ds@mcpanalytics.aiEmail your data and your question and get an answer about your own data, with the method shown.Email your data and question. Get an answer.
Who are my natural groups? Segmentation analyses | MCP Analytics
Question

Who are my natural groups?

By MCP Analytics Team | Published , updated

Compare two groups? Find what drives an outcome? Spot a trend? The question decides which statistics fit, so it is the first thing to get right.

See a worked example

How the analyses here work

Segmentation: prebuilt analyses

The analyses filed under this question. Each card opens the analysis page, where you can run it on a file. Cards marked Coming soon are still being built.

Worked example

How concentrated is revenue among customers?

The data. standard_rfm_v2.csv, the published sample file for RFM segmentation: 2,139 rows; columns Order ID, Customer ID, Order Date, Order Amount, Channel. Sample data, not a customer's.

The calculation. Python, standard library only. This exact code ran against the file when this page was built, and printed the output below it.

import csv
rows = list(csv.DictReader(open("standard_rfm_v2.csv")))
spend = {}
for r in rows:
    a = r["Order Amount"]
    if not a or float(a) <= 0:
        continue  # blank or refund rows are not purchases
    c = r["Customer ID"]
    spend[c] = spend.get(c, 0) + float(a)
top = sorted(spend.values(), reverse=True)
k = round(len(top) * 0.2)
print(len(rows), "rows,", len(spend), "customers with a purchase")
print(f"top 20% ({k} customers) bring",
      f"{sum(top[:k]) / sum(top):.1%} of revenue")
2139 rows, 599 customers with a purchase
top 20% (120 customers) bring 74.8% of revenue

What it says. The fifth of customers who spent most bring 74.8% of revenue in this order file. That concentration is why segmenting customers by recency, frequency and spend usually beats treating them as one average customer.

What it does not say. Spend to date is backward-looking: a big spender who has stopped buying counts fully here. Refund rows were left out rather than netted against purchases. The library analysis scores recency and frequency as well and names the segments.

Run RFM segmentation on this file or your own, or open its stored sample report.

Sources

Further reading on the method in the worked example. Each reference was looked up and its authors, title, year and venue confirmed on 27 October 2026.

  1. Fader P, Hardie B, Lee K (2005). “Counting Your Customers” the Easy Way: An Alternative to the Pareto/NBD Model. Marketing Science. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.1040.0098
  2. Schmittlein D, Morrison D, Colombo R (1987). Counting Your Customers: Who-Are They and What Will They Do Next?. Management Science. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.33.1.1

By MCP Analytics Team. Updated November 2026. Analysis list from the library catalog.

A delivered report from this list

Cluster analysis: sample report Open full report →

The stored sample report for Cluster analysis. Each analysis has its own report layout; open its page to see what it returns.