Machine learning technology is recently being applied to various fields. However, in the field of online consumer conversion, research is limited despite the high possibility of machine learning application due to the availability of big data. In this context, we investigate the following three research questions. First, what is the suitable machine learning model for predicting online consumer behavior? Second, what is the good data sampling method for predicting online con-sumer behavior? Third, can we interpret machine learning’s online consumer behavior prediction results? We analyze 374,749 online consumer behavior data from Google Merchandise Store, an online shopping mall, and explore research questions. As a result of the empirical analysis, the performance of the ensemble model eXtreme Gradient Boosting model is most suitable for pre-dicting purchase conversion of online consumers, and oversampling is the best method to mitigate data imbalance bias. In addition, by applying explainable artificial intelligence methods to the context of retargeting advertisements, we investigate which consumers are effective in retargeting advertisements. This study theoretically contributes to the marketing and machine learning lit-erature by exploring and answering the problems that arise when applying machine learning models to predicting online consumer conversion. It also contributes to the online advertising literature by exploring consumer characteristics that are effective for retargeting advertisements.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between customer engagement in social media (CESM), brand equity and corporate performance and investigated whether these relationships differed according to cultural factors in the United States and South Korea.Design/methodology/approach: We collected customer engagement on social media data on Facebook and brand equity data from Interbrand for listed companies in the United States and Korea. A total of 405 data sets were analyzed by partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).Findings: Results revealed that CESM did not affect financial performance through a direct path but was found to have a positive indirect path via the mediation of brand equity. In addition, this relationship was found to differ between the United States and South Korea.Originality/value: This study contributed to the literature on social media and international management by verifying the relationship between CESM, brand equity and financial performance, and by presenting exploratory research results to ascertain if these relationships differ according to the cultural dimension of the country.

The Internet has become a dominant issue in today's tourism environment. This paper is to provide large travel agencies in Korea with a better understanding of their Web‐based competitive environment. A content analysis of the top 60 travel agencies Web‐sites in Korea suggests that many travel agencies do not develop their own Web‐sites and although travel agencies are using the Web, they have not, as yet, fully utilized capabilities of Web‐sites. This study also suggests some implications for successful cyber tourism marketing, including the establishment of a Web‐site, on‐line selling, customer supports, and cyber marketing mix strategy on the Web. Limitations and further research issues are also suggested.

Purpose: The authors investigated the effects of the characteristics of reviews, reviewers and corporate factors on review helpfulness and assessed the role of culture in moderating these relationships.Design/methodology/approach: A research model was established based on the elaboration likelihood and information adoption models. To empirically analyze this research model, 10,611 TripAdvisor reviews from 9 countries were collected. In addition, a zero-inflated negative binomial model and multilevel analysis were employed in consideration of the data characteristics.Findings: The results revealed that review depth had a positive effect on review helpfulness, and review ratings and reviewer expertise had a negative effect. As a corporate characteristic, hotel size had a negative effect on review helpfulness. In addition, the effects of review rating, reviewer expertise and hotel rating exhibited significant differences based on the moderating effects of uncertainty avoidance and power distance level.Originality/value: The results of this study expand the review helpfulness literature by explaining the inconsistent findings of previous studies via cultural theory. In addition, past research in this field has mainly focused on analyzing only review and reviewer characteristics, while this study demonstrated that company size negatively affects review helpfulness based on the signaling theory. Finally, this study contributes to cultural comparison literature by discovering that the processing of review information by consumers differs according to their cultural background.