Patent ID: 7904327

Claim:
A computerized method of optimizing a marketing investment through one or more data processors having processor-implemented instructions, the method comprising: automatically obtaining, through the processor-implemented instructions, multi-dimensional marketing data from a multi-dimensional database, wherein the multi-dimensional marketing data includes a plurality of data records, and wherein each data record has a value and a plurality of hierarchically-arranged dimensions; using the multi-dimensional marketing data to define one or more models; storing the multi-dimensional marketing data in a data staging area including a metadata repository, wherein the metadata repository includes metadata and one or more transformation rules used to transform the multi-dimensional marketing data into multi-dimensional formatted data; receiving input to use the metadata and at least one transformation rule to transform the multi-dimensional marketing data into multi-dimensional formatted data, wherein the input is received through a graphical interface, and wherein transforming the multi-dimensional marketing data automatically classifies the multi-dimensional marketing data into at least one marketing category; and receiving a selection corresponding to a marketing investment, wherein the multi-dimensional formatted data is analyzed using the one or more models that correspond to the marketing investment, wherein analyzing produces multi-dimensional forecasted data corresponding to the marketing investment, and wherein the multi-dimensional forecasted data is used to optimize the marketing investment.