Target's approach is everyday, ordinary statistics. They have a list of products that are purchased by expectant mothers and know the significance of each "factor" (ie product purchase) towards indicating pregnancy. These are used to calculate a percent chance that the buyer is pregnant. Once that percentage exceeds a human-chosen threshold, they start sending them coupons and advertisements for baby stuff.

The products which expectant mothers tend to buy are unscented lotions, soaps, sanitizers, washcloths, cotton balls and containers (like extra large purses). If someone starts buying these things for the first time or in increasing amounts, each instance is counted as a factor.

Answer from Tyler Durden on Stack Exchange
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Drive Research
driveresearch.com › home › resources › how target used data analytics to predict pregnancies
How Target Used Data Analytics to Predict Pregnancies
May 19, 2025 - It also explains how the beloved retailer, Target, used modeling and data analytics to identify women as being pregnant before those same women tell their closest friends and family members.
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KDnuggets
kdnuggets.com › 2014 › 05 › target-predict-teen-pregnancy-inside-story.html
Did Target Really Predict a Teen’s Pregnancy? The Inside Story - KDnuggets
Target mixes up its offers not because it would be weird to send an all-baby coupon-book to a woman who was pregnant but because the company knows that many of those coupon books will be sent to women who aren’t pregnant after all. You can read the rest of the chapter in Eric's book for more insight on this story, and on the privacy and civil liberty concerns brought up by predictive analytics in general.
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Medium
medium.com › @colin.fraser › target-didnt-figure-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did-a6be13b973a5
Target didn’t figure out a teenager was pregnant before her father did, and that one article that said they did was silly and bad. | by Colin Fraser | Medium
July 16, 2020 - A quick Twitter search for “Target pregnant daughter” shows that people still talk about this story a whole lot over 7 years after the initial publication of the article. Generally it’s used to show how Big Data can be used to learn everything about us, how the Facebooks and Googles and Targets of the world know more about us than our own family members.
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LinkedIn
linkedin.com › pulse › target-pregnancy-prediction-story-big-data-brad-mcdaniel
The Target Pregnancy Prediction Story and Big Data...
July 29, 2021 - The Target data scientists found pregnant women bought unscented lotions or, in the first 20 weeks, loaded up on supplements like calcium, magnesium, and zinc. In addition, the analysts found a variety of products that, when purchased in succession, ...
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ResearchGate
researchgate.net › publication › 263564125_How_Target_Figured_Out_a_Teen_Girl_Was_Pregnant_before_Her_Father_Did
How Target Figured Out a Teen Girl Was Pregnant before Her Father Did
January 1, 2012 - ... With the abundance of data generated by IoT devices, Machine Learning (ML) and Data Science have emerged as powerful tools to extract valuable insights. ML, for example, has demonstrated its ability to infer relevant information from routine data, as seen when the American retailer Target used an algorithm to analyze user purchasing patterns and predict a teenage girl's pregnancy before her father knew about it
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Custora
custora.com › blog › in-the-news › how-we-would-do-it-predicting-customer-pregnancy-at-target
How We Would Do It: Predicting Customer Pregnancy At Target
We establish a baseline basket of products that non-pregnant women purchase by taking products that women purchase in a randomly selected 26 week period. We are now armed with the data we need to predict pregnancy due dates.
Top answer
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Target's approach is everyday, ordinary statistics. They have a list of products that are purchased by expectant mothers and know the significance of each "factor" (ie product purchase) towards indicating pregnancy. These are used to calculate a percent chance that the buyer is pregnant. Once that percentage exceeds a human-chosen threshold, they start sending them coupons and advertisements for baby stuff.

The products which expectant mothers tend to buy are unscented lotions, soaps, sanitizers, washcloths, cotton balls and containers (like extra large purses). If someone starts buying these things for the first time or in increasing amounts, each instance is counted as a factor.

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Target Inc's data science team developed a customer loyalty system using a machine learning technique called Bayesian classification network that represent conditional dependencies against sets of random variables. In this case Target developed a strategy to understand customer behaviour and shopping habits and encourage customers to try products similar to their usual brand purchases. Target's CRM data warehouse contain customer engagement key figures with a brand dimension are fed to Target's Customer Loyalty system to answer for the best method to communicate with customers for brand experiences. Target's CL system was able to mine the teenager's shopping baskets and segmented her as a potential pregnant mother, therefore sending her baby coupons which is her preferred communication method. This ML technique is also used in Google Mail to filter out spam mail.

