Smarty's glossary

A web form feature that suggests street addresses to users as they type an address into a form. Because an autocomplete function reduces the number of keystrokes & mistakes that a user types, it can make data submission faster and more accurate.

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Collecting address information at the point of entry (e.g., checkout, onboarding, manual entry, etc.).

The collective process of standardizing, correcting, and validating an address to ensure it matches the official format for the appropriate country. Address validation can only be completed once any missing or incorrect information has been added or fixed.

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The numeric or qualitative value that represents the confidence level of a system in the accuracy of a given address match or geocode.

Address correction is taking improperly formatted addresses or addresses with typographical errors and matching them with the standardized, validated version in an official or authoritative address database. An address correction API is an application programming interface that automates this process, allowing software to correct, standardize, and validate addresses individually or in bulk.

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An address point dataset or a list of addresses within a database. People seeking a national address database often look for the most complete address list possible for a particular country, such as those provided by Smarty.

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An application programming interface that appends additional data points about an address. Data like congressional district, FIPS Code, vacancy status, address geocode, or any additional data that the local post authority may provide can be found in the results of an address enrichment API call through Smarty.

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Also known as “address matching" and “forward geocoding,” it’s the process of identifying the geographical coordinates (latitude and longitude) for street addresses.

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Estimating a location’s geocode based on surrounding known address points is typically used when a rooftop geocode isn’t available.

A unique identifier that's assigned to an address to enable consistent reference across systems or datasets. Also referred to as a PUID or persistent unique identifier. Smarty’s PUID is called SmartyKey®.

An address lookup is the process of checking an address against an authoritative database to verify whether it’s real and mailable. It may also provide additional data points, like whether the address is residential or commercial, vacant, or incomplete.

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Secondary information related to an address, such as a ZIP Code,FIPS Code, county name, longitude, latitude, etc. Address metadata is simply information about an address. Smarty provides up to 55 points of metadata for every address.

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Converting an address into the correct format of the national postal authority. This is the first step to verifying an address. The USPS is the authority that determines the format of addresses in the United States.

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Happens when an address cleaning or standardization process goes too far and strips away meaningful differences in the data. Instead of improving quality, the system accidentally erases useful variations, such as turning an address with secondary indicators (apartment numbers, suite numbers, etc.) into an address without that necessary information for complete deliveries.
Smarty has measures in place to ensure that over-normalization is not a problem, even providing component analysis on some plans to inform you when or why an address was changed in order to obtain a match.

Takes place when dividing a street address into individual or grouped components. Since the word “parse” means to divide something into components, some refer to address parsing as the process of dividing a street address out of or “extracting” an address from a string of text.

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Changing addresses to adhere to USPS standards. The USPS defines a standardized address as “one that is fully spelled out, abbreviated by using the Postal Service standard abbreviations... or as shown in the current Postal Service ZIP+4 file.” (Publication 28, Section 211, USPS)

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Checking a mailing address against an authoritative address database. If the address matches an address in the official database, it "validates," meaning it's real. Non-matching addresses are marked "invalid," meaning they don't exist or aren't registered with an official database like the USPS or other verified 3rd-party authoritative datasets.

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Verifies postal information automatically. US address validation APIs standardize addresses to conform to USPS standards. International address validation APIs normalize address data according to their country formatting and standardization. Address validation APIs efficiently integrate with websites, databases, CRMs, and other software to enhance address data quality.

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Checking a mailing address against an authoritative address database. If the address matches an address in the official database, the address "validates,” meaning it's real. Non-matching addresses are marked "invalid,” meaning they don't exist or aren't registered with the official database.

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Designed to prevent credit card fraud. During a purchase, this system ensures the billing address of a credit card matches the one on file at the card company.

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Lists made up of only addresses. Smarty only needs an address file to parse, standardize, and validate addresses. We don’t need any PII to validate an address, and companies don’t want to share it either. Smarty is serious about security, and we encourage users to send only necessary data.

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The person or entity to whom the mail is addressed, or to whom you would like to receive the mail at the included address. Also called the recipient, this can be a person or a company/organization.

A geographic region within a country that has its own level of governmental or administrative authority. Examples include states, provinces, counties, districts, or municipalities. These areas help organize political, legal, postal, or statistical responsibilities and often appear in addresses to help pinpoint a location accurately, like "California" in the U.S. or "Ontario" in Canada. The administrative area has the lowest level of geocoding accuracy. The location in question can only be parsed to be in a particular state or province.

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This is only available in some countries. The value consists of a two-letter country code, followed by a hyphen, and is completed with a 1-3 character code unique to the administrative area. (ex. CA-ON)

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A postal carrier route is a group of addresses that share the same USPS code for efficient mail delivery. Appending means attaching more addresses to a pre-existing carrier route.

