---
title: "What is lift, absolute and relative?"
description: "Lift is the outcome difference between mailed accounts and the holdout. Absolute lift is percentage points; relative lift is percent change."
canonical: https://trysincerely.com/glossary/lift
last_updated: 2026-09-18
---
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# What is lift, absolute and relative?

> Lift is the outcome difference between mailed accounts and the holdout. Absolute lift is percentage points; relative lift is percent change.

Source: https://trysincerely.com/glossary/lift

Lift is the difference in outcomes between the audience you mailed and the [holdout](https://trysincerely.com/glossary/holdout) you did not. Absolute lift is the raw gap: 9% minus 7% is 2 percentage points. Relative lift is that gap divided by the holdout rate: 2 over 7 is a 29% relative lift.

## Why it matters

The two numbers answer different questions. Absolute lift feeds your economics: points of lift times audience size tells you how many extra opportunities the mail created. Relative lift tells you how hard the channel moved the needle, which is what you compare across campaigns with different baselines.

Relative lift is also the number that gets abused. "We doubled response" sounds huge and can mean 0.1% became 0.2%. Always ask for the absolute number behind a relative claim. And a lift number without a [confidence interval](https://trysincerely.com/glossary/confidence-interval) is a guess: small holdouts produce big, noisy gaps that vanish on the next campaign.

## Example

You mail 900 accounts and hold out 100. After the campaign window:

| Group   | Accounts | Opportunity rate |
| ------- | -------- | ---------------- |
| Mailed  | 900      | 9%               |
| Holdout | 100      | 7%               |

Absolute lift: 2 percentage points. Relative lift: 29%. In economic terms: about 18 extra opportunities across the 900 mailed accounts. Whether that gap is real or noise depends on sample size; the [lift significance calculator](https://trysincerely.com/tools/lift-significance) does that math for you.

Sincerely locks the holdout at campaign launch and reports lift both ways, with a confidence interval, and says plainly when a result is not statistically ready. See how in [measurement](https://trysincerely.com/measurement).

Lift is the only response number that subtracts what would have happened anyway.

## Related questions

- [What is a holdout?](https://trysincerely.com/glossary/holdout): A holdout is the group you deliberately do not mail. Comparing them to the mailed group shows what the campaign actually caused.
- [What is a confidence interval?](https://trysincerely.com/glossary/confidence-interval): A confidence interval describes uncertainty around an estimate. Its width, direction, assumptions and business value all matter when acting on a result.
- [Direct mail incrementality and lift calculator](https://trysincerely.com/tools/lift-significance): Compare mailed and holdout conversion rates to get absolute and relative lift, a 95% confidence interval, and how many conversions were incremental.

---

Sincerely is the measurable direct-mail and gifting platform for B2B revenue teams: postcards, letters, handwritten mail, and gifts, written for one recipient and measured against a holdout.

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