Understanding the Recipient Breakdown - What to include, what to exclude : Automated Direct Mail - HelpCenter

Understanding the Recipient Breakdown - What to include, what to exclude

1. Introduction

When uploading a set of addresses, the platform automatically sorts through the data. Before you can send over the design to our Operations team, you will be required to have a closer look at the breakdown and confirm your choice. This way, we ensure that your mailing will be sent to as many recipients as possible while keeping the print- and postage costs as soon as possible. This article gives a detailed explanation of all categories and elaborate on the selections and their consequences.

2. The Graph

On the left, you can find an automatically generated pie chart to give you all the necessary information on first sight. The blue outer ring displays how much of all addresses uploaded will be sent. If you change your selection on the right-hand side to in-or exclude certain categories, the blue ring changes automatically.

3. The Categories

The list can be roughly split into three major categories:

• Green categories (Deliverable, Corrected) — Addresses in this category are always included
• Yellow categories (Duplicated, Missing First Name, Unverified) — Addresses may be included, depending on your choice
• Red categories (International, Undeliverable) — Addresses in this category will always be excluded.

Let's have a closer look at those tags one by one!

Green Categories

1. Deliverable

This is the standard result of the address review. Most of your addresses should be classified as part of this category. Being “deliverable” means just that: Without any correction, adjustment, or question, these addresses reach the intended person.

2. Corrected

Some addresses may just need a little help. Those include small typos or a postcode that's slightly off. Checking the uploaded addresses against our internal database, we were able to identify and alleviate the issue.

Yellow Categories

1. Duplicated

This is by far the most complex category we offer. Generally, you want to avoid sending two letters to one and the same customer. Not only would that result in extra printing - and shipping costs, it's also not going to go unnoticed by the customer and may not leave a great impression. We try to address this issue with the filter “Duplicated”.

When checking for a duplicate entry, the system first checks the address: Street, number, postcode, city, country. Only if all of those are a 100% match, the system checks if the names are at least a 90% match. If so, the first entry will be used and the second entry will be discarded.

However, if there are duplicates in your upload, it's typically not many, and we recommend including them. If you see a noticeable number of duplicates, especially with other yellow or red categories, ask our Operations team for an address check to ensure the continuous health of your data!

2. Missing First Name

Sometimes, customers don't give a first name, or they state a company address here. Leaving the results of this category in your mailing means that “Mrs. Miller” or “Local Business, c/o Mrs. Miller” will both receive your mailing, so we recommend you include them.

3. Unverified

This is a unique filter, as addresses here could go either way. We're checking your data against a static list in the background and trying to check if the combination of street, number, postcode, and city is likely to be delivered. We recommend including those results, but if this category constitutes a large share of your upload, please read below how to get further insights into the reasons for exclusion.

Red categories

1. International

Addresses in this category are not directed to the same country as you chose when creating the mailing. If you want to send internationally, please create a new mailing. The reason why this is categorically excluded is that chances are, the mailing could not be delivered.

2. Undeliverable

Addresses that are considered undeliverable are just that - undeliverable. Maybe the postcode has too few or nonsensical characters, maybe the street number is in date format, maybe one or many fields are completely blank. Either way, there's no way to fix the data here to make sure that you can reach the intended recipient with the fractured data we have.

4. Where to find further Information

There are two ways to check in detail why some data was included.

1. During mailing creation

Once the address upload is complete, you will find the following button at the bottom of the screen:

2. After mailing creation

But what if you finish the setup and wonder, later, why some addresses were excluded? No problem! Simply open the overview of your mailing. Here you can find another download button:

We hope that this article helps to clarify the different categories in the recipient list. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us! We're happy to help!