To begin using IBM® UnicaOptimize, you must create an Optimize session.

An Optimize session is a combination of rules and scores (if included) that apply to a set of proposed contacts. You define these various constraints (rules) once you have created an Optimize session.

An Optimize session works at a single audience level. If your company uses Campaign to communicate with contacts at different audience levels (for example, customer, household, and account audience levels), you must create a separate Optimize session for each audience level that you want to optimize.

You may choose to create smaller Optimize sessions for particular types of campaigns, for a particular branch or division of your company, for example. You may even use Optimize to optimize within a single campaign by managing exclusions, using contact history to prevent contact fatigue, and ensuring consistent communications over time.

An Optimize session contains the rules and constraints to apply. It may also contain scores to use for each proposed transaction. Scores, which represent the value of a proposed transaction, can either be passed in by each flowchart with their proposed transactions (in a score field in the Proposed Contacts Table) or be assigned in the Segment/Offer Scores matrix within an Optimize session. Having individual scores (for example, generated by a predictive model) for each proposed transaction is more likely to yield better optimization results. However, if granular scores are not available, the Score matrix allows you to enter scores based on the strategic segment into which a recipient falls and the offer which it being proposed. This matrix provides the means to rank offers for a particular segment, but there is no distinction among individual recipients within the same strategic segment (that is, everyone in the same segment getting offer X has the same score Y).

Each Campaign flowchart participating in an Optimize session submits its proposed contacts for optimization using the Optimize process. The Optimize process specifies to which optimization session it writes its proposed contacts. An Optimize session can receive proposed contacts from multiple campaigns. Campaign flowcharts determine the eligibility criteria for receiving offers and assign those offers as possible communications to the recipients. Optimize considers all possible contacts to a recipient (including those made from other campaigns), along with that recipient's contact history and applies the rules and constraints in the Optimize session to identify the best set of offers to send to that individual.

Once the campaign administrators run the Campaign flowcharts—populating the Proposed Contacts Table (PCT) for your Optimize session—you can run your Optimize session. The Optimize session then applies the rules you created to optimize the proposed contacts it received from Campaign. The rules exclude a subset of the proposed contacts to form the optimized contact list that you can use in Campaign marketing campaigns.