Understanding profile types
Profile tiles offer six different profile types, each providing unique insights into your target audience.
Summary vs detailed profiles
Profile tiles fall into two main categories:
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Summary profiles analyse multiple variables simultaneously, showing which overall characteristics best distinguish your target audience.
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Detailed profiles focus on a single variable, breaking it down into individual categories.
Summary profile types
Mean Index
The Mean Index uses the following standard industry calculation for indexing:
(% of analysis group / % of base group) × 100
An index of 100 represents the baseline. Values above 100 indicate over-representation and values below indicate under-representation.
When to use: Use Mean Index when you need straightforward, industry-standard analysis. It's effective for initial profiling and high-level reporting.
Note: Because index values can extend much higher than they can go lower, charts sometimes show more bars extending to the right. This is mathematically correct but can make visual interpretation less intuitive.
Mean PWE
PWE (Predictive Weight of Evidence) is Apteco's proprietary calculation. It provides an alternative to standard indexing, using a different mathematical approach to identify significant characteristics.
When to use: Use Mean PWE when standard indexing doesn't provide the insights you need, or when predictive power matters more than simple proportionality.
Insight PWE
Insight PWE builds on Mean PWE by adding statistical significance testing. It uses a threshold Z-score (default 3.0) to filter out characteristics that aren't statistically significant.
It uses cumulative analysis and evaluates each category's significance against those ranked above it.
When to use: Use Insight PWE when creating look-alike audiences or when you need confidence that identified characteristics are genuinely distinctive, not statistical noise.
Tip: Insight PWE is particularly valuable when you have many categories across variables.
Detailed profile types
Index
Index shows the index value for each category within a single variable.
When to use: Use Index when you've identified a significant variable in a summary profile and want to understand which specific categories are over or under-represented.
Example: After discovering that Occupation is highly significant, you create a detailed Index profile to see that Director, Manager, and Professional are strongly over-represented, while Manual Worker is under-represented.
Analysis vs Base
Analysis vs Base displays side-by-side percentage comparisons, helping you visualise the distribution difference between your analysis group and customer base.
When to use: Use this alongside Index profiles to understand the "why" behind index values. It reveals whether a high index comes from genuine concentration in the analysis group or simply from a small base population.
Example: Manager shows 15.4% in analysis vs 7.8% in base. The high index is driven by genuine over-representation in your target audience.
Tip: Analysis versus Base profiles are excellent for presentations, as they tell a clear story without requiring stakeholders to interpret index values.
Market Potential
Market Potential shows the absolute count of records remaining in your base population outside your analysis group for each category.
When to use: Use this when you need to make strategic decisions about resource allocation. A characteristic might be highly over-represented (high index) but have little market potential left, while another might be under-represented but offer significant untapped opportunity.
Example: Your analysis shows Manager customers are over-represented, but Market Potential reveals only 64,007 retired individuals remain in your base. Meanwhile, Sales Executive are under-represented but show 398,987 untapped potential, suggesting where to focus acquisition efforts.
Tip: Use Index, Analysis versus Base, and Market Potential together on the same dashboard for comprehensive insights: what's distinctive, why it's distinctive, and what opportunity remains.