Merge/Purge - Solution Approach
Merge/purge is the vital technique used to eliminate the likelihood of sending multiple mailings to the same address or individual. Name and address matching is both an art and a science and an area where Tech4T have a great deal of expertise. Many decisions need to be made, because merge/purge is not simply a computer run. The same person can appear on different lists in different ways, and it is sometimes tricky to determine if it is a name or an address that requires purging. The strictness or tightness of the match criteria determines the extent of the purge and any suppression criteria you want to use.
For example, you may want to merge/purge based on "household" logic. In such a case, the computer would be instructed to purge any duplications based on address and surname. However, you may wish to purge based on "individual" logic, in which case you would add a requirement to match given names also. If you were a bank announcing low home equity rates, the household logic would be ideal, because there is no need to reach more than one person at any address.
If you are a credit card company, you may want to send an individual letter to everyone in the home, since it is not unusual for multiple family members to have their own cards. The merge/purge decisions can be critical toward determining the final results of the campaign.
Knowing the effects of your merge/purge decisions on the final list is as important as any step in the process.
You may also want to suppress names and addresses
that are known credit risks, or people who have responded before but
never become a customer.
You can run a merge/purge on multiple lists simultaneously, and specify that any names that appear on any lists be kept on the one that is less expensive and purged from the one that is more expensive. Note. If a name appears on multiple lists (and these lists meet the profile of your customers), it is highly probable that the person will respond to the mailing.
Your database is the primary source of information about your customers, and by expanding it with new lists, merging and purging, you can widen the scope of your customer base.
Both scenarios outlined previously can be addressed using the Tech4T RADIUS data improvement utility suite. As there are a number of separate processes that may need to be undertaken depending on the quality and format of the data, varying software components can come into play. Take a look at our technologies flow chart to see how all of our software fits together.
In the first scenario, one approach would be to use special software to assign unique identifiers to the list records which can then be submitted for merging and purging without giving away the actual email addresses. The client can then merge the various lists; perform whatever sorting, de-duplication or purging is necessary; and return the processed lists back to the list owners, who then match back the identifiers to the actual email addresses and send out the email campaign. By taking this approach, the list owner maintains control and the list renter gets unduplicated mailings. Plus, if someone has a database of undeliverable email addresses, this can be added to the mix.
In the second scenario, the overall merge-purge process is more complex and requires additional data preparation stages due to the multiple list sources and uncertainty regarding quality. For instance, address enhancement and individual list de-duplication and duplicated field stacking may well be needed prior to the multi-file merge-purge.
Tech4T have helped many customers undertake these and similar tasks using specialist software and in particular the fast, powerful and highly cost-effective DoubleTake software. We develop easy-to-apply processes based on data and business needs.
Call us now or e-mail to discuss how to merge-purge for optimum effectiveness and to maximise information gain. What could you be doing with your data?
