Why
What
How
“The ideas for data applications are mostly the result of different internal sessions organized around themes like advertising and user metrics. The data team also collaborated with other teams involved in overall customer experience so we could better understand the way both buyers and sellers used the platform.”
Rutger Mooy
Senior data pioneer at Marktplaats and eBay Classifieds Group
Developing Data-Driven Applications
Xebia chose to start with small experiments and proof of concepts and then develop them further as they proved successful. One of its first successful proof of concepts was showing personalized ads based on a search.
For this use case, it was a major advantage that Marktplaats doesn’t exclusively process search traffic, but also owns the ad platform. Since Marktplaats had direct access to the ad content, developing the recommenders autonomously was a lot easier to do.
Making Smart Use of Screen Space
Three-quarters of all traffic on Marktplaats comes from mobile devices. It’s important to make smart use of the limited screen space on mobile. Showing optimized content based on available user data has led to more relevant offers. Marktplaats’ optimized homepage (created by Xebia), which shows both paid and free ads, has led to a 3.5% increase in time spent on the platform. The number of (sometimes paid) clicks also went up.
The Marktplaats web analytics showed that the platform had two types of users: those who used the search box on the screen (search) and those who navigated using the menu (browse). Marktplaats started combining the results for both types of users to show relevant ads, and the results for shown ads increased significantly.
“The search feature offers limited profile information. By combining typed searches with browsing behavior from the menu, we created a much richer profile. We used this enriched profile to personalize the platform, which led us to develop our first application that benefited the website user, the advertiser, and Marktplaats,” explained Mooy. “The website user is presented with relevant ads, the advertiser gets a higher click-through percentage on his ads, and Marktplaats generates more ad revenue."
Recognizing User Behavior
Identifying patterns and making the data as complete as possible was necessary to improve the recommendation system. For example, Marktplaats can see a clear difference between the search behavior of male and female users. By comparing usernames to databases of typical boys’ and girls’ names, it correctly estimated the gender of 47% of its users.
“The analysis of search behavior provided some interesting insights. For example, people who sold a particular size of children’s clothing often also purchased children’s clothing that was two sizes larger. With growing children, this seems obvious, but it’s good to see this trend reflected in the data. There also turns out to be a significant correlation between, for instance, coin collectors and metal detectors, “ Rutger Mooy explained.
To help users make a selection from the over 180,000 cars advertised on the platform, Marktplaats introduced a collaborative filtering system that recognizes which cars strongly relate based on search behavior. Using this data, Marktplaats now emails relevant car ads to potential buyers. It has received excellent feedback on these emails from users.
Marktplaats’Data-Driven Future
Marktplaats offers millions of users a unique experience by recognizing and providing relevant product recommendations. The entire organization has embraced the data-driven approach, and it is actively expanding its product teams with more data scientists. Other eBay labels have created and introduced smart data applications combined with technological developments based on Marktplaats’s positive experiences. “For example, image recognition, will make it even easier for sellers to place ads,” said Mooy.
Technology
For Marktplaats in particular, Xebia used technologies such as Hadoop, Spark, Kafka, R, Python, Java, and Scala.
Marktplaats’ optimized homepage (created by Xebia) which shows both paid and free ads, has led to a 3.5% increase in time spent on the platform. – Rutger Mooy, Senior Data Pioneer, eBay Classifieds
