Recency - Definition & Meaning

Published in Marketing and Strategy Terms by MBA Skool Team

What is Recency?

Recency is a marketing term of immense importance to marketers in an organization, which describes the engagement of customers in relation to time. Recency, in general, can be defined as the measure of the amount of time gone by since either the customer has bought any product or when an ad campaign / commercial was telecasted.


Recency, if capitalized upon properly, can drive performance for a marketing campaign. This is because recency describes the opportunity window for marketers to connect to the customers. It describes the importance of timing for a marketing campaign. Timing can make sale happen which otherwise would have been a missed opportunity.


Recency even plays an important role in analyzing customer value. It is part of RFM method which is used in direct marketing and database marketing. RFM stands for:

• Recency: how recently the customer made a purchase

• Frequency: how often the customers make the purchase

• Monetary value: how much money is spent by customers


Thus with the help of these 3 quantitative factors, a firm can recognize potential as well as best customers. RFM is majorly used in Retail industry.


It is believed that marketers have a limited window of opportunity to convey their message to target customers. Recency, combined with search retargeting, can be used by marketers to hit this window of opportunity. Some important points to keep in mind can be:

• Starting with long recency windows for the marketing campaign and then refining the window.

• Analyzing recency by specific verticals, like travel, finance etc.

• Adjusting recency based on the optimum mix of delivery and performance.


Hence, this concludes the definition of Recency along with its overview.

This article has been researched & authored by the Business Concepts Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

Browse the definition and meaning of more similar terms. The Management Dictionary covers over 1800 business concepts from 5 categories.

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