Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention sets for a mechanism for determining an optimized investment strategy across a portfolio of media channels for a given product or service. For each media channel in the portfolio, the unadjusted elasticity indicating an estimated effectiveness of the media channel when used for marketing is adjusted based on risk information associated with the media channel. The risk adjusted elasticity corresponding to each media channel in the portfolio is then used to determine an investment allocation for the media channel.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method for clustering a plurality of observations included in a dataset. The method includes selecting a subset of variables from a set of variables, where each variable in the subset is associated with each observation in the dataset; for each of a first number of times, randomly selecting an initial value for each variable in the subset to generate a seed value set that includes an initial value for each variable in the subset; generating a number of pre-clusters equal to the first number based on a similarity between each observation in the dataset and each of the first number of seed value sets; and applying a hierarchical clustering algorithm to the first number of pre-clusters to derive a second number of clusters.