We are pleased to announce a new feature to the audience building area (filter builder) of the Profiles application: Complete Cases.

This is a check box that will be automatically selected to specify that your audience should be made up of respondents who have answered every single component of your definition. This would not make a difference for any audiences where you are linking variables with ‘AND’, but it would have an impact for where you are linking variables with ‘OR’.

Why are we doing this?

In general, we have added this new check box to help with market sizing and to reduce the potential impact of varying levels of overlap between different variables in your custom audience. This ‘Complete Cases’ approach will ensure that we are certain your respondents had the chance to answer every one of the components of your new custom audience. When using a custom variable that you created with ‘Complete Cases’, the % and associated market size should not be influenced by the degree of overlap between the respondents who answered each of the questions.

When should I un-select this check box?

If your audience is only going to be used as a filter or a column in a table where you do not plan to focus on market sizing, it may not be as critical to your analysis that a respondent has answered every single part of the definition. In these scenarios you may need the respondent to have met only one of your criterion to be included. For these instances, you could de-select the ‘Complete Cases’ check box and maximize sample size for your audience or filter. But remember to re-check the box if you want to edit the filter and use the market size figures.

What will I notice as different?

With the ‘Complete Cases’ check box ticked on, as you create custom audiences and add more variables into your definition via ‘OR’ linkages, you may see your base size decline. This is because the tool is limiting your base to people who have had the opportunity to answer all of the variables you are including, that may have varying degrees of overlap. As outlined above, if you are primarily focused on creating an audience with the largest base size possible, you should de-select ‘Complete Cases’.

If you have any questions, please consult your client service representative.