MSc Economics and Business - Specialisation in Data Science and Marketing Analytics
Rotterdam, Netherlands
DURATION
1 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
01 May 2025*
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2025
TUITION FEES
EUR 2,314 / per year **
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* EEA students: 1 May, non-EEA students: 1 April
** statutory fee: dutch / EEA students; institutional fee: dutch / EEA students: € 12.600; non-EEA students: € 16.100
Introduction
Whether you buy something online, take the train, or make an insurance claim, virtually everything you do contributes to the vast amount of data collected. Clever analysts help companies and organizations to benefit from this important resource. In the Data Science and Marketing Analytics program at Erasmus School of Economics, students focus on the tools and skills that are needed to analyze so-called Big Data and turn it into meaningful insights.
Data Science and Marketing Analytics combines theory and practice from computer science, marketing, economics, and statistics in such a way that the potential of Big Data and AI can be used successfully to create greater value for consumers and firms. It offers our students a thorough understanding and knowledge of a wide range of techniques that can all handle the large and heterogeneous data sources that are prevalent in many modern business settings.
This provides the foundation needed by students to select the right method, from simple summary statistics to advanced machine learning and AI approaches, for the right question to obtain relevant business insights. During the program students are already challenged to successfully complete a company project where they use real company data and data science methods to gain relevant marketing insights. The company projects of the past years showcase the broad relevance of the knowledge students acquire in the program, with cases including, among others:
- Understanding why and when customers unsubscribe from the company newsletter
- Using social media sentiments to predict ad campaign effectiveness for a charity
- Building a recommendation system for products on a website
- Analyzing the impact of angry/emotional calls on on-call service agent productivity
- Optimize the customer journey through attribution modeling
- Prioritizing restaurants for acquisition on a food delivery platform
Why study Data Science and Marketing Analytics in Rotterdam?
By combining the computer science and statistical expertise of our renowned Econometrics Institute with the business insights of top researchers of the Marketing Department, we have created a program that offers a unique combination of profound insights into data science and artificial intelligence with a clear view of the application of these methods in practice. Students also bring their knowledge and skills to practice, as the program includes real-life cases in close cooperation with companies and non-profits eager to interact with the students.
In addition, Rotterdam is a vibrant, multicultural city that is at the forefront of exciting developments in industry, logistics, science, culture, and architecture.
Admissions
Curriculum
Earn your MSc in Economics and Business with a specialized focus on the Economics of Markets and Organizations, engaging in a comprehensive curriculum totaling 60 ECTS credits.
The program combines courses from data science and marketing into one coherent master’s specialization that is focused on using data to solve business challenges. As no advanced prior knowledge is required, core courses in computer and data science lay the groundwork for the more advanced seminars. The latter explores state-of-the-art machine learning methods and applies them to real-life business problems.
This master’s specialization consists of core courses, seminars, electives, and a master's thesis distributed over 5 blocks of 8 weeks. In the first block, 3 core courses of 4 credits will each introduce you to the broad range of both knowledge and skills that you will acquire and perfect in the Master Data Science and Marketing Analytics.
The second and third blocks start with a focus on learning new methods, followed by a seminar where you will work on real-life business problems, putting the methods and skills obtained in earlier blocks to the test. These interactive seminars are a very important component of our program. You will be involved full-time in a seminar for an entire block, allowing you to dive deep into the material, guided by the lecturers. For these intensive courses, active participation and strong commitment is a must.
In the fourth block, you will follow one final course and choose one elective.
You should already start thinking about your master’s thesis in January but blocks 4 and 5 will be dedicated entirely to this task, which is based on research you have conducted yourself under the supervision of a member of our academic staff. Erasmus Research & Business Support (ERBS) offers job market preparation sessions in block 5.
The curriculum consists of:
- 50 % computer science/machine learning
- 50 % marketing/business
Course Overview
- Take-Off Master
- Introduction to Data Science
- Strategic Marketing Decision Making
- Programming for Data Science and Marketing Analytics
- Seminar Data Science for Marketing Analytics
- Seminar Case Studies in Data Science and Marketing Analytics
- Text Analytics for Marketing
- Elective
- Master's Thesis Data Science and Marketing Analytics
Ideal Students
Is this the right choice for you?
Are you interested in learning programming skills that allow you to collect, clean, and analyze such data? Do you have the perseverance and confidence needed to acquire the skills to apply and tweak the latest machine-learning methods in a business setting? In this program, you will be able to put all of this to good use.
The following traits will stand you in good stead to study Data Science and Marketing Analytics at Erasmus School of Economics:
- Your ambition is to provide data-driven answers to business problems
- Being at the forefront of developments in data analysis appeals to you
- Analytical thinking is your forte
- You are not afraid of some mathematical notation
- You feel comfortable working in English.
Career Opportunities
Data scientist has been dubbed the sexiest career of the 21st century, according to Harvard Business Review. Given the growing awareness of the possibilities of exploiting data science and artificial intelligence for marketing analytics and for business analytics in general, the data science skills acquired during the Data Science and Marketing Analytics program are expected to provide graduates with excellent job prospects.
When visiting Rotterdam, Trevor Hastie, Professor of Statistics at Stanford University and a well-known authority in the field of Data Science, commented: ‘Big Data is everywhere - it drives web search, web advertising, and quantitative finance, to name a few industries. Data Science plays a fundamental role in this New Economy. With its strong history in data modeling, Erasmus School of Economics is well poised to train a new generation of data scientists.’
Although many people will probably associate a data scientist with companies like Google or Facebook, there are in fact many other areas where our graduates can add significant value. All consumer-oriented firms such as those in retailing, transport, finance, healthcare, and consulting have a rapidly increasing need for your skills. In these companies, data scientists are involved in analyzing sales and performance data, designing (online) campaigns, studying their performance, improving the targeting of customers, and making the sales process more effective. Many businesses and organizations are either setting up or expanding teams in business analytics, customer analytics, and marketing analytics.
Most of our alumni find a job within two months after graduating. They often work as a consultant, data analyst, or data scientist. Companies they work for include:
- Retail: Nike, Coolblue, KPN
- Consulting: Accenture, Deloitte, EY, PwC, Bain & Company
- Transport: KLM, Ryanair
- Finance: ABN AMRO, ING, PGGM, Adyen