Predicting customer behavior for better personalization.
An offer works best when it makes sense for the person receiving it. As part of the personalization team at American Express, I developed a spend prediction model that helped shape tailored incentive offers for customers across the Americas and EMEA—creating more relevant opportunities to earn rewards while helping the business grow.
97%of spend predictions within ±2% of actual spending
$20Min incremental annual revenue enabled
A closer look
I developed an XGBoost-based model using feature engineering and hyperparameter tuning, with SHAP explainability to help teams understand what drove its predictions.
Compared with the previous system, the model reduced under-prediction error by 25% and overall prediction error, measured by NRMSE, by 10%. It also used 77% fewer input variables, simplifying the prediction system without sacrificing performance.
Model stability extended from 30 to 360 days—a twelvefold improvement—removing the need for frequent model refreshes and their associated costs. These improvements supported the personalization initiative’s $20M in incremental annual revenue.
Python / XGBoost / SHAP / Feature engineering