Merge/Purge: Six Steps to Save Money on Wasted Postage

If you work in direct mail, perhaps you’ve heard people mention “merge/purge” with the same casual confidence as weather and weekend plans. Although it sounds simple, it’s one of the most important behind-the-scenes steps in creating a clean, effective mailing.

What is Merge/Purge?

Merge/purge (or deduplication) is a process to clean up your direct mail list by identifying and removing unwanted or duplicate records, producing a single, unique, and complete record for each consumer on your list. Not only will this eliminate the chances of you sending an acquisition mailer to an existing customer or mailing multiple pieces to the same record, but it will also improve deliverability.

Additionally, the merge/purge process identifies individuals who appear on multiple lists, known as ‘multi-buyers’ or ‘multis’, as these consumers may be more responsive.

Direct marketing agencies generally perform merge/purge when onboarding or combining lists. Marketers may also adopt this process during regular CRM and house files data hygiene. You can conduct merge/purge on direct mail, email, and digital marketing lists.

Six Steps to Save You Money

Postage is one of the largest expenses in any direct mail campaign, meaning even small amounts of waste can add up fast. The good news is that most of that waste is avoidable with thoughtful workflow and the right checks in place.

Follow these six steps, and you’ll see a noticeable difference in your budget efficiency and performance.

1) Pre-Merge/Purge Count Approval

This may feel like a no-brainer, yet this is a crucial first step to preserving your timeline. Verify you have received all your ordered lists and that record quantities and list priorities are accurate.

2) List Conversion

No two data files come in the same file type and format, and they often vary in length and layout. Once you confirm receipt of all the records from your various list sources, convert all input data to a consistent format to successfully start the merge/purge process.

3) Address Hygiene and Standardization

To ensure the USPS can successfully deliver your mail piece, all names, addresses, and abbreviations should be uniform. Carrier routes, delivery points, and zip4 fields must also be complete and correct.

Depending on your list source and type, standardization may automatically update via the USPS National Change of Address database (or a proprietary database), but should still be verified during this step.

4) Merge/Purge Matching Logic

Advanced data-matching logic identifies duplicate records or combine data from multiple lists to build one complete record. There is flexibility in how you can apply or layer matching logic throughout your data inputs based on your business rules. Four prevalent matching logic approaches are:

• Address only: Ignores name fields; entries match based strictly on address.
• Household: Ignores first names; entries match based on last name and address.
• Match-code: Combination of certain characters of last name, address, and zip5.
• First name, last name, and address: Ignores nothing; all inputs match.

5) Your Sample List

To ensure your final mailing list is representative of your audience, select a sample from all lists to make up your total volume. This step is especially important if you are conducting any type of package testing. Typical sampling methods include:

• A/B split: A simple split of lists.
• Random: Randomized selection across all lists or a group of lists.
• “Nthing”: Includes the same percentage from each zip code in all lists—creating an almost perfect sample because it verifies your distribution is the same across your audience.

6) Final Count Approval

At the end of this process, you should have a final mailing list, a dropped record file, and, if applicable, a holdout file. As a last quality control check, confirm your mailing list quantity accurately represents your expected mailing volume.

Conducting this six-step merge/purge process is an extensive practice with many complex factors. It takes a human touch to balance the automated and manual aspects of each step and catch the minor errors that software may miss.

Partnering with a best-in-class agency will ensure your direct mail package will efficiently land in the hands of your optimal audience.

Make Every Mailer Count

At its core, merge/purge is about working smarter—mailing the right pieces to the right people and skipping the rest. When you take the time to closely monitor the details, the savings add up, and the headaches go down. With merge/purge, data is cleaner, targeting improves, and direct mail campaigns are more efficient every time.