Criteria Tab
Define Selection Criteria by Building Segments
Entering selection criteria, or defining the types of individuals you are selecting, involves building one or more segments that outline and refine your target results. This is known as segmentation. Segments represent the groups of customers you want to select for your campaign. Each segment may contain several conditions to specifically define a group of customers in detail, or just a few. You build these segments either by dragging a new Segment from the segments tab to the Design tab or by selecting a pre-made segment under Libraries. Your selection conditions dictate which customers to select or omit for each segment's TouchPoint groups.
Topics:
By default, segments are mutually exclusive. TouchPoint evaluates segments starting with the first and working toward the last until it finds a match. If a customer is eligible for more than one segment, he or she is selected only once, at the first match. However, you can instruct TouchPoint to select customers on every matching segment, rather than on just the first segment by making the segment Discrete. To learn more about this process read Making Segments FallThru or Discrete . Regardless of how many segments you choose to match, TouchPoint starts at the first, or top segment, and works towards the bottom.
The first stage of a TouchPoint campaign, after selecting a template, is the creation of selection criteria. Selection criterion are the Excludes and Pass-Thru fields that you use to select your targeted customers from your database. This is otherwise referred to as 'Segmentation.'
Note
If you wish to run or create two TouchPoint campaigns simultaneously, go to the MarketWide main window and click the TouchPoint icon again for an additional TouchPoint window rather than clicking the 'New' icon, which closes the current TouchPoint.
Excludes
Excluded customers are treated as if they do not exist. TouchPoint provides three ways to exclude data. Deciding what exclude method to use depends on what you need to accomplish.
Defining Excludes
Global Excludes Global Exclude is a way to make sure that certain consumers are suppressed from your entire campaign. For example, you might want to exclude people who are deceased or opted out of marketing communications. Global excludes make sure that no consumers who otherwise qualify for the exclude logic are selected by the campaign at any segment.
Segment Excludes Segment Excludes are applied within the TouchPoint selection tree at the exact position where they are placed, and affect only consumers who reach the exclude. For example, if a Segment Exclude is created to exclude recent buyers, and is placed beneath a parent that selects females, the Recent Buyer exclude is only applied to females and not to males. Segment Excludes are useful for managing campaign logic and preventing consumers from reaching certain segments, while still allowing other segments to evaluate them.
Table Filters Table Filters are used primarily for performance, and as such they restrict the amount of data TouchPoint processes. It's important to remember that a Table Filter is applied only to the table on which it is built, and is not evaluated for any other table. So, if you create a "Gender = Female" filter on a Customer table but your campaign has segments referencing other tables, the campaign can select consumers that are not females.
Global Excludes
In some campaigns, you may want to suppress a group of customers from your campaign from being selected into any segment.
Excluded customers are not evaluated and will not be counted as either matches or non-matches in your campaign. Excluded customers are treated as if they do not exist.
The Excludes Dialog
The Excludes window allows you to choose groups of customers to exclude from your current campaign.
Option | Description |
|---|---|
 | Opens a saved exclude. |
| Saves the selected exclude. |
| Opens SQLManager so that you can change the table that is highlighted. |
| Deletes the selected exclude. |
| Allows you to clear the selected exclude criteria. |
To Add Global Excludes
The Global Exclude outlined on this page may not be the best option for your campaign. Please see Exclude Segments or Table Filters for more information.
Note
An Exclude icon will be displayed in the bottom right corner of the TouchPoint window to indicate that an exclude has been defined.
Executing Your Selection
During the execution phase, TouchPoint reads the database and accepts or rejects customers based upon your segment conditions. Selected customers are saved in a temporary work area managed by TouchPoint. You can view the number of selections returned for each segment in the Tracking Tab.
Once you review the returns, you can decide how many individuals from each cell you wish to keep. TouchPoint's default is to keep all selected customers. To choose to use only a portion of the individuals selected in your campaign, click the Tracking Tab found at the bottom of the TouchPoint window. You can also attach additional pertinent information to your selected customers using extra columns as defined during the TouchPoint Template creation process.
How to Execute Your Selection
After defining your segments, click the submit icon () or select File and click Submit.
Using Table Filters
Using Table Filters to Expedite Your Selections
Table Filters are useful if you have a large amount of data and only need to process a small subset; e.g., out of hundreds of millions of transactions over a 10-year period, you may only want to select from orders generated in the last 12 months. This way the filter prevents TouchPoint from examining rows unnecessarily and taking additional processing time. Successful use of Table Filters can save extensive amounts of time when processing large or complicated campaigns.
To Add a Filter
Click on the Table Filters button () or select Campaign and then choose Table Filters.
In the Tables and Filters tab of the Properties window, click on the [No filter defined. Click to add filter] link.
In the Filter window, drag and drop all the appropriate fields from the table into the panel on the right.
Choose your condition and value(s) for each field.
Click OK to add your filter.
TouchPoint Options
Override Select Buffer Size
This is the number of rows per Customer Key that TouchPoint will look at before it moves on to the next customer key. For example, suppose one customer has 1,000 rows on your orders table and you have your buffer size set to 500, if they don't meet your criteria in the first 500 rows checked they will not be selected.
