Traditional or Co-op, Tips To Get The Best Performance From Your List

* Integrate your data. “Data is not insight,” Wiland says. He stresses that raw numbers are great to have, but they mean nothing if you can’t apply them to optimize performance from your customers. “It’s more than just giving them the names,” he says.

* Traditional lists work best for niche products. Names modeled from co-op databases don’t work for all catalogers. Schultz notes that Delia*s is atypical of the industry. “We sell to teenagers and co-op lists typically don’t include teenagers,” he says. “How niched the product might be may mean you’re not able to work with co-ops. It’s a unique problem. None of the co-ops are going to be strong for us.”