Mosaic USA: Consumer Insight

Mosaic Household is a redevelopment of the Mosaic consumer segmentation system that classifies all neighborhoods, postal codes and now U.S. households into 60 unique Mosaic types and 12 groupings that share similar demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.

Available at the household, ZIP 4 and neighborhood levels, Mosaic optimizes the application value of linking customer management, marketing and acquisition tactics to market planning, site/trade area analysis and media strategies. This unique connection between households and geography enables marketers to effortlessly utilize targeted segments across all stages of analysis, planning and execution.

How is Mosaic built?
Mosaic Household is built using INSOURCE household level data and the wealth of Experian data assets. In the development of Mosaic Household, more than 600 variables were evaluated and considered to create the Mosaic classifications. Each variable was selected for its discrimination, accuracy and ability to describe the U.S. population while at the same time identify similar consumer behavior, expenditures and attitudes. From the analysis, more than 300 variables were selected, including more than 70 INSOURCE household characteristics that account for 80 percent of the weighting factor. Some of the elements used included:

• Demographics – age, ethnicity, household size, income, marital status, presence of children
• Socioeconomics – commute, education, employment, language spoken, industry, occupation, social status
• Property characteristics – amenities, dwelling type, housing value, length of residence, rent, year built
• Location - population density, rurality, urbanization
• Behaviors and interests - mail responsiveness, mail-order buyer, children/parenting products, credit cards, charitable contributions, health, Internet/computer/technology, survey data

Over the last 20 years, Experian has built more than 40 segmentation solutions worldwide. This gives us valuable insight into the best sources of data and methodologies to build truly innovative segmentation. To build Mosaic, the following approaches were taken:

• Identification of the most appropriate data sources as inputs
• A sophisticated proprietary approach to clustering, unique to Experian
• Extensive analysis to assist in validation and interpretation of the segmentation