This FICO’s post describes how a combination of Analytics and Optimization helps to predict and compare likely future outcomes of alternative actions and find the best decisions given business objectives. For example, a marketer may decide today to spend $70 in acquisition costs to turn a promising prospect into a customer. If she becomes a customer, then, depending on her first 3 months of shopping behavior, another decision will be taken whether to spend $30 in incentives to entice her into a loyalty program. Sequential decision analytics can trigger individual dialogues with such customers