Perfecting an Imperfect Science

Dental products cataloger Practicon approaches matchbacks by analyzing purchases made from customers already in its database. “From there,” says Marketing Analyst Stan Moore, “we look at how they’ve ordered before and what channels they’ve ordered through.”

Things get a little hairy for the Greenville, N.C.-based Practicon when new customers place orders. For one, he doesn’t know how they come to the company. “They often come to us through lists we’ve purchased or rented from our broker” Moore says. In this case, the matchback is handled by the company’s outside data warehouse. “There, we’re just matching back on the address that’s come into our system, as well as having showed up on the rental list.”