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A set of programmatic instructions that allows one program or part of a program to interface with another program.

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Military addresses are treated as domestic mail, even if the actual destination is a foreign country with an APO. It's similar to how mail is delivered to unique ZIP Codes; USPS delivers the mail to military post offices, which then perform the final delivery. A military address must include the unit designation and APO/FPO.

Ex.
SGT. JOHN SMITH
UNIT 2340 BOX 132
APO AE 09350

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National address lists with a persistent, unique identifier (PUID) for each delivery point make asset accounting easier and more accurate. Some companies have physical assets, like servers or internet equipment, in various off-site locations. Without standardized addresses, a company might accidentally double-count the same location under alias addresses (e.g., “123 Main St.” vs. “123 Main Street, Building A”). An asset tracking system tied to verified addresses ensures each delivery point is counted once, providing clearer visibility into where assets are located and reducing errors in reporting, logistics, and compliance.

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An application programming interface (API) that provides programmers with options for type-ahead search functionality inside their applications. Because the program sends queries while the user enters an address, the API provides real-time address predictions with each keystroke.

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Any address that can’t be reliably matched to a USPS deliverable address (or a non-USPS address validated by verified 3rd-party addresses) due to missing information, incorrect information, vacancy, or inactivity. There are 6 main reasons an address may return as a bad address:

• Incomplete
• Incorrect
• Improperly formatted
• Invalid
• Outdated
• Duplicated address

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Done by any tool or function that allows a user to dump a whole mess of requests on a computer all at once, leaving the machine to sort it out and process the batch into neat, organized, validated, standardized addresses.

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The overall perception customers have of a brand is based on every interaction or touchpoint. Examples of touchpoints or interactions can include (but are not limited to) viewing a commercial, having a phone call with the company, using a product, or even looking at a website.

Verifying and standardizing large lists of addresses all at once. Smarty allows you to verify lists in 5 easy, non-coding-required ways:

1. Online web interface tool
2. Microsoft Excel add-in
3. Google Sheets add-on
4. Command line interface (for your largest lists)
5. QGIS mapping plugin

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Storing frequently used information from a website so that it doesn't have to be requested and retransmitted upon successive visits to the site. It's like having a portion of the website already preloaded into your web browser, which significantly speeds up browsing on the Internet.

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California laws which give consumers rights over how their personal data (including addresses) is collected, sold, or shared.

A function that a program specifies to be executed after another function or process completes. In the context of APIs, a callback handles the response returned from a request. For example, when an address validation API returns a JSON response, the callback function processes that data. Some systems also allow a timeout callback, which is invoked if the request takes too long, ensuring the program can still handle the error gracefully. While optional, a timeout callback is recommended for reliability.

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A valid address returned after submitting an address for validation. If the input is incomplete, ambiguous, or contains errors, the system may return multiple candidates that all match in different ways (e.g., same street name in different cities or unit variations). Candidates represent the set of possible correct addresses, from which the best match can be selected.

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When an input address matches multiple valid addresses, each returned candidate is tied to the position (index) of the original input in the request. For example, submitting “1 Rosedale Street, Baltimore, Maryland” may yield several valid candidates, and the candidate index links each result back to that input address.

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A USPS code assigned to a group of addresses to aid in efficient mail delivery. Postal carrier route codes are 9 digits: 5 numbers for the ZIP Code, 1 letter for the carrier route type, and 3 numbers for the carrier route code; 92019C005 is an example of a carrier route.

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When a client or customer adds items to an online/ecommerce-based cart but fails to complete the purchase.

The USPS Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) certification is updated in cycles (e.g., CASS Cycle O). These updates ensure the software used for address validation meets USPS standards for accuracy and formatting.

Statistical geographic areas used by the U.S. Census Bureau to organize population and housing data.

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A form notifying the USPS of a change to your home mailing address. There are temporary and permanent form requests. When done online, there’s a small identity validation fee.

Improving the online checkout process for the customer or client. This can be done in many ways, but the intent is to reduce friction, improve user experience, limit error ingestion, and minimize cart abandonment.

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Taking measures to decrease the number of customers or clients who leave your service or discontinue purchasing your products by offering personalization, better support, product updates, or even better data.

A place where many people live close together. Cities are centers for business, culture, and government. They bring together economic activity and infrastructure that connect people, goods, and services across wide areas. What makes cities different from towns or villages is how they organize essential systems, such as housing, transportation, water, and electricity, as well as public services, to support large, diverse populations.

The opposite of dirty data. Data that’s entered and needs no correction, clean data, is important and can make a world of difference in the time and energy consumed verifying information.

