CompuTech Direct is proud of our early adopter clients who have embraced MobiusMerge™. The result for these clients is optimal performance. Across the board, category by category, our MobiusMerge™ mailer clients have shown stronger $/book mail results when compared to category benchmark results for traditional pattern based merge purge mailers.

The difference in performance is no accident. The Mobius reference based recognition platform integrates an exhaustive suite of address hygiene processes while simultaneously aggregating duplicate groups by individual, household, residence, or business. The MobiusMerge™ recognition platform identifies not just a mailable address, but rather identifies and assigns a persistent ID to an individual person therefore bringing together disparate name and address changes not detected by any other process. For the very first time, you can now identify and match individuals who work and live in different places, even those who change their names when they get married!

Gone are the days of the tight merge or the loose merge. MobiusMerge™ gives you the right merge, every time. See for yourself actual examples of the unparalleled ability of Mobius to detect true duplicates.

Why MobiusMerge™?
In traditional direct marketing merge/purge processing, as a mailer you’re forced to set priorities and methods for matching that are consistent across your entire mailing. For example, List A has a higher priority than List B, which has a higher priority than List C and so on… And lists have to be de-duplicated based on individual, household, or residence matches across the entire mailing. All sequential, and logical steps within a merge. But what if you wanted to identify duplicate hierarchy based on the number of lists they were on? For example if an individual appeared on eight different lists that had a low priority, but another individual in the same family occurred on one list only that happened to be a high priority, who would you rather mail? Probably the individual who had bought eight times. But in traditional merge/purges, the highest priority wins. MobiusMerge™ allows you to correct that.

So what is “Reference Based Matching”, and what does it have to do with MobiusMerge™?

Traditional merge/purges identify duplicates based on patterns within names and addresses. The systems look at the elements of the names and addresses, look for similarities, and then depending on the particular software manufacturer or programmer, the system decides on whether two records are the same person, or family, or not. That’s the way it has worked from the beginning of computerized name and address processing. That’s the “old” way.

In CompuTech Direct’s new world, the MobiusMerge™ world, we match each record not to each other, but to a master database of individuals. And in this database, we have cross-linked records from scores of different sources that use unique identifiers on each record to create links that are irrefutable, but may have no obvious connection. For example, Ruth Ann Johnson, from a business address in one zipcode but a home address in another zipcode, who used the same credit card for purchasing from two different divisions of the same company, would be linked and identified by that company. That company, through one of our partners, identifies to us that the two seemingly different people are one and the same. Or perhaps she actually identified to our partner during the ordering process what her work and home addresses were. Our data source is the updated. And when we run MobiusMerge™ for you, we can identify the two different records on your input as the same person, even though the addresses are totally different.

It is the use of these unique identifiers that reference different versions of the same person that led to the term “reference based matching”. The new way of identifying duplicates accurately. Below are some of the touch points that are integrated into the one step MobiusMerge™ solution.

Edit drop options- MobiusMerge™ has over 25 edit drop options with 6 different tier levels available. You’re able to dial up or down various suppression opportunities. As part of our Clearsource matchback service, all edit drops are carefully coded. Further analysis can be done on various options.

Undeliverable-As-Addressed mail- (UAA) This is mail that cannot be delivered as addressed. Last year, nationally, there were almost 10 billion pieces of UAA mail; that’s 5 percent of all mail!

A good address has two characteristics — it accurately describes the delivery point and correctly identifies the addressee. Most service bureaus are only focusing on the delivery point and not validating addressee at an address. MobiusMerge™ identifies verified individual names at an address. This screen is particularly useful for older names, web requestors and other record types.

High Standards for Address Hygiene- After initial zip+4 coding, MobiusMerge™ runs your files through Address Correction Enhancement, apartment append processing, DPV error correction, NCOA, deceased file processing, LACS coding and DSF processing. Our process flow ensures that every opportunity is exploited to provide to you the most deliverable file or mailing possible.

MobiusMerge™ Change of Addresses- By employing reference based recognition, depending on the mailer; we are able to obtain an incremental 30% more address changes than traditional NCOA processing. CompuTech Direct clients usually experience 2-5% of input additional address changes. In mailing these records to the right address our clients are experiencing a lift in their overall mailings by mailing to the right person.

Date Logic- While MobiusMerge™ is aggressive in acquiring additional address changes; the logic is designed to minimize false matches. All CompuTech Direct NCOA processing uses date logic to ensure that we do not change a record whose move date is not as recent as the last activity date on the file. MobiusMerge™ uses this same date logic on changes as well. For records that do not have a date on file, MobiusMerge™ is able to use conservative estimate date logic to minimize any false changes. We have seen other service bureaus’ error rates as high as a 33% by allowing address changes with dates greater than 3 years. MobiusMerge™ eliminates this issue by using stringent date interrogation.

Seasonal selection and suppression of names- MobiusMerge™ identifies 50 different migration patterns. Logic flow not only looks at potential suppression options for migration movers, but also looks to see if mail should go the original address since in-home dates can be 1-2 months out from the processing date. MobiusMerge™ looks to mail to the right address at the right time and therefore maximize response rates.

Random Allocation overrides- There are 8 different options through which MobiusMerge™ is able to override random allocation in order to select either the more responsive name or the more deliverable address. This is all done automatically and with flexibility. Within 6 different tiers, you can be tight in each of your options with the more recent buyers or more aggressive with older names. You can also choose to link business and home addresses, or treat them as separate records for mailings.

Variable Matching- You can choose to mail one per individual, surname or address. This can be done by list, by tier and by business versus residential. Here is an example of how you may wish to use variable matching: Consumer Gift offer dropping business addresses during non-holiday, mailing individual level in holiday season. Another example is to maximize suppression of the do not mail file- Address. Mail individual level for 0-12 month buyers and surname level for older house and rental names.

Reference Based Matching- MobiusMerge™ typically identifies anywhere from ˝-1˝ percent of input more dupes than pattern (traditional) based merge purge systems. 95 percent of all service bureaus are using pattern based merge purge systems. Reference-based matching compares your file to a 6-billion name database repository. Prior name changes, prior places of employment as well as prior residential moves are all redundantly stored with linkage in the reference-based database. Moves can be as far back as 15 years on the reference database.

Overkill processing by Pattern-Based Merge Purge systems- One of the problems with pattern-based merges is common surnames with the PO Box and Street address matching. John Smith at 123 Main St and John Smith at PO Box 457 are almost always joined up in a pattern-based merge. But are they really the same person? With reference based matching, these two records are assigned an individual ID based upon phone number, date of birth, email address and other data sources. If the two individuals do not have the same individual ID, they are not joined together or duped out.

Matchbacks to a new level of accuracy- By appending a persistent ID to all mail records, we can now take your order file and obtain a persistent ID as well. In running the Clearsource matchback by persistent ID, we can now link the same individual, whether he moves or not, and PO Box street address combinations within same zip code and not within same zip code. Normal matchback processes just can’t accurately source maiden and married surname links, dual home links, business home links. The increase in match rates will ensure a better multichannel view of your results. Marketing can no longer afford to make decisions based upon anecdotes and “gut feelings”.

House file Modeling- By appending a persistent ID to all records, we can do a better job of linking up database customers. Key marketing metrics such as channel, frequency, dollars spent and source are now more accurately attributed to give you an enhanced view of your file and a better profile of your customer. More accurate data also means more reliable regression models, and better results by mailing the right people at the right time.

Contact files- As with house file modeling, the persistent ID is useful in linking up all promotions. There is no need to spend money and hygiene resources on past mail files, when you can simply join by persistent ID. This ID can be useful for current house file contacts as well as non-customer contacts.