Definition:
Prescriptive analytics refers to analytics that seeks to provide optimal recommendations during the decision-making process. Unlike descriptive analytics or predictive analytics, prescriptive analytics determine the ways in which business processes need to evolve or be modified.
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Evolution of Prescriptive Analytics
Like other analytical models, various technological advances facilitate prescriptive analytics. Increasing data storage media capabilities allow companies to store much more affordable information, such as through cloud hosting service solutions. Advances in network structure also enable the capture of a wider variety of information in new and more powerful ways.
Prescriptive analytics allows users to “prescribe” a number of different possible actions and guide them towards a solution. It attempts to quantify the effect of future decisions in order to advise on possible outcomes before decisions are actually made. They not only predict what will happen, but also why it will happen, with recommendations regarding actions that will take advantage of the predictions.
Prescriptive vs. descriptive vs. predictive analytics
These analytics go beyond descriptive and predictive analytics by recommending one or more possible courses of action. They essentially predict multiple futures and allow companies to evaluate a number of possible outcomes based on their actions. Prescriptive analytics uses a combination of techniques and tools such as business rules, machine learning algorithms, and computational modeling procedures. These techniques are applied to the contributions of different data sets, including historical and transactional data, feeding on real-time data and large volumes of data.
Prescriptive analytics is relatively difficult to manage and most companies are not yet using it on a regular basis. When implemented correctly, it can have a big impact on the way companies make decisions on their profitability.
Frequently asked questions about Prescriptive Analytics
What is Prescriptive Analytics?
Prescriptive Analytics is the analysis that recommends concrete actions based on data, objectives, and constraints. It is not limited to describing what happened or predicting scenarios, but helps decide what to do to improve a specific result.
What is Prescriptive Analytics used for in digital marketing?
It is used to guide decisions such as reallocating budget, prioritizing pages, adjusting bids, activating segments, correcting content, or choosing the next commercial action. In SEO it can help order tasks according to estimated impact, effort, and technical urgency.
What is the difference between Prescriptive Analytics and Predictive Analytics?
Predictive Analytics estimates what can happen, while Prescriptive Analytics proposes what action should be taken in view of those scenarios. A prediction can indicate a traffic drop; a prescription can recommend optimizing a template, reinforcing internal linking, or reviewing indexing.
What should a company control when applying Prescriptive Analytics?
It should control that recommendations are aligned with real objectives, operational limits, budget, risks, and human validation. Automating decisions without reviewing context can lead to actions that are correct in the model but inadequate for the business.