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The USPS created and uses this certification tool to ensure the accuracy of validation and standardization software that accesses the USPS database.

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A centralized mailbox system that’s used for delivering mail to multiple recipients at once, especially in apartment complexes or new developments.

Stands for comma-separated values. It’s a delimited text file that separates each value using commas. CSVs are used in bulk address verification and other tools.

A private business that rents out mailboxes and receives mail on behalf of individuals or companies. CMRAs provide customers with a street address (rather than just a P.O. Box), and often offer additional services such as mail forwarding, package acceptance, and notifications. Common examples include The UPS Store and Mail Boxes Etc.

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Standardized code that’s used by telecommunication companies to identify physical facilities and network locations. Often used for expansion or scaling, as well as for tracking and maintenance purposes.

A federal law that encourages banks to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. CRA evaluations assess lending, investment, and service performance within designated assessment areas.

The percentage of visitors who complete a desired action on your site, such as buying a product, filling out a form, answering a survey, signing up for a free trial, etc.

A geographic region defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) consisting of one or more counties anchored by an urban center and the surrounding communities that are economically linked to it. CBSAs are categorized as either Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) or Micropolitan Statistical Areas (μSAs).

A political and administrative division of a state, providing certain local governmental services. Learn how to perform a county lookup by address or ZIP Code.

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Numbers used to identify geographic regions like countries, states and counties. The use of FIPS Codes facilitates interoperability across government agencies, contractors, and technical communities.

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The entire journey that a customer has with your organization or brand, from discovery to receiving items or services from you.

Collecting data to better understand and connect with customers. This is often used to improve existing relationships with a company's customers. Because they include addresses for customers and non-customers, companies use national address lists to extract valuable customer and prospect insights for marketing, operations, and other departments.

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Enhancing existing records by adding additional information from external or third-party sources. This supplemental data—such as demographics, geocodes, property details, and more— augments what you already know, creating a more complete, accurate, and actionable dataset. Enriched data improves business intelligence, decision-making, and customer insight by filling gaps and reducing reliance on incomplete records.

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A framework of policies, standards, and practices that ensures data within an organization is accurate, consistent, secure, and used appropriately. It defines how data is collected, stored, accessed, and maintained, establishing accountability across teams. Strong governance typically includes data management systems, quality controls, security measures, and compliance processes—enabling organizations to trust their data for decision-making and regulatory requirements.

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The discipline of organizing, controlling, and maintaining data throughout its lifecycle—from creation and storage to usage, sharing, and eventual deletion. It encompasses the processes, technologies, and practices that ensure data is accessible, reliable, and secure for business and operational needs.
Effective data management supports data governance by providing the systems and workflows that uphold quality, consistency, and compliance. It covers activities such as data integration, storage, backup, access control, and archiving, ensuring that information is available to the right people at the right time while minimizing risks of loss or misuse.

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How well data meets the standards of accuracy, validity, timeliness, completeness, consistency, and uniqueness required for effective use. High-quality data is reliable, error-free, and fit for its intended purpose—whether that’s powering analytics, supporting customer experiences, or ensuring regulatory compliance.

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The responsibility of managing, curating, and protecting data to ensure it is accurate, consistent, and used appropriately across an organization. A data steward is typically an assigned role (or team) accountable for maintaining data quality, enforcing governance policies, and ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory standards. Strong data stewardship bridges the gap between governance frameworks and day-to-day data management practices.

Identifying and removing duplicate records within a database or dataset. In address lists and customer databases, duplicates are almost inevitable—caused by variations in formatting, typos, or multiple entries for the same entity. Effective deduplication reduces data clutter, improves accuracy, saves storage space, and prevents confusion in reporting, analytics, and customer communications.

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When a shipping or mailing attempt is unsuccessful. This is typically caused by bad address data in the form of invalid, incomplete, or incorrect address information in a database and can be resolved with address validation and standardization efforts or a real-time address autocomplete solution at the point of checkout.

The first delivery line (usually the street address). This can include any of the following: urbanization (Puerto Rico only), primary number, street predirection, street name, street suffix, street postdirection, secondary designator, secondary number, extra secondary designator, extra secondary number, PMB designator, and PMB number.

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The optional second line of a mailing address. It’s typically used for additional information, such as an apartment, suite, floor, building, or attention line that cannot fit in Delivery Line 1. In many cases, this field remains empty, but when used, it provides important secondary details needed for precise delivery.

