Fan CLV Modeling with PyMC-Marketing
Real Madrid Football Club
The Challenge
Real Madrid has hundreds of millions of fans worldwide, but not all fans engage the same way or carry the same long-term value. The club needed to understand which fans were likely to stay active, which were at risk of drifting away, and how much future engagement each fan segment represented. Getting this right matters enormously — the difference between a well-timed re-engagement campaign and a generic blast is the difference between a lifelong supporter and a lapsed one.
Our Approach
We modeled fan lifetime value by estimating two things jointly: how likely each fan is to still be actively engaged, and how frequently active fans interact with the club. This naturally captures the reality that some fans quietly disengage without ever formally leaving. We extended the models to incorporate fan characteristics — demographics, purchase history, engagement patterns — so the club could understand not just who their most valuable fans are today, but what makes a fan valuable in the first place.
Results
The models gave Real Madrid a principled way to estimate the future value sitting in their fan base and to identify which segments deserved the most attention. The club could now quantify the expected return on retention efforts rather than treating all fans as interchangeable.
At Real Madrid's scale, even small improvements in retention targeting translate into meaningful numbers when your fan base spans continents.
PyMC Labs Team
- Juan Orduz
- Chris Fonnesbeck
- Colt
- Pablo Roque
- Evan
- Sef M
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