How Plow & Hearth Uses Analytics to Determine Contact Strategies

Holdout tests are expensive because you're giving up top-line demand, Kwiatkowski said, but you're learning more to gain more in the long term. Continue to retest as ratios shift because of changes in consumer behavior and your marketing mix, she added.

Determining the value of a customer receiving a catalog is critical to Plow & Hearth's contact strategy. Like any other cross-channel retailer that mails catalogs, the prohibitive cost of the channel puts it in a position where if it doesn't have to send a customer an expensive book to still get their business, it's more than happy not to.