List View: All Sales Count

Consumers are not flocking to your Web site on their own. They are being driven there. Typically, more than 80 percent of orders and sales to a mailer’s Web site are driven by postal mail pieces—catalogs, subscription notices or other forms of direct mail.

As Internet and Web site activity account for a greater percentage of each mailer’s total orders and sales, it is essential that mailers properly allocate these sales. As much as 50 percent of the orders that used to come into a call center or come through the mail are now going to a mailer’s Web site.

Allocate Orders to Specific Lists
Many mailers use a generic “Internet percentage” to allocate orders back to the mailed pieces. This allocation typically is based on a broad estimate of the percentage that Web orders and sales represent within the company’s total direct marketing orders and sales. Or, if an accurate list-by-list matchback is conducted, it is done once a year and against only one mailing. These results then are extrapolated for the remaining mailings in that year.

If you are not accurately allocating these Internet sales back to the specific mail pieces and—more importantly—to the specific list from which they originated, you’ll begin making poor circulation decisions. For example, I’ve seen instances where lists have had more than 80 percent of their total orders come in via a mailer’s Web site, while the average for all outside lists for that particular mailing was less than 40 percent. Conversely, other lists on the same mailing generated less than 15 percent of their total volume through the mailer’s Web site. Without knowing the precise amount of Web activity generated by each list, you might overstate the performance of some, understate others and make the wrong decisions as to which lists to continue mailing.