Advanced Machine Learning with R

An overview of association analysis

Association analysis is a data mining technique that has the purpose of finding the optimal combination of products or services and allows marketers to exploit this knowledge to provide recommendations, optimize product placement, or develop marketing programs that take advantage of cross-selling. In short, the idea is to identify which items go well together, and profit from this.

You can think of the results of the analysis as an if...then statement. If a customer buys an airplane ticket, then there is a 46 % probability that they'll buy a hotel room, and if they go on to buy a hotel room, then there is a 33 % probability that they'll rent a car. 

However, it isn't just for sales and marketing. It's also ...