Uses of Segmentation
- Identifying customer needs:
The tastes and preferences of customers differ.
Creating separate offers for each segment (i.e., a group of Customers with same requirements) makes sense and provides customers with a better solution.
- Helps in identifying customer groups for campaign:
Set of Customers with similar needs, characteristics, or behavior fall under one group which is termed as Target Group.
- Provides detailed level information for building Campaign.
- Retain more customers:
By marketing products that appeal to customers at different stages, a business can retain customers who might otherwise switch to ompeting products and brands.
- Optimizes sales revenue.
- Through careful segmentation and targeting, businesses can often achieve competitive production and marketing costs and become the preferred choice of customers and distributors.
In other words, segmentation offers the opportunity for smaller firms to compete with bigger ones.
Segment Builder
- Segment Builder is a tool in CRM 7.0 where we create Profile Sets and Target Groups.
- Its main components include a Staging area where the attributes are grouped together and the Detail area which displays the description of these attributes.
- It is easier to create profiles in the segment builder in order to build target groups which are then assigned to the profiles or profile sets.
- A Profile is a finite list of attributes with values that must be assigned to a Profile set which acts as a folder containing profiles and target groups
- Use: Creation of target groups for use in various marketing activities.
Process
The below mentioned Process diagram gives a brief idea on how the integration between BI and CRM will be.
- Create query (SAP Net Weaver BI)
If the segmentation is through creation of attribute list which contain key figures, characteristics and free chars from a BI query as attributes then we create a BI Query. BI queries enable you to enhance your segmentations with transaction data.
- Define and prepare data sources (CRM Server)
Data sources can be created based on attribute sets, BI queries, and InfoSet queries.
- Create segmentation basis (CRM Server)
You create one or more segmentation bases as a form of data pre-selection. These can be supplemented according to requirements. This is similar to a filter set in BI Query, where we can filter on a particular country etc.
- Create profile set (CRM Server)
You create a profile set. The profile set can include several profiles, target groups, as well as additional profile sets.
- Combine attribute values to create marketing profiles (CRM Server)
Using the attributes and attribute values created previously and combined in attribute lists, you can provide required filter conditions on attributes and combine them into marketing profiles to determine precisely the business partners to which you want to tailor your marketing activity.
You can generate a target group from the profile. The system then queries the customer database for the selection criteria contained in the profile.
Need for Segment Builder
? We might have a question like what is the need for segmentation when we have BI query.
This can be explained as below.
- CRM will contain only master data and not Transaction data.
- So, through segmentation we combine master data with transaction data which contains data related to business partner.
- In segmentation builder there’s a possibility to give filter conditions on attributes dynamically. Where in BI we need to have selection conditions for all these.
- User is free to give any combination of filter conditions.
- Ex: Product: 16972; Net sales > 20,000$; Sales Org: CROP
Step by Step procedure for Integration of BI and CRM using Segment Builder
- Integration of BI and CRM is done in Segment Builder through the creation of Data sources and Attribute lists over the BI Queries on CRM side.
- You only need this step if you want to select from SAP BI using key figures or attributes.
- BI queries enable to enhance segmentations with transaction data.
- First step is to create Data source and Attribute list.
- Next step is to create a profile set and target group.
Data Source and Attribute List
- Go to transaction CRMD_MKTDS.
- We can create Data source and Attribute list to make this information available for segmentation
Creating Data Source:
ü When creating the data sources, you define where the attributes for your attribute lists come from (Attribute Set, SAP Net Weaver Business Intelligence (BI) Cube, Infoset, External List Management, and CSV File Import).
ü Click on Create Data Source-the above screen appears. Fill required details
ü The settings required vary according to the data source in question.
ü Depending on the origin type of the data source, the following prerequisites must be fulfilled.
Origin Type | Prerequisite |
Attribute set | Attribute Sets created in CRM Marketing |
Infoset | Infoset Query |
Business Intelligence Cube | BI Query in BI system on top of a Multiprovider |
ü In the above screen shot, we selected Business Intelligence cube as we are performing Segmentation through BI Query.
ü A segmentation data source is built on BI Query using the transaction code CRMD_MKTDS.
ü As you see below the BI query is mapped to a segmentation object Business Partner.
Business Partner:
Name of the field in the BW query which identifies the business partners to be returned and written to the target group table in CRM.
Function Module:
Name of function module used, where necessary, to convert the business partner ID (for example, name of business partner) returned by the BW Query into a business partner GUID.
Creating Attribute List
ü Go to CRMD_MKTDS T-code and click on create Attribute list as shown.
ü Fill the necessary details in subsequent screen as shown below
ü In the Category we have different types.
ü See the screen shot below.
ü This will tell us where the attribute usage is going to be.
ü After saving your attribute list, the grey out area of Assign Data Source will be highlighted.
ü You can assign the required data sources.
ü To select multiple data sources, press and hold down the Shift or Ctrl key on your keyboard when selecting with the mouse.
ü You can add as many data sources to an attribute list as you require.
ü Open each data source and select the attributes that you want to include in the list.
ü To select all attributes for a given data source, place your cursor on the data source and choose Select All Attributes from the context menu.
ü Add the data source that was created.
ü See the following screen shot.
ü Select the attributes that you need for your attribute list.
ü Attribute set is ready now
Profile Set and Target Group
- Go to CRM UI.
- Here we can create Profile Set and generate Target Group.
ü In CRM UI click on Marketing -> Segments
ü Here click on create Profile Set.
ü Give a name for your Profile Set and save.
ü Click on Marketing Pro which takes you to the below screen.
ü When we click Segments it navigates to below screen where we can create Profile Set.
Click on Create Profile Set button which is shown above.
ü Now click on Graphical modeler.The following screen will appear.
ü Select your Attribute list from the drop down.
ü Right click on any attribute as shown and click on Create Filter and provide desired filter values.
ü The provided filter values will appear as shown below.
ü Now drag and drop the filer created to right side, which will appear as shown.
ü Right click on profile set and click on count to get the number of business partners.
ü The count will be displayed as above.
ü Now create the Target Group by right clicking.
Build Target Group -> In Dialog
ü Below screen appears with target group created.
ü Now to display the business partners in the target group, right click and open Target Group.
ü This opens the target group as below.
Issues faced:
These are few issues that were identified:
ü Attribute list issue with descriptions not appearing for attributes
ü Out of memory
ü Connection Time out
Solutions to issues addressed
- Attribute list issue with descriptions not appearing for attributes
Solution:
ü The primary reason for this issue is usage of mandatory variable in BI Query.
Attribute list with use of mandatory variable in BI Query | Attribute list after removing mandatory variable in BI query |
Hence from the above screen shots it is clear that removal of mandatory variables from BI query increases readability.
- Connection Timed Out
Solution:
üThe session time out value was set to 300sec which was earlier at 5sec
üOther solution is to set the segmentation Basis.
Segmentation Basis
- A segmentation basis is a list of business partners that enables modeling target groups.
- Segmentation basis can be used to delimit the selection during business partner segmentation to a specific group of business partners so that non-relevant business partners are excluded from the selection.
- The extent to which the selection is restricted depends on the purpose of the segmentation basis
- Any number of profiles and target groups can be created from a segmentation basis.
References
help.sap.com
scn.sap.com
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