Lookalike Prospecting

Use a seed list of your existing customers to build a Lookalike prospecting list of recipients with similar interests and shopping habits

Lookalike models are special, custom prospecting lists created from traits and/or behaviors identified within your existing customers. These can encompass purchasing behavior, interests, affinities, and additional predictive traits you wouldn’t initially think of.

What's so great about Poplar's lookalike models?

In Poplar, we've built a streamlined lookalike model development process that allows you to build a lookalike model within 2-3 business days.

• On-demand models

• Minimums start at just 5,000 circulation

• No requirement to contribute to any data share

• Complimentary 10% or 20% Holdout group (optional but highly recommended to calculate lift metrics)

By using this feature you accept the Poplar Terms of Use for Prospecting Data.

Requirements

Lookalike lists are built as part of a One Time Send launch flow. This means creative files must be uploaded to your campaign beforehand, so they can be selected during the first step in the flow. After submission, the list can take up to 3 business days to build, and the campaign will immediately move to production once audience sourcing is complete.

• You need at least 1,000 customers to build a lookalike model. Your file should contain full name and address data only, emails are not accepted.

• Do NOT cull the customer list on your end. Even if you have more than 1,000 customer records, you should upload the ENTIRE file for best results

• Your uploaded customer list will double as a suppression list for the campaign, but any additional state, zip code, or Audience list suppressions should be set under the campaign's Suppressions tab.

• Ensure you have enough funds in your credit balance for the mailing. Your estimated cost: quantity of mailings * ($0.07 + cost of your creative)

Although circulation starts at only 5,000 we recommend at least 10,000 prospects to get a better grasp on your target audience and analyze the results which would carry more statistical weight.

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1

Customer Seed List

Start by either uploading a list of your customers to Audiences or, if you're sharing Order Data via the Shopify App, you can use your Customers (API) list. These lists will also automatically act as suppression lists so you don't end up mailing any existing customers.

Your customer list must contain at least 1,000 people. Additionally, we don't recommend culling your customer list - the more data there is to build the model off of, the better the results will be.

2

One Time Send → Build a Model

Create a new One Time Send and give it a unique name, then select Build a Model as the Send Type and select your customer seed list, or click Add a New Audience if you haven't uploaded one yet:

3

Quantity, Attributes & Suppressions

Enter your desired circulation (excluding holdout) and any required attributes for your model. We highly suggest avoiding using the attributes unless they are absolutely key to your product or if your product doesn't serve a certain group. For example:

• You sell only women's clothing

• You're a real estate firm and you're mainly marketing to homeowners who want to sell

• You're selling children's toys (and thus want to market only to households with children)

Why?

• The lookalike model automatically reflects the demographic patterns discovered amongst your customers.

• Letting the model run naturally will allow you to get the highest-ranking names from the largest universe of prospects.

To give a concrete example, let's say, Sally, David, Bob, Linda, and Annie were your top 5 prospects based on their purchasing behavior.

If you deselected "Male", we would remove David and Bob, who were actually ranked 2nd and 3rd in terms of likeliness to convert - and replace them with Amanda and Jane (ranked 6 and 7 in your list).

During the modeling process we collect some additional details, including a list of 5-10 competitors and your product category. We highly recommend sharing all these details as they help inform the model of the types of purchases it should give more weight.

4

Creatives

Select which creative(s) you'd like to use:

5

Holdouts

Here you can choose whether you want to enable or disable a holdout group. For Prospecting campaigns specifically, holdout groups are value to calculate lift metrics. This determines who converted because they received a mailer vs. who would've converted anyway without receiving one.

6

Review Proofs & Launch!

Review your creative proofs to make sure the address block is in the right place and not covering any key text, and that any offer expiration dates are at least 30 days in advance.

The final page before launch will show a breakdown of cost, timeline to expected in-home date, all settings and creative details.

Click Submit and sit back while the new customers roll in!

Processing & Tracking

Once you hit "Submit", we begin our modeling process, which occurs in the span of 2-3 business days. The steps involved in sourcing an audience are:

1. Your customers (first-party data) are matched against a co-op database that contains your customers' purchasing behavior from parties other than yourself (third-party data).

2. The prospects in the database are then scored according to their similarity in purchasing behavior to your customers.

3. Next, all potential customers that don't comply with your overlays are removed, suppressions are removed, and the top viable prospects are finalized for mailing.

Once the top prospects are sourced, your mailing automatically goes into printing & production, without further action needed from you.

Production & mailing will occur, just like any other mailing in Poplar where you uploaded a CSV of addresses or emails. These steps follow the normal timelines of First Class or Standard postage depending on your selection. Refer to the History section of your campaign to track progress through the mail stream!