MerlinMerge® SpeedPro - Deduping and Merge/Purge Software

Once you buy or rent lists the first thing to do is purge them from duplicates both within the lists and between the lists and your existing customers. Only after you have performed merge purge and deduplication you should merge the records into your existing database. Merge/purge is the vital technique used to eliminate the likelihood of sending multiple mailings to the same address or individual. Merge/purge and deduplication are also important for keeping your vital business data in good shape and avoiding any future data disasters.

Name and address matching is not a simple task. The two main issues are - which software solution to select for the computer run and how to decide on the strictness or tightness of the match criteria that determines the extent of the purge.

Many software solutions use methods such as exact matching and wildcarding that unfortunately are not sufficient. Others have poor performance or are not flexible enough to cover most of the data management needs.

MerlinMerge® SpeedPro:

Uses sophisticated matching algorithms tested for over 12 years

Utilizes neural-net technology, rule-based expertise and phonetic matching

Provides great flexibility for data management tasks

Is very fast and performance oriented

Many other decisions need to be made, because merge/purge is not simply a computer run. The same person can appear on different lists in different ways, and it is sometimes tricky to determine if it is a name or address that requires purging.

For example, you may want to merge/purge based on "household" logic - a process known as householding. In such a case, the computer would be instructed to purge any duplications based on address and surname. However, you may wish to purge based on "individual" logic, in which case you would add a requirement to match given names also. If you were a bank announcing low home equity rates, the household logic would be ideal, because there is no need to reach more than one person at any address. If you are a credit card company, you may want to send an individual letter to everyone in the home, since it is not unusual for multiple family members to have their own cards. The merge/purge decisions can be critical toward determining the final results. You can run a merge/purge on two or more lists simultaneously, and specify that any names that appear on both lists be kept on the one that is less expensive and purged from the one that is more expensive.

Upgrade the quality of your data with MerlinMerge® SpeedPro:

Clean it. Run it through MerlinMerge® SpeedPro and get rid of dupes

Keep it clean. Have a set maintenance procedure and follow it.
Run MerlinMerge® SpeedPro on regular intervals such as once a month

Update and correct information as soon as duplicates are found

Expand the data. Add lists and add customers.