How Create Profile By Customer Layer (Business Analyst) works

Create Profile By Customer Layer tool can be used when you want to create profiles based on an existing customer layer. This tool uses a point-in-polygon approach to append a segmentation code to each customer. For example, if you choose block groups as the segmentation layer, the segmentation code of each block group will be used to add a segmentation code to each customer. In the illustration below, if the yellow block group has a Tapestry code of 09 - Laptops and Lattes, all the customer points completely contained within the yellow polygon will receive the same Tapestry segment.

This tool tends to be much slower than appending the segmentation code when you are address geocoding your customer file. This tool should only be used with existing customer layers that do not have address information or segmentation codes already appended.

If your customer layer already has a segmentation code appended, the profile will be created significantly faster using the Create Profile From Segmentation Coded Table tool.

Choosing the lowest level of geography for the segmentation layer will provide the highest degree of accuracy. For example, in the United States, use block groups to create a profile of existing customer records.