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A unique barcode that’s applied to mailpieces during USPS sorting to identify the exact delivery point of the address. It is made up of the 11-digit ZIP Code (the standard 5-digit ZIP plus the ZIP+4) with an additional 2-digit delivery point code, for a total of 12 digits. This barcode ensures efficient, automated processing and routing, and helps qualify mailers for postal discounts. The DPBC was replaced by the Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb) in 2009.

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Verifying that an address is actually deliverable, meaning that mail can be sent to that address. A submitted address is checked against an authoritative database, and if there's a matching entry in the database, the submitted address is declared "valid." If there's no matching address in the database, the address is "invalid," and mail can’t be shipped there.

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A USPS dataset that identifies all known deliverable addresses in the U.S., including the order of delivery, and flags each as residential or business, active or vacant, seasonal, or drop stop. It’s commonly used by mailers and address verification services to improve delivery accuracy, reduce undeliverable mail, and ensure compliance with USPS requirements.

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An additional geographic subdivision that helps further identify an address beyond the city or town level. It is often used in countries where smaller divisions—such as neighborhoods, villages, districts, or suburbs—are necessary to locate a property accurately.

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A specialized armed forces military address format to ensure soldiers are able to receive their mail as they move around the world. They do this by using various Post Office types: Air/Army Post Office (APO), Fleet Post Office (FPO), and Diplomatic Post Office (DPO). Diplomat post offices are postal facilities that operate at a U.S. mission abroad as a branch post office of the USPS.

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Addresses submitted for validation that have a lot of problems. Sometimes things are misspelled. Sometimes information is missing. Sometimes ZIP Codes or cities are wrong, etc.

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Even more granular than a dependent locality, it refers to a business park, industrial sector, or hamlet. It is frequently used in countries with more dense populations.

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A 4-digit sequence number that the USPS uses to sort mail. To aid in mail sorting, eLOT® contains a sequence number field and either an ascending or descending code. The eLOT® sequence number indicates the first occurrence of delivery made to the add-on range within the carrier route, and the ascending/descending code indicates the approximate delivery order within the sequence number.

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A spatial reference system identifier for WGS84 (World Geodetic System 1984), the global standard coordinate system used for geolocation. It represents positions on Earth with latitude and longitude values, expressed in decimal degrees. This system is widely used in GPS, mapping applications, and geospatial databases to ensure consistent, universal positioning.

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Occurs when the address is marked as successfully found, but the provided geocode matches the wrong location. Behind the scenes, false positives are what happen when geocoders make guesses on no-match addresses instead of showing why an address isn’t valid and what would be needed for it to match an authoritative dataset.

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A US government dataset that shows broadband service availability down to the location level.

Refers to the FRB Census Geocoder, a system that helps US financial institutions meet their legal reporting requirements, specifically reporting on mortgage, farm, and business loans.

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Network architecture that delivers internet services directly to the building or structure using an optical fiber. It is a broadband network architecture, and it differs from traditional copper or coaxial connections because of the direct fiber connection, eliminating bandwidth issues and delivering ultra-high-speed internet to users.

Operates under the Department of Defense and serves those within U.S. Navy ships and installations. The Armed Forces have their own military address format to ensure soldiers are able to receive their mail as they are moved around the world. They do this by the use of various Post Office types: Air/Army Post Office (APO), Fleet Post Office (FPO), and Diplomatic Post Office (DPO).

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A method of finding records that approximately match a given input by accounting for typos, abbreviations, or data inconsistencies.

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A European Union regulation governing how personal data—including addresses—can be collected, stored, and processed.

Finding geographical coordinates for an address or place. These lat/long coordinates are called geocodes. Geocodes can act as unique identifiers for entities and place names anywhere in the world. Geocodes can then be plotted on maps and have many applications, such as navigation, routing, spatial analysis, and insurance risk analytics, to name a few.

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A framework for capturing, analyzing, and visualizing spatial and geographic data. Often used in mapping, logistics, and infrastructure planning.

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Information tied to physical/geographic locations. It’s used for mapping services, network expansion, network analysis, risk analysis, fraud prevention, fraud detection, and more.

The level of detail provided by a geographic dataset, such as rooftop, parcel, ZIP Code, or administrative area.

A page with a bunch of terms and their meanings... in fact just give this page a good looking over and you'll see what a glossary is. We put a lot of work into this just so you could enjoy it, so please... enjoy it!

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A U.S. federal law that establishes national standards for protecting sensitive patient health information. HIPAA was created to help individuals maintain health insurance coverage when they change or lose jobs, while also ensuring accountability by requiring healthcare organizations to safeguard the privacy and security of protected health information (PHI) and reduce fraud and abuse.
The law is best known for its Privacy Rule and Security Rule, which set requirements for how providers, insurers, and their business associates handle medical data. HIPAA also includes provisions for electronic health transactions, administrative simplification, and controlling costs across the healthcare system.

