It’s a great example (that I’ll shamelessly borrow, if you don’t mind) of what we call “Sleeping Dogs”. In general, these are customers that have a negative reaction to some marketing action, whether it’s because they were just annoyed, given the opportunity to defect, or because an impulse decision became a creative one.

We use uplift modeling to predict directly how marketing actions (like email or DM) will impact customer behavior (like retention). This helps marketers avoid contacting such “Sleeping Dogs” (as well as the indifferent customers we call “Lost Causes” and “Sure Things”) and focusing instead on “Persuadables” where the marketing touch produces a positive impact. This can often reduce volumes by 50%+ and increase campaign impact several-fold.

If you’re interested in learning more about how uplift modeling helps marketers know when to avoid contacting customers, please check out my recent blog posts where I expand on some of the issues around uplift modeling.

Cheers,
Patrick Surry
Portrait Software