Glossary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Address Cleaning / Address Cleansing
The process of correcting and enhancing customer addresses data (consumer or business) against The Royal Mails Postcode Address File (PAF).
Address Management
The management and maintenance of an address database to ensure all postal addresses are complete, up to date and accurate.
Catchment Area
The geographical area surrounding a retail outlet, from which the majority of its customers are drawn.
CCJ
County Court Judgment. Details of these are pooled for use by Credit Reference Agencies. Deleted after 6 years by law.
Cold List
A list of prospects who have not yet purchased.
Consumer Profile
The combined characteristics of those who buy or use a given product or service (e.g. their demographics).
Consumer Segmentation
The division of consumers into homogenous groups based upon specific behavioural or demographic characteristics (e.g. buyer behaviour, age, social class, location etc).
Conversion Rate
The number of individuals who actually buy or subscribe to a service, out of the total number of responders to a campaign, expressed as a percentage.
Cross Sell
A term used in sales and marketing that refers to the sale of additional products and/or services to the same customer.
Customer Analysis
The process of interrogating customer data to understand their behavioural (e.g. travel patterns, brand preference, frequency of purchases) or demographic characteristics (age, income, social class) so that product, marketing and network strategies can be devised or realigned.
Customer Recruitment
The process of trying to acquire new customers through any marketing channel.
Customer Retention
The process of managing an existing customer through marketing or customer service to maintain the relationship and keep them loyal.
Data Appendment
The process of adding value to a marketing database by enriching existing data with a fresh source of variables about the consumers listed to assist with advanced analysis, segmentation and targeting.
Data Audit / Data Quality Audit
The evaluation of a data file to identify its condition and to identify where it can be corrected, improved and enhanced. Data Audits are common practice in database marketing to ensure any data relating to a customer or prospect is correct (e.g. name, address, date of birth etc).
Data Cleaning / Data Cleansing / Data Scrubbing / Data Hygiene
Data Cleaning is the process of correcting or removing erroneous (dirty) data, i.e. data that is incorrect, out-of-date, redundant, incomplete, or formatted or keyed incorrectly. A company would wish to clean its data to:
- Reduce mailing wastage
- Cut mailing costs
- Reduce customer distress
- Improve brand image
- Improve match rates to other data
Data Controller (Data Protection Act)
A person who determines the purposes for which, and the manner in which, personal information is to be processed. This may be an individual or an organisation and the processing may be carried out jointly or in common with other persons.
Data Enhancement / Data Enrichment
The process of adding value to a marketing database by enriching existing data with a fresh source of variables about the consumers listed to assist with advanced analysis, segmentation and targeting.
Data Processing
Any automated computer process that converts data into a consistent and usable format which can provide information or knowledge.
Data Processor (Data Protection Act)
A person, who processes personal information on a data controller's behalf. Anyone responsible for the disposal of confidential waste is also included under this definition.
Data Protection Act
An Act of Parliament which protects the rights of the consumer in respect of personal information about him/her.
Data Subject (Data Protection Act)
This is the living individual who is the subject of the personal information (data).
Deduplication / De-duplication
The matching and elimination of identical or near identical names and addresses from one or multiple databases.
Delimited File
A text file with data fields separated by a delimiter; the most common being comma or tab. This format is accepted by most applications – including Microsoft Access and Excel.
Delivery Point Suffix (DPS)
A DPS is a two character code that identifies each premise that can receive mail in the country. Combined with the Postcode it is a unique identifier for a letterbox.
Demographics
The description of people in terms of their personal characteristics such as gender age, employment and marital status.
Direct Mail
The use of the postal service to promote a product or service to a selected group of individuals.
Direct Marketing
The process of directly communicating with consumers or businesses by direct mail, telephone, email, SMS, door to door canvassing or leaflet drops to stimulate a response and drive a purchase.
DMA
Direct Marketing Association - the organisation which monitors and supports the Direct Marketing Industry.
Edited Electoral Roll
The names and addresses of individuals remaining on the Electoral Register after those who have chosen to opt out (or have been forced to opt out) have been removed.
Electoral Roll
A list of all individuals in UK collated by local authorities who are eligible to vote.
