Matchbacks and the Evolving Science of Attribution

A matchback is the process of matching the mail file from a catalog against the orders received during the life of that catalog. If you purchased from a catalog you were mailed, all orders you placed during the life of that catalog are credited to that mail piece.

Testing has shown that a certain segment of consumers will order whether they receive a catalog or not. And a certain segment of housefile buyers are responding to both online ads and emails. A solution to this overallocation is to set up a mail/no-mail test panel to measure the sales that a housefile segment generates if it's not mailed a catalog vs. the same segment’s sales when it is mailed a catalog.