A marketing team at an e-commerce company wants to predict whether a customer will click on a promotional email (Yes or No). They use logistic regression and include variables such as time of day, customer's past purchase history, and whether the customer has clicked on similar emails in the past.

After training the model, they find that customers who clicked on similar emails in the past have a positive coefficient, and those who received the email late at night have a negative coefficient.

What does the logistic regression model tell the marketing team about customer behavior?

Question

A marketing team at an e-commerce company wants to predict whether a customer will click on a promotional email (Yes or No). They use logistic regression and include variables such as time of day, customer's past purchase history, and whether the customer has clicked on similar emails in the past.

After training the model, they find that customers who clicked on similar emails in the past have a positive coefficient, and those who received the email late at night have a negative coefficient.

What does the logistic regression model tell the marketing team about customer behavior?

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

First, let's restate the scenario to ensure clarity: a marketing team uses logistic regression to predict whether a customer will click on a promotional email, with predictors like time of day, past purchase history, and past similar email clicks. They observe that past similar email clicks have a positive coefficient, while late-night emails have a negative coefficient. Now, evaluate each answer option in turn.
Option 1: 'Sending emails late at night increases the chance of a click.' This interpretation would correspond to a positive coefficient for late-night sending. However, the observed result in the vignette states that late-night sends have a negative coefficient, meaning they decrease the likelihood of a click. Therefore this statement contradicts the reported coefficient sign and is incorrect.
Option 2: 'Logistic regression is not suitable for binary outcomes like email clicks.' This is factually false. Logistic regression is specifically designed for binary outcomes (e.g., yes/no, click/not click). The presence of coefficients and their signs is a standard interpretation in logistic regression, so this claim is incorrect.
Option 3: 'A positive coefficient indicates a variable increases the likelihood of the outcome (click), and a negative one decreases it.' This aligns with the fundamental interpretation of logistic regression coefficients: the sign shows the direction of association with the log-odds of the outcome, and by extension, the probability of a click increases with a positive coefficient and decreases with a negative coefficient. This statement correctly captures the meaning of the observed coefficients.
Option 4: 'Customers who clicked on similar emails before are less likely to click again.' The observed positive coefficient for past similar email clicks indicates the opposite: those who clicked before are more likely, not less likely, to click again. Hence this option misstates the effect and is incorrect.

In summary, among the options, the only statement that correctly interprets the signs of the coefficients and the general purpose of logistic regression is Option 3, while the other options misinterpret effect directions, misstate model suitability, or contradict the reported findings.

IS 4487-006 Fall 2025 Final Exam December 10 from 10:30 to 12:30

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