path model, and apply SEM in marketing
 Learn the time series data analysis, and conduct marketing forecast with ARIMA and VAR models

Course Materials:
There is no required textbook for this course. All required learning materials (readings, slides, videos,
examples, etc.) are provided as links within the Blackboard course shell. Required software includes R, R-
Studio, and Microsoft Excel. These are available in the RMU computer labs or remotely via the VMWare
Horizon client, which allows students to use a RMU lab computer remotely (see view.rmu.edu for more
details). In addition, R and R-Studio are free to install. Students are asked to install them in their local

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machines.

Grading:
Your grade in this course will be determined by your performance on the discussions and assignments,
as detailed in the table below:
Assessment Category Points
Discussions 40
Lab Tutorials 40
Assignments 160
Total Points: 240

Your course grade will be determined by the overall percentage of points you earn out of the 200
possible points, according to the following table:

Overall Percentage Course Grade

94% - 100% A
90% - 93.99% A-
85% - 89.99% B+
79% - 84.99% B
70% - 78.99% C
Below 70% F

Weekly Structure and Due Dates:

Each course week will end on a Sunday, with all assignments for that week due on Sunday by midnight.
Discussions also close on Saturday night at midnight, but initial posts for all discussions are due by
Wednesday at midnight.

Late Work:
Assignments are due when specified. Failure to turn in the assignment on or before the due date without
prior approval from the instructor will result in the assignment not being accepted.

Confidentiality:
The program draws on the experiences and backgrounds of the students and the instructors. Please keep
any specific information provided confidential.

Privacy in the Online Environment:

Please note that there is no privacy in the online environment. At times third parties may access the
course content. Third parties include IT administrators, Blackboard representatives, and in some
instances, University researchers.

Participation:
Participation is a key element in successful online courses and is valued in the Masters in Business
Administration program. Timely participation in the threaded discussions is required.

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Announcements:
Any additional assignments and threaded discussions will be posted under Announcements in
Blackboard, as will other course announcements, such as changes in due dates or comments on course
assignments.

APA Format:
Follow APA (American Psychological Association) format for all written assignments (www.apastyle.org).
It is important to properly cite sources of the material you are using. Remember to cite references used
in power point presentations.

Backup Copies of Assignment Files:

For many assignments you will be asked to turn in files via Blackboard. It is your responsibility to keep
backup copies of all assignments you submit, at least until you receive your final course grade.

Academic Integrity:
You are expected to do your own work. Robert Morris University is committed to creating a culture of
academic integrity. Student and Faculty resources regarding academic integrity issues can be accessed
below. Robert Morris University joined the National Center for Academic Integrity in 2005. The Center's
website provides information about the organization, links to relevant news events, links to various
institutions' AI codes and polices, and an extensive resource database of academic integrity-related
literature.
When using the ideas of others, you must reference your source/s. The consequence of failure to
do so can range from failing the assignment to failing the course. Acts of dishonesty, including but not
limited to plagiarism or cheating, are not tolerated and will be dealt with consistent with university
policy as outlined in the Code of Student Conduct.
Professionalism:
Your behavior is to be professional and appropriate at all times and is a requirement of the course. The
standard is to practice courtesy among your peers and to the instructor. Remember that online
interaction requires some additional preparation before posting because of the lack of visual cues
normally given in a traditional classroom setting.

Disability Student Services and Accommodations:

Students who may be eligible to receive learning support or physical accommodations must contact the
Center for Student Success at 412-397-4349 to schedule an appointment with a counselor. The counselor
will provide the student with the RMU Disability Student Services information and discuss procedures for
requesting accommodations. To receive accommodations in this course, arrangements must be made
through the Center for Student Success at the beginning of the semester.

Course Withdrawal:
The course withdrawal deadline for the first 8-week session is Friday 2/9/2018. Withdrawal before the
deadline results in a "W" on the official transcript. After the deadline, a grade must be reported.

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Schedule of Topics:
Week 1: Text Mining with R and Its Marketing Application
Week 2: Marketing Panel Data Analysis with R
Week 3: Association Rules and Visualization with R
Week 4: Consumer's Choice Models with R
Week 5: Sentiment Analysis with R
Week 6: Structural Equation Model with R
Week 7: Market Forecasting with R: ARIMA Model
Week 8: Market Forecasting with R: VAR Model