Cancellation — In list ordering, a canceled order, usually with only a "run charge" assessed.

Cancellation charge — The amount of money a list owner requires a mailer to pay if an order is canceled.

Car owner — In consumer lists, a way of targeting consumers via car registration data, including number of cars owned, brand, age and value.

Card deck or cardvertiser — A cooperative mailing consisting of a number of small business reply cards, each a different lead generator.

Cartridge — A data storage format with greater storage capacity than reel-to-reel magnetic tape and that comes in a smaller and more efficient size.

Cash buyer — A purchaser who sends payment with order. This represents a degree of commitment that makes such individuals ideal prospects for many types of mailers.

Catalog — The direct-mail component of a retail organization.

Catalog buyer — A purchaser who bought from a catalog.

CD-ROM — A small, thin disc identical to a music cd, containing data in a read-only format, meaning the user can not save changes to the disc.

Census tract — A segment of a ZIP code consisting of about 1,000 households, designated by the U.S. Census.

Change of address — A recent mover, often used as a means of compiling names or as a selection within a list.

Checking copy — A copy of a mailing or phone list used to track response.

Cheshire or cheshire label — Mailing labels on a paper printout which are affixed by machine with adhesives, as opposed to pressure-sensitive or sticky labels that are affixed by hand.

Children — In consumer lists, a selection based on the number of children in a household and their ages.

Circulation list — Magazine, newsletter or mail order club subscriber lists, often selectable by order source, length of subscription and certain demographic data.

City — In government lists, local officials selectable by name, title, and demographic information about the city.

City size — A classification of cities by population to divide them into eight or nine ranges for business mailing lists.

Classification — The criteria by which business lists are categorized designating the type of each business.

Classified directories — Directories of business listings published by telephone companies.Commonly known as "yellow pages" or "blue pages."

Cleaning — The term for a list update which removes undeliverable addresses from a file.

Clearance — A list owner's approval of a list renter's proposed mailing.

Clustering — Targeting consumer names based on broadly or narrowly defined geographic, demographic or psychographic data. A cluster can be all names in a certain ZIP code, all names of 23 year-olds or all names of fly fishers.

C.O.D. buyer — A purchaser who pays at the time of delivery.

Code or coding — Identifying a specific list and mailing in order to later track promotion response and conversion rates.

Commission — A list broker, list manager or advertising agency's percentage of a list rental or ad space purchase.

Competitive offer — A term used to describe when a mailer's product or mail package is like the list owner's. This is often accompanied by a surcharge.

Compiled list — As opposed to response lists, compiled lists are comprehensive lists taken from directories or memberships. They usually have a much lower response rate than response lists.

Compressed file — In electronic data, a way of "shrinking" the size of a file to save space on a disk and to ease electronic transmission.

Compression — The active process of making a file smaller by utilizing a file like PKZip on a PC, Stuffit on a Macintosh or Tar for a unix operating system.

Computer service bureau — A data processing firm specializing in the handling of mailing lists.

Computer verification — A computer report that is required to get credit for unmailed names.

Consumer list — A category of list which is typically made up of individuals at home address who are grouped by type of purchase or other defining pattern.

Contact name — The personal name or names at a company that are included on a mailing list, selected by title.

Continuity buyer — A purchaser of a given type of product, such as books or musical recordings, who agrees to buy at regular intervals.

Contract — The agreement between a list owner and list renter which delineates the exact terms under which the renter can use the list.

Contributor list — (See Donor list).

Controlled circulation — In publication circulation, those subscribers who because of their attractiveness to advertisers receive a publication free of charge.

Cooperative — Any promotion which includes offers from more than one mailer, letting mailers share the cost of the promotion.

Count — In a database, the total number of records that have a particular attribute, as selected by a query.

Country code — The last part of an e-mail or Internet address, which stands for the country the host computer resides in, e.g .fi is Finland, .uk is United Kingdom.

Criteria — Selectable attributes that distinguish lists from each other, such as demographic, psychographic or geographic data. See Variables.

Cross-section select — A tactic of picking out a portion of a list which is representative of the whole. Testing a part of a list is intended to give the mailer an indication of the responsiveness of the entire list.

Customer profile — The "typical customer," measured by demographic and psychographic data that many customers have in common. Used to target prospective customers in a master list of consumers.

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