CASS Mailing List Management & Dedup 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What does a 'fuzzy match' algorithm do differently than an exact match during list deduplication?
- It matches only ZIP codes without comparing names
- It tolerates minor spelling variations and typographical errors (Correct answer)
- It requires all fields to be identical before marking a duplicate
- It compares barcodes instead of text fields
Correct answer: It tolerates minor spelling variations and typographical errors
Fuzzy matching uses phonetic or edit-distance algorithms to catch duplicates where names or addresses differ slightly due to typos or alternate spellings.
Question 2: A mailer's house list contains 500,000 records. After merge-purge with two rented lists, 120,000 duplicates are removed. What is the net unique count?
- 380,000 (Correct answer)
- 620,000
- 500,000
- 120,000
Correct answer: 380,000
The combined list had records but 120,000 duplicates were removed from the total, leaving 500,000 − 120,000 = 380,000 unique records (assuming duplicates found only in the combined pool referenced back to the house list base).
Question 3: Which USPS product is specifically designed to help mailers identify addresses that will not receive mail, enabling list suppression before mailing?
- NCOALink
- Delivery Point Validation (DPV) (Correct answer)
- LACSLink
- Undeliverable-as-Addressed (UAA) suppression via AMS
Correct answer: Delivery Point Validation (DPV)
DPV confirms whether an address is a valid, active delivery point; addresses that fail DPV can be suppressed to avoid UAA mail.
Question 4: In CASS dedup processing, what is a 'pander file'?
- A list of known mailers who exchange lists
- A suppression file of individuals who have requested no promotional mail (Correct answer)
- A reference database of postal routes
- A file containing prison inmate addresses
Correct answer: A suppression file of individuals who have requested no promotional mail
A pander file, such as the DMA Mail Preference Service file, contains opt-out requests from consumers who do not wish to receive unsolicited promotional mail.
Question 5: After a merge-purge, a mailer notices the same individual appears twice with slightly different addresses — one standardized and one not. The most likely cause is:
- The NCOALink file was not applied before dedup
- The dedup software used only exact address matching without standardization (Correct answer)
- The individual moved between list pulls
- The ZIP+4 code was assigned incorrectly
Correct answer: The dedup software used only exact address matching without standardization
Without address standardization before dedup, variant address formats (e.g., 'Street' vs 'St') prevent exact matching and allow duplicates to survive.
Question 6: Which type of deduplication compares records across different rented or compiled lists rather than within a single list?
- Intrafile dedup
- Interfile dedup (Correct answer)
- Household dedup
- Sequential dedup
Correct answer: Interfile dedup
Interfile deduplication identifies and removes duplicate records that exist across two or more separate input files during a merge-purge operation.
Question 7: A direct mail campaign targets 'head of household.' Which field combination best supports selecting one record per household?
- First name + last name
- Delivery address + last name (Correct answer)
- ZIP code + phone number
- Email address + postal code
Correct answer: Delivery address + last name
Combining the delivery address with the household surname identifies a unique household unit, allowing selection of a single representative record per family.
CASS Mailing List Management & Dedup 3
What does a 'fuzzy match' algorithm do differently than an exact match during list deduplication?