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A rule-based method of comparing and linking addresses or strings using expert-defined patterns, approximations, or business rules rather than strict exact matches. It relies on practical logic, such as ignoring common abbreviations, tolerating misspellings, or prioritizing certain components, to find likely matches when perfect standardization isn’t possible.

A U.S. law that requires mortgage lenders to report public data about their lending activity. The goal is to ensure fairness, identify discriminatory lending patterns, and guide investment in local housing markets.
Accurate address and geolocation data are essential for HMDA compliance because lenders must correctly assign each loan to the proper census tract. Misreported tract information can lead to inaccurate disclosures, skewed community-level data, and potential regulatory consequences.

The process of confirming that a person is who they claim to be. It’s a foundational part of compliance programs, fraud prevention, and secure onboarding for industries like banking, insurance, and healthcare. Verification methods may include government-issued IDs, biometric checks, and address confirmation and verification.

A no-stat address or inactive address indicator is used to signify that an address is not considered deliverable by the United States Postal Service. The US Postal Service labels some addresses as no-stat. At Smarty, we call them inactive addresses for clarity.

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Any unique identifier you use to reference the input address; the output record will contain the same identifier. This information is located in the root of the returned metadata.

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The numeric position assigned to each address when multiple addresses are submitted together in a validation request. It indicates the order of submission so that each input can be matched back to its results. For example, if only one address is submitted, its index is 0; if a batch of addresses is submitted, each will have a sequential index (0, 1, 2…).

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A USPS barcode that encodes up to 31 digits of mailpiece data, replacing POSTNET and PLANET barcodes. IMb improves tracking and delivery accuracy and qualifies mailers for automation discounts.

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Standardization rules and ordering preferences that must be followed for accurate delivery across different countries and territories around the globe. These vary widely by postal authority and nation.

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Comparing a non-US address against an authoritative address database for the country in which the address is located. Much like validating addresses in the United States, an international address is validated when a match is found in that country's official address database.

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Provides real-time, valid international address suggestions as users type, reducing keystrokes and errors in global address entry forms.

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Supplies rooftop or interpolated geocodes for international addresses. Results are delivered through the International Street Address API.

Validates and standardizes mailing addresses for 250 countries and territories using authoritative postal data sources.

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Guessing where an address resides based on verified points, often intersections for gridded streets. Interpolation adds speed to the geocoding process, even though it isn’t the most accurate approach. Despite the complexity of the math involved, the concept itself is surprisingly simple, and it works like this: If we start with point A and end with point D, then points B and C must be in between.

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An invalid entry is one that is unrecognizable by an address autocomplete or address validation tool.

A regulatory and operational process used by financial institutions and other regulated entities to verify the identity of their customers. KYC helps prevent fraud, money laundering, and other illicit activity by ensuring individuals and businesses are accurately identified before accounts are opened or transactions are conducted.

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The last line of a street address with the city, state, and ZIP Code combined.

The final step in the delivery process, usually the drop off of the product/service to the consumer or business who purchased or requested it to be delivered to them.

The horizontal component used for geographic positioning, based on the WGS84 coordinate system. It’s the angle between 0° (the equator) and ±90° (north or south) at the poles. It is the first value in an ordered pair of (latitude, longitude). A negative number denotes a location below the equator; a positive number is above the equator. Combining lat/long values enables you to pinpoint addresses on a map.

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Removing bad addresses from a list. Validating that an address is correct upon entry into your database and then using list processing to regularly clean, verify, and update the address list will help organizations achieve significant improvements in address data quality.

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A geographic area, such as a city, town, or village, that forms part of an address. It provides context between broader regions (like a state or province) and more specific details (like a street or building).
In geocoding, “locality-level accuracy” means the data can identify the correct city or town, but not the precise street or property. Localities are essential for disambiguating addresses, especially in countries where many places share similar street names.

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Analyzing geospatial data to uncover patterns, relationships, and trends. By combining address data, geographic context, and other business or environmental factors, location intelligence helps organizations answer “where” questions—where customers live, where risks are concentrated, or where resources should be deployed.
It is widely used across industries for applications like market analysis, risk assessment, logistics optimization, fraud detection, and customer experience enhancement.

Matches addresses against a list of rural route, highway route, and box number addresses that have been renumbered or renamed, and then updates the address accordingly.

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The vertical component used for geographic positioning, based on the WGS84 coordinate system. It’s the angle between 0° (the Prime Meridian) and ±180° (westward or eastward). It is the second number in an ordered pair of (latitude, longitude). A negative number indicates a location west of Greenwich, England; a positive number east. Combining lat/long values enables you to pinpoint addresses on a map.