Electoral Roll Verification
The use of the electoral roll to confirm an individuals presence at a specified residence.
Forename Level Matching
When merging files together to create a single view or when matching suppression files, Forename Level Matching ensures that the forename, surname and address match. This provides a very secure match but does restrict the number of matches you can make if many of your records do not have a full forename.
GAS
Gone Away Suppression file.
Goneaway
Describes an individual who no longer resides at their previous address, i.e. has 'gone away'.
Initial Level Matching
When merging files together to create a single view or when matching suppression files, Initial Level Matching ensures that the initial, surname and address all match. This level provides a good match but it is not always possible to be absolutely sure that the same person has been matched. For example you might have two records that say Mr J Dobson. In fact Mr Jack Dobson and Mr Jay Dobson have the same initial but it would be wrong to say that they are the same person.
Lifestyle Data
Lifestyle data is collected by the use of surveys and questionnaires, providing companies with consumer intelligence that can be used to enhance customer understanding and target customer and prospect communications more effectively.
Mailing Preference Service (MPS)
A service from the DMA designed to give customers the option whether to receive unsolicited direct mail.
NCOA
National Change Of Address; This is the Royal Mail's redirection service database.
NSF
National Suppression File. This has now been renamed Xpression by the DMA.
PAF
Postcode Address File.
Personal Data (Data Protection Act)
Information about a living individual who can be identified from that information and other information which is in, or likely to come into, the data controller's possession.
Postcode
A coding system created and used by the Royal Mail across the UK for the purpose of sorting mail. They are an abbreviated form of the full address, comprised of area, district, sector and unit. Each full postcode is made up of an Outward code and an Inward code. The Outward code is the first half of the postcode and the Inward part is the second half. For example, in ‘LS3 1EP’, the ‘LS3’ is the Outward part and the ‘1EP’ is Inward Code.
Processing (Data Protection Act)
Processing means obtaining, recording or holding the data or carrying out any operation or set of operations on data.
Profiling
The process by which consumer data is analysed and the individuals, households or postcodes are segmented into groups which can be readily identified in a bar chart as different typologies.
Prospect Pool
Group of potential customers.
Random Sample
A sample, which is selected in such a way from a population, that every unit has an equal chance of being chosen.
Residency Verification
The use of a wide range of consumer datasets, including the Electoral Roll and other data sources to verify an individual’s presence at the address given.
Response Rate
The number of orders or enquiries received as a percentage of the total number of people contacted.
Risk Scoring
A method which examines a variety of different sources including electoral roll status, credit history and employment status. The purpose of risk scoring is to determine an individual's credit worthiness so that companies make relevant product offerings.
Salacious Word Screening
The identification of words that may have been maliciously input into a database but which a recipient may find offensive if received on a mailing.
Selection Criteria
Characteristics on which a selection of data is based (e.g. gender, age, transactional history) or a predictive score.
Subject Access Request (Data Protection Act)
Under the Data Protection Act, individuals can ask to see the information about themselves that is held on computer and in some paper records. If an individual wants to exercise this subject access right, they should write to the person or organisation that they believe is processing the data.
Suppression Screening
The process of matching your prospect or customer database against a range of files to omit individuals. Reasons for suppression can include: identifying individuals who have moved away or died, requested not to be mailed, or those that do not fit your required geodemographic or credit risk profile.
Surname Level Matching
When merging files together to create a single view or when matching suppression files, Surname Level Matching ensures that the surname and address match. This can be useful in many situations where confirming the family name is important.
Target Audience
A group of consumers that best represents the type of people you wish to address your communication messages to.
Targeting
The process of identifying relevant sections of a population to be contacted via direct marketing.
TBR
The Bereavement Register.
Tele-appending / Teleappending
Telephone number appending – Adding a valid telephone number to a file of names and addresses, these number are usually obtained from the BT OSIS database.
Telemarketing
The use of the telephone to carry out marketing activities.
TPS
Telephone Preference Service; this is the register of telephone numbers of people who do not wish to receive unsolicited phone calls.
Upsell
A term used in sales and marketing that refers to an organisation achieving more sales by trying to sell customers a higher-priced version of a product they have bought previously or suggesting additional options or upgrades.
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