Treat Missing Library Objects as Error
Checking this option tells the engine that if an object can't be in the library, it should fail with an error instead of falling back to the local copy.
When Scheduled, Run Selection Only
If checked selection will run but your campaign will not be committed.
Maximum Nth Values
Displays the maximum number of values that can be Nth in the MarketFlow tab.This applies to the number of values for the selected "Nth By:" field in the Nth Setup window.
Display Customer Key in Main Window
Displays the Customer Key while the task is running in the main MarketWide window.
Display Segment Name and Description
Shows both the Segment Name and Description
Show Full Segment Descriptions in Hierarchical View
Shows both the Segment Name and Description
Remain Open during Long Running Operations
This will leave the TouchPoint window open when running operations like Commit or Frequency Distributions.
Enable MarketFlow Notifications by Default
Anytime a notification option is available in the MarketFlow it will automatically check that you would like to be notified.
Pass-Thru Fields
The TouchPoint Pass-Thru field feature lets you access additional pieces of data pertaining to the customers or prospects selected by your campaign, whether or not you’re using this data as part of the selection criteria. By default, during customer selection, TouchPoint captures the 'Customer Key' field for everyone it selects. Pass-Thru fields are how you add other fields you may need to create your MarketFlow Journey. Reasons for using Pass-Thru fields include:
Snapshots – you can capture dynamic information at the time of selection and save it to Promotion History for analytical purposes. A common example is a model score, where you might wish to know whether a campaign impacts model scores favorably or adversely for customers targeted by that campaign.
Match Limits - allow you to choose the “best” subset of customers based on the value of a Pass-Thru field.
Constraints – let you limit the number of solicits being sent to a household or business based on Pass-Thru fields such as recency or lifetime value.
MarketFlow Journeys – Pass-Thru fields help you in creating branches, filters, excludes, and splits in your campaign MarketFlow.
Dynamic Content – Pass-Thru fields can be used as dynamic content within email HTML, direct mail (e.g., envelope teasers), and even other channels such as telemarketing or social media.
Types of Pass-Thru Fields
Pass-Thru fields can be created as either static or reference:
Static Pass-Thrus make a copy of the actual data during the initial selection and segmentation (i.e., when you submit from the “Criteria” tab). This data is physically stored inside your campaign, meaning your campaign takes up more space. This option is primarily useful for Snapshot fields. Since the snapshot is taken at selection time, static Pass-Thru fields are frozen and do not get updated if the original field value changes while the campaign is active. Finally, static Pass-Thrus have to be defined before your campaign is submitted; you have to resubmit the campaign after adding or removing one.
Reference Pass-Thrus function much like a windows shortcut or browser URL string. A reference Pass-Thru is essentially a pointer to an actual field in the database, which might change constantly much like a web page. If the value of a reference Pass-Thru changes while your campaign is active, the new value appears immediately. Reference Pass-Thrus can be added to or removed from your campaign at any time without needing to resubmit.
Examples of When to Use Pass-Thru Fields
Example 1: An organization wants to track specific donor segments for each customer, classifying donors by giving levels. This classification gives a snapshot of the giving status of a customer each time he or she is solicited. Using Pass-Thrus to update client status allows the organization to make the solicitation more specific to the individual or to perform reporting analysis.
Example 2: A business wishes to choose whom to solicit based on a model rank score. The marketer could use a Model Score field as a Pass-Thru, and then when selecting Match Limit, elect to base the Priority on the highest model scores. This would ensure that the customers receiving mail are the ones best situated to make purchases.
To Choose Pass-Thru Fields
Click the Pass-Thru Fields button () on the toolbar or select Campaign and click Pass-Thru Fields from the menu.
Scroll through the list of displayed tables and locate the field you wish to add. To add a table to the list, click the Add Table button ().
Choose your Pass-Thru field(s) by dragging and dropping each one from the Available List panel to the Selected List panel.
By default, Pass-Thru fields are added as a reference. For static Pass-Thrus, simply uncheck the Reference box next to the field name.
Add an alias to your Pass-Thru fields if desired. This is the name TouchPoint uses for the field throughout the campaign process.
When finished, click OK.
Note
If you add or remove a static Pass-Thru on a campaign that’s already been submitted for counts, TouchPoint forces you to resubmit the campaign.
Reference Pass-Thrus can be added to a campaign at any time, without the need to resubmit.
User Defined Field(s)
User Defined Fields are math expressions, similar to the formula dialog found in Analyzer. Using this feature, you can perform practically any sort of arithmetic expression involving database fields, aggregates, and variables; and return the result as a field that can be referenced in your segment criteria. For example, you might take a consumer’s dollar amount from their last order and subtract from it their average order amount for the past year, and the result is over $30 you send them a gift card. This would be very difficult if not practically impossible without this feature. Note that the interface lets you type in conditions directly if you know the syntax.
This feature is extremely powerful and the MXParser library we use supports over 400 advanced functions, operators, and mathematical constants like Pi.