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This means we're fast—really fast—no, I mean ludicrously fast! In this comparison to other address verification companies, Smarty would have to be a cheetah—not just any cheetah, but a cheetah strapped to the side of the Voyager 2 satellite, currently tearing out of the solar system at over 30,000 mph (48,280 KPH).

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Letters or packages being sent via mail. These are sent to home or business addresses. Mailers can be anything from letters, brochures, postcards, flyers, newsletters, and other materials. They notify people of coupons, sales, or deals.

The official address where you get your mail. (10 points to you if you saw that answer coming from a mile away!) For many residential home dwellers across the United States, their physical street address and their mailing address are the same. Lucky ducks! Note, there are some situations where a physical address and mailing address won't be the same.

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An address that isn’t necessarily a "valid" or officially recognized address. The bottom line is this: What do you want to know about the address—where it would be if it were real, or if the address actually is real? Maps are great for showing you where an address might be; our service is great for helping you know if an address is real and deliverable.

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Research targeted at finding when the volume of your product or services offered will have been maximized within a market. Saturation studies help companies make better business decisions based on ROI. For example, companies are far more likely to get a good ROI when installing linear assets in densely populated rather than sparsely populated areas. Companies look at where the coverage and people are to identify fully saturated and underserved areas based on user population density.

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The database that contains a list of addresses for delivery points within a specific country. People seeking a national address database are often looking for the most complete address list possible for a certain country, such as those provided by Smarty.

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A data set containing approximately 160 million permanent change-of-address records filed with the USPS in the last 48 months. This list consists of names and addresses of individuals, families, and businesses who have filed a change of address. To become NCOA certified or licensed, you must be using CASS-certified address-matching software with the NCOALink process.

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A dataset published by FEMA that measures the relative risk of natural hazards across U.S. counties and census tracts. The NRI combines hazard frequency, expected annual losses, and community resilience to identify areas more vulnerable to events like floods, wildfires, or hurricanes.

Constructing and deploying a telecommunications or broadband network is a completely new infrastructure that can be made of fiber, cable, wireless, or hybrid options. This is the stage where the strategy and maps become real-world cables, towers, and equipment to provide internet access to users.

A financial metric that measures how profitable and efficient a network deployment or upgrade actually is compared to the cost and time it took to implement. A return on investment should be a positive number (gain) rather than a negative one (loss) if the network build/rollout is effective.

Used to signify that an address is not considered deliverable by the United States Postal Service. The US Postal Service labels some addresses no-stat. At Smarty, we call them inactive addresses for clarity.

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A real street address in the US that isn’t included in the USPS address database. Non-postals include but are not limited to: rural areas where mail delivery isn't financially feasible for the USPS, locations where inclement weather doesn't permit USPS delivery, and new construction that hasn’t yet been added to the USPS database.

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Your company shoulders responsibility for maintaining the solution and associated processes. The deployment is done in-house using your company's workforce and tech. On-premise implementations usually take longer due to the time needed to complete installations on servers and any individual computers or laptops. Slow and steady wins the race, right? In this case, your prize is more control.

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Software or code that’s made available for redistribution and modification. These are often released under a license that would give the owner the ability to use, study, change, and distribute any software.

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The ability to deliver services or products effectively and quickly without damaging brand reputation, lowering product or service quality, or being wasteful with resources like time and money. Running the best possible operations for the quickest and best organizational execution.

Similar to last-mile, this is the complete process of receiving, processing, and delivering a product or service to the correct customer.

Calculated by taking the known boundaries of a property. Then, you approximate the geocode in the center of the parcel. Hence, the name “parcel centroid.” Parcel centroid geocoding tends to be more expensive than ZIP+4 or interpolated due to the additional city and county data needed to calculate the geocodes, but it still lacks precision.

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Address lookup to find data about a property such as acreage, tax, zoning, land value, census data, boundaries, data about the structure, etc. This type of address lookup provides metadata about the address in question.
For example, you can find out what county the address is in, what school district it belongs to, if it’s in foreclosure, what its property lines look like, the property tax imposed on it, sales tax from its last sale, and hundreds of other data points. The applicable use cases are limitless.

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An address lookup that uses a person's name, city, and state in order to find matching addresses where the person may live, work, or receive mail. But what if you have a name only and no address? No worries. A people search address lookup allows you to get the address you need, plus information on relatives, age, property details, and more.

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Any information that permits the identification of an individual, either directly or indirectly. What is considered to be PII varies based on industry, location, and how pieces of information are combined.

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Designates the actual geographical location of your house, office, water park, favorite coffee shop, church, and so on. A physical address has a set geographic boundary and typically falls under the jurisdiction of an administrative area or region that has some government function.

