What is a Customer Weighted Report?
Any report that takes a customer file is considered customer weighted.
How are Customer Values Calculated?
Customer values are based on the neighbourhood those customers come from. As seen below for example, 90% of Dissemination Area (DA) A own their homes, so we assume that customers from DA A are 90% likely to own their homes.
In a customer report on % homeowners, the variable values for the neighbourhoods represented by the customer in the file are averaged, with the values being weighted by the number of customers found within that neighbourhood. In the example below, DA A shows 90% likelihood to Own Home. Since there are 200 customers in DA A, and each of those customers would be assumed to have the same values as their DA, we weight the average by multiplying the variable value by the number of customers who represent it in the file (90% home ownership likelihood times 200 customers).
The image below shows the complete calculation. The process would be the same for the likelihood to rent a home, with the only change being that values from the "% Own Home" column are replaced by values from the "% Rent Home" column.
Record Count versus Record Weight
When you upload a customer file, you are prompted to choose to use either Record Count or Record Weight.
Record Count works as shown in the sample above, with the weight being based solely on the number of customers in each neighbourhood. Record Weight assigns a "weigh value" to each customer. In this case, the weight is based on the sum of the weights of customers within the neighbourhood. A way to interpret how Record Weight affects the calculation, note that if a weight of 1 for every customer, the results would be the same for Record Weight as Record Count.