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TIME.com
techland.time.com › 2012 › 02 › 17 › how-target-knew-a-high-school-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-parents
How Target Knew a High School Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Parents Did | TIME.com
That’s why Target hires statisticians like Andrew Pole to sift through data to try and identify when someone is approaching or undergoing one of these major life events. Here’s how Target knew the young woman was pregnant:
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NYTimes
nytimes.com › 2012 › 02 › 19 › magazine › shopping-habits.html
How Companies Learn Your Secrets - The New York Times
February 22, 2012 - Take a fictional Target shopper named Jenny Ward, who is 23, lives in Atlanta and in March bought cocoa-butter lotion, a purse large enough to double as a diaper bag, zinc and magnesium supplements and a bright blue rug. There’s, say, an 87 percent chance that she’s pregnant and that her delivery date is sometime in late August. What’s more, because of the data attached to her Guest ID number, Target knows how to trigger Jenny’s habits.
Find elsewhere
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Yu-kai Chou
yukaichou.com › home › chou musings › big data: how target knows you are pregnant
Big Data: How Target Knows You Are Pregnant
March 23, 2012 - Our hypothetical situation is exactly what’s happening. As first written by the New York Times, retail giant, Target, has figured out how to successfully use shopper data to determine if an individual is having a baby and when.
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Forbes
forbes.com › forbes homepage › tech
How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did
February 20, 2024 - Target has perfected the technique of analyzing consumers' shopping habits to figure out who's pregnant. How can they send customers congratulatory coupons without freaking them out?
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StrategyPeak
strategypeak.com › home › posts › shhh! target knows you’re pregnant! the science of predictive analytics.
Shhh! Target Knows You're Pregnant! - Predictive Analytics
November 28, 2023 - In his book, Duhigg relates how ... In the case of pregnancy, it was noted that moms to be stocked up on typical patterns of vitamins, unscented lotions, and handy wipes....
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LinkedIn
linkedin.com › pulse › targets-ai-powered-insight-how-target-figured-out-teenage
Target's AI-Powered Insight: How Target Figured Out A Teenage Girl was Pregnant Before Her Father Did!
July 10, 2023 - In this age of data-driven retail, ... is Target, which has harnessed the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to predict whether a person is pregnant, long before they even realize it themselves....
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Blogger
abbottanalytics.blogspot.com › 2012 › 02 › target-pregnancy-and-predictive_21.html
Applied Data Science and Machine Learning: Target, Pregnancy, and Predictive Analytics,Part II
The "habits" that "unfold automatically" as described in the article was fascinating precisely because predictive models rely on habits; we wish to make the connection between past behavior and expected result as captured in the data that are consistent and repeatable (that is, habitual!). These expected results could be "is likely to respond to a mailing", "is likely purchase a product online", "is likely to commit fraud", or in the case of the article, "is likely to be pregnant". Duhigg (and presumably Pole describing it to Duhigg) characterizes this very well. The behavior Target measured was shoppers purchasing behavior when they were to give birth some weeks or months in the future, and nothing more.
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Slate
slate.com › human-interest › 2014 › 06 › big-data-whats-even-creepier-than-target-guessing-that-youre-pregnant.html
Big data: What’s even creepier than Target guessing that you’re pregnant?
June 9, 2014 - It was scary when a statistical model deployed by the guest marketing analytics team at Target correctly inferred based on purchasing data that one of its customers—sorry, guests—a teenage girl in Minnesota, was pregnant, based on an arcane ...
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Studocu
studocu.com › university of maryland › introduction to information science › target's secret: how data predicts pregnancy shopping habits
Target's Secret: How Data Predicts Pregnancy Shopping Habits - Studocu
October 10, 2025 - Take a fictional Target shopper named Jenny Ward, who is 23, lives in Atlanta and in March bought lotion, a purse large enough to double as a diaper bag, zinc and magnesium supplements and a bright blue rug. say, an 87 percent chance that pregnant and that her delivery date is sometime in late August. more, because of the data attached to her Guest ID number, Target knows how to trigger habits.
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LinkedIn
linkedin.com › pulse › how-target-predicted-teen-girl-pregnantwill-your-iphone-riyme
How Target Predicted A Teen Girl Was Pregnant....Will Your iPhone Do The Same For TBI?
February 1, 2024 - Retailers have perfected the science of data mining to predict purchasing patterns, trends, and apparently even pregnancy. Target is one of the most sophisticated retailers when it comes to the analysis of consumer shopping habits, largely because ...
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The Verge
theverge.com › verge archives
How Target can deduce pregnancies, create new habits, and know what you want before you do | The Verge
February 17, 2012 - If a woman buys enough of roughly 25 “pregnancy indicator” products like unscented lotion or vitamins, for example, Target can tell not only that she’s likely pregnant, but also roughly what trimester she’s in and tailor coupons accordingly. While she’s shopping for items for the new baby, she’s also more likely to pick up things that she’d normally buy at other retailers. Like much commercial data mining, the results are sometimes unsettling.