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A postal zone where the U.S. Postal Service does not provide street delivery. Instead, all mail within that ZIP Code is delivered exclusively to Post Office Boxes.
Each ZIP Code carries a classification indicator, and areas served solely by PO Boxes are marked with a “P” classification. These ZIP Codes are commonly used in rural areas, small towns, or locations where home delivery is impractical, and they ensure that every address within that ZIP Code is tied to a PO Box at the local Post Office.

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A uniquely numbered, secure mailbox located inside a U.S. Post Office or postal facility. Individuals and businesses rent PO Boxes to receive mail separate from their street address, often for privacy, security, or convenience. Mail is delivered directly to the assigned box and retrieved by the renter with a key or code.
PO Boxes can exist in regular ZIP Codes (alongside street delivery) or in PO Box–only ZIP Codes, where the USPS does not provide street delivery and all addresses are tied exclusively to a Post Office Box.

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The final destination for a letter or package carried by the postal service. It can be a PO Box, a mailbox at the curb, or a mail slot in a front door. It's the handoff point between the mail carrier and the recipient.

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Moving a phone number, internet services, or utility accounts from one company to another.

A string of numbers and sometimes letters that help postal services understand where a piece of mail is being sent. It’s used to aid the local postal workers in their routing, similar to the US ZIP Codes and ZIP+4 Codes. (Smarty has a ZIP Code API that’s pretty neat, easy to use, speedy, and loaded with comprehensive ZIP Code data.)

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Started in large cities (London, for instance, was divided into 10 districts as early as 1857). WWI Europe had already seen the implementation of similar systems in cities throughout the continent. The US started using them at least as early as 1920. These district numbers were the forerunners of the modern-day postal codes.

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Divisional boundaries put in place for creating more accurate and quicker mail service. Postal zones are also used by shipping carriers in order to measure the distance the package would travel and could help define shipping costs.

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A variant of "Postal Code," a postcode is a string of numbers (and sometimes letters) that help postal services understand where a piece of mail is being sent. It’s used to aid the local postal workers in their routing, similar to the US ZIP Codes and ZIP+4 Codes.

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Synonymous with primary number in the US, and it represents the building or house number associated with an address.

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Datapoints that provide a more complete picture of an address, such as building type (residential or commercial), roof type (shingles, tin, etc.), historical financial data, distance from coast, and more. Any data meant to enrich your understanding of where an address is and all the things that surround it.

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The specific house or building number, typically found at the beginning of most US addresses. Street name—The official name of the street given by local authorities.

Laws built around the use of, regulation of, or storing of personally identifiable information. This includes personal healthcare information and financial information.

An address that’s associated with a Commercial Mail Receiving Agency (CMRA), also known as a private mailbox (PMB) operator. Some benefits of a PMB include: text or email notification, as well as mail forwarding, mail tracking, mail supplies, etc.

A pioneering initiative with technical guidelines and standards to address the challenges surrounding address standardization processes in the healthcare industry.

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An address that isn’t deliverable by the USPS. Addresses can be rejected for several reasons, including vacancy, not active, or not deliverable. These addresses can be valid, but they are vacant or inactive. A rejected address can also be triggered when the street, city, and ZIP are correct, but the primary number is incorrect.

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Indicates whether an address is a residential or commercial location. Since the USPS organizes and manages the authoritative address database for the US, they already know if an address is residential or commercial. And the way that they share that data is through the Residential Delivery Indicator, or the RDI.

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Analyzing the locations of current and potential customers or populations in relation to available resources. By using verified address lists and geospatial data, organizations can determine how best to allocate or expand infrastructure, such as mobile towers, fiber optic networks, gas pipelines, or water lines.
In healthcare, resource planning supports decisions such as where to locate new clinics, pharmacies, or testing centers to improve patient access and reduce disparities. In epidemiology, it enables mapping of disease outbreaks or vaccination coverage, helping public health agencies deploy staff, supplies, and services more effectively.

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Allows you to locate information about the current resident, previous resident, current property owner, and other data using nothing but a structure's address. This makes it fast and easy to connect an address to a name for real estate, advertising, employee relocation efforts, arranging reunions, verifying online dating profiles, and much more.

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Converting a set of coordinates, like latitude and longitude coordinates, into the nearest street address and sometimes into the nearest place name or landmark. Reverse geocoders usually provide a list of the closest address candidates with each set of coordinates. In Smarty's case, we'll provide the 10 nearest addresses to the coordinates submitted.

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The process of determining whether to approve, deny, or flag an application, transaction, or relationship based on potential risk. Commonly used in lending, insurance, and fraud detection, risk decisioning combines data inputs such as income, identity, behavior, and location data to inform outcomes.

