Managing the Flood of Web Buyers, Part 3

Once you add the true responses by running a matchback, you can see a much different result. To run a matchback, it’s simply a merge-purge in reverse, in which you match up your catalog’s mailing file and the order file for all the orders you’ve received during the life of that catalog.

To segment your Web buyers, flag them as pure Web buyers for all orders that don’t match your mail file. Previously in this series, I wrote about capturing original source codes from your pure Web buyers and flagging those buyers. You then can take all the responses from your matchbacks and segment them — the orders that hit against your mailing file and the remaining orders that didn’t match back to your mail file. Flag those orders that don’t match back to your mail file as pure Web buyers for future mailings. It’s not perfect, but it works really well as a way to segment pure Web buyers and avoid costly mailings to customers who won’t respond to that channel.