A close-up of a hand holding a pen, analyzing detailed data in a spreadsheet for a Merge Purge report, illustrating data evaluation and management.
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Understanding Your Merge Purge Reports

Merge Purge Reports

You probably receive several reports from your merge purge service provider during the course of preparing a file for a new direct mail campaign.  Although they look confusing at first glance, these reports actually contain a lot of interesting information.  Read on for a short course in how to read them.

Merge Purge Summary Report:  This report analyzes the overlap of names between multiple lists, and probably looks something like this:

Summary Chart A

Summary Chart B Rev.

The columns refer to the following:

  • Merge Purge Input:  The number of names on the list after completion of the data hygiene process.
  • Multi-Drops:  The number of multi-buyer records that were dropped from this list because their duplicate was retained on another list.
  • Single Drops:  The number of records dropped because they appeared more than once on this list.
  • Suppression File Drops:  The number of records that were eliminated because they matched with an internal suppression file.
  • Single-Buyer Output:  The number of records on this list that appeared on only one list in this merge purge process.
  • Multi-Buyer Output:  Records that occurred on more than one list.
  • Merge Purge Output:  The total number of records remaining on this list after the merge purge processes that are ready to be mailed to.
  • Percent Kept:  The percentage of the merge purge input records that remain on the final list.

 

Multi-Buyer Summary:  This report shows the number of multi-buyers on each list and how many different lists they were found on.  For example, 813 of the records on List 1 were also on List 2 or List 3, and 238 of the records were on all three lists.

Multi-Buyers Rev


Match Analysis Matrix:  This report is useful in identifying potential issues as it analyzes the degree of overlap between different lists.  For example, if there is an unusually high hit rate between two segments of the same list, it may indicate that the first segment wasn’t omitted from the second list when that list order was fulfilled.

Match Matrix

Feeling a little overwhelmed?  Our team of experts have been eating, breathing & dreaming about list optimization for decades, and we’d love to help.   Please call John Bell at (310) 372-9010 or tell us when you’d like us to contact you.

Want more than a cookie cutter approach?  MMI Direct dives deep into your data
to determine how best to optimize your list and maximize your direct mail ROI.

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Two professionals collaborating on merge purge operations, reviewing documents and making annotations to enhance data optimization strategies.
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Optimizing Your Merge Purge Operations

OptimizeMergePurge

 

Organizations looking to expand their customer or donor base will often rent lists of recent donors or customers from similar organizations.  Prior to sending a direct mail solicitation to these prospects, it is important to clean up these lists by eliminating duplicate names and suppressing the records of people who are already on your house list or to whom you don’t want to mail for another reason.  The direct mail industry refers to this process as “merge purge”.

While the concepts behind merge purge are simple, executing a well-designed merge purge campaign can be surprisingly complicated.  We’ve created an eBook titled “Optimizing Your Merge Purge Operations” to demystify the actions you should take.  Download this free 22-page eBook by clicking on the picture below:

MergePurgeIcon250The eBook begins by outlining what you should take into account as you choose match criteria to dedupe your list. For each set of duplicates you find, the eBook explains how to select the best record to keep.

Once you have a deduped list, there are several exciting options you should consider, such as marketing again to multi-buyers or using modeling to further optimize the records on your list and choose the best ask strings.  After explaining how to do each of these options, the eBook concludes by describing how to read the reports you get from your merge purge software or consultants.

If you’re new to the field or would find a refresher on merge purge processes helpful, please download this free eBook now.

 

Want more than a cookie cutter approach?  MMI Direct dives deep into your data
to determine how best to optimize your list and maximize your direct mail ROI.

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