The B only with A rule ensures that Optimize does not send a follow-up offer unless it sends the original offer. Optimize cannot send Offer B unless it also sends an offer A. When Optimize uses an offer set for offer B, the rule applies to any offer which matches the set. When you use an offer set for offer A, any offer within that set satisfies the requirement for all proposed offer Bs. In other words, a single original offer allows any number of follow-up offers. This rule allows you to control sequencing of related offers, for example, to specify that offer B should be sent to a recipient only if offer A is also sent to the recipient. This allows you to manage follow-up waves of communication within your optimization strategy.

Marketing studies show that the lift achievable with two linked communications—for example, a direct mail piece followed by a service representative call—can be much more successful than either individual communication. The B Only With A rule allows you to propose linked offers and ensure that offer B is only given to a recipient if they also receive offer A. Therefore, allowed combinations would include giving out only offer A or offers A and B together, but not offer B alone. For example, if you want to first make an offer using direct mail and then follow up using a telemarketing call, you could create the telemarketing call as Offer B and the direct mail as Offer A. If Optimize determines that the customer should not receive the direct mail, then this rule automatically eliminates the telemarketing call that was paired with it.

Additionally, if you have two offers, Offer1 and Offer2, which must be sent together or not at all, you can create two B only with A rules. Create one rule as Offer1 only with Offer2 and the other rule as Offer2 only with Offer1. Optimize delivers both of the offers or neither of them. In this scenario, Optimize ensures that sufficient contact opportunities exist on the required channels to send both Offer1 and Offer2 and that the combination of offers (as opposed to other alternative offers that could be given on those channels instead) together are optimal.

Use this rule when one offer must always precede another.

The scope of the B only with A rule is always the current optimization period, that is, Optimize considers only the proposed contacts within the Optimize session; Optimize does not give out offer B if offer A was given out in the past. This ensures that an offer B is selected only if offer A is also selected within the proposed transactions considered during the current Optimize session. This rule does not look at contact history to see if offer A has been received in the past.