Top 10 questions we get asked - and the answers!

As you might imagine, our customers ask us a lot of different questions about mailing lists and data marketing services. These may be in line with some of your questions, so here we explore the most frequently asked questions and the corresponding answers.

1. How often are your databases cleansed?

Our databases are continually updated and cleansed on a weekly or monthly basis. The data is updated using a combination of telephone research, self-completed forms or national data files such as Companies House or the Electoral Roll.

In addition, by checking our databases against various suppression files we ensure they are as up-to-date as possible. The suppression files used include National Change of Address – managed by the Royal Mail, Business Suppression File, Bereavement Register, TPS (telephone preference service), MPS (mailing preference service), and more.

2. Is all of the data opted-in?

As per best practice as well as a legal requirement, our B2C consumer data is fully opted-in and the individuals can be contacted by organisations. Should they so wish, consumers can easily get in touch and be removed from our lists.

With B2B data there is no legal requirement for business people to opt-in for business-related marketing communications. However, we do operate a mixture of opt-in and opt-out databases and remove anyone who requests their details to be removed.

3. Where does the data come from?

All our data is responsibly sourced through reputable organisations and partners; the individual source/s of the contacts within our different mailing lists varies.
Find out more about the different sources in our articles;

Where does Consumer Data come from? and Where does Business Data come from?

4. How up-to-date is the data?

How up-to-date or the ‘recency’ of the data varies for each list, but at most the data is recent to within 12 months. All records in our premium Corporate Contacts list are completely updated within the last 3 months.

5. Why are you more expensive; can you lower the price?

In the data industry, as with many others, you get what you pay for. We know we are not the cheapest data supplier in the market, but we are by no means the most expensive either. As mentioned above, the cleanliness and sources of our data are top quality.

You can buy cheaper lists but the results they yield will show you a much lower return on investment than investing in high quality data from us or other reputable providers of a similar price point.

We do offer bulk buying discounts if you are looking for a large amount of data.

6. Why is the data restricted in terms of numbers of uses?

To ensure the ongoing quality of our data, we and other reputable data suppliers will always restrict the amount of uses to ensure against overuse, which could make the data less receptive to properly targeted communications.

7. What does the customer do with the data after the licence expires?

Upon expiry of your licence you can re-license the data for a further period of time. Alternatively, you must remove any contacts where you have not had a positive response from them during the licence period.

A positive response varies from indicating their interest in your product this may include; opening or clicking on an email, confirming interest or potential future interest by phone, right through to becoming an active customer.

8. How do you track usage?

All data files we provide include some ‘seed’ contacts so we can ensure against the file being used more often or for longer than the period of the licence. This ensures the data remains responsive by not allowing it to be overloaded with excessive communication from a single provider - thus ensuring its quality for you.

9. How do we receive the data - what kind of file is it?

All our data files are provided as Excel CSV files as standard, meaning they are entirely accessible and suitable for upload into all CRM or other applicable systems. If you require data to be delivered in a different format, please let us know and we should be able to accommodate your specific requirements.

10. Do you do international data?

We do provide marketing lists of contacts outside the UK. We work with carefully selected international partners to ensure this data is also of the best possible quality.