Starting with the parcel centroid geocode, it's then refined using additional data from multiple sources in order to match the geocode with the actual rooftop of the primary structure on the parcel.

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Data that can be used by teams to better their outreach and understanding of customers and potential clients. Sales intelligence includes tracking and analysis, data collection, and tools. Sales intelligence gives data-driven insights into current and potential customers.

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The descriptive word in an address that identifies the type of unit, space, or subdivision within a primary building or property. It precedes the secondary number to indicate how the space is defined.
Common examples include “Apartment,” “Suite,” “Unit,” “Floor,” or “Room.” For instance, in “Suite 200” or “Apt 5B,” the terms Suite and Apt are the secondary designators.
Secondary designators are essential for accurately delivering mail to multi-unit buildings, office complexes, or other properties that contain multiple occupants at a single street address.

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An interface that tells businesses whether a service (like the internet) is available at a specific location.

Deciding based on geographic or premise data whether a potential customer’s location is eligible for any service.

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A shipping address is where goods or services can be shipped, a physical location. Billing addresses are usually tied to the payment method and where a bill can be sent for the goods or services that are being delivered.

Address verification via a single field entry tool. Single-entry address geocode tools allow you to get geocodes just by filling out a web form. Single field entry has some great benefits, including higher accuracy for address verification, and allows you to copy and paste an address.

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Smarty assigns each address a persistent, unique identifier (PUID). This unique ID, SmartyKey®, allows consistent reference across systems, ensuring that once an address is validated, it can always be referenced—even if the address changes over time.

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50 constitutional political entities in the United States of America. This is the area that’s larger than a county, yet smaller than the country.

The official designation of a roadway as assigned by local government or municipal authorities. It identifies the primary thoroughfare component of an address and typically appears alongside the primary number, directional indicators, and suffix.
For example, in the address “123 North Main Street,” the word Main is the street name. Street names are critical for identifying location, disambiguating addresses, and ensuring accurate navigation, deliveries, and geocoding.

Directional information that’s included after the street name, such as north, south, east, west, northeast, northwest, southeast, or southwest.

The navigational direction (north, south, east, west, northwest, southwest, northeast, or southeast) that’s listed before the street name.

Indicates the type of street we’re dealing with. For example, is it Smarty Street? Smarty Road? Smarty Avenue? Smarty Circle? The suffix identifies the type of street and can be notated in full or abbreviated (e.g., Rd. for road, St. for street, etc.), giving rise to duplicate address matching issues.

Identifies the precise location of a specific unit, tenant, or subdivision within a larger parcel or building. Unlike parcel centroid geocodes (which represent the center of an entire property), sub-parcel geocodes allow mapping down to a smaller footprint—such as a retail shop within an office tower, a particular apartment within a complex, or a tenant suite inside a mall.
This finer level of accuracy enables more precise navigation, service delivery, and analytics for multi-tenant or multi-use properties.

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Attempts to provide secondary information, such as "suite" or "apartment," whenever there’s a match based on address and company name. The SuiteLink Product will enable customers to provide improved business addressing information by adding known secondary (suite) information to business addresses, which will allow USPS delivery sequencing where it wouldn’t otherwise be possible.

Assessing how well your products or services fit into the desired market or where they will reach the desired customer base. Additionally, national market research companies purchase national address lists to examine the penetration rates of various products or services in the target market.

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A text-based interface used to perform various tasks on a computer. It can be used to execute commands, run programs and scripts, open files, and more. The terminal is often referred to as the "command line" or "shell."

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An outsourced provider who handles warehousing, shipping, and supply chain management on behalf of another company.

The street or roadway component of an address. In international addressing, it is often the term used to represent what in the U.S. is called the street name.
In geocoding, “thoroughfare-level accuracy” means the location data can be verified to the street but not to a specific building, parcel, or unit. This provides a “close” but not exact match—useful for approximate positioning when precise delivery-point data is unavailable.

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When a technician is dispatched to a location for a customer install, repair, or to perform maintenance/upgrades to an existing system.

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Mail that can’t be delivered by the United States Postal Service due to incorrect or insufficient address information. UAA includes flat-size and letter-size pieces that are returned to the sender. It can also refer to mailpieces sent using an International Service that can’t be delivered due to incomplete or incorrect address information.

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A ZIP Code that consists of a single delivery point, pertaining to a United States Postal Service customer (like a large business or government agency) that routes all of its own mail internally. This is usually given to organizations that receive immense amounts of mail.

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A tool created by the United States Postal Service (USPS) to manage and maintain detailed address information for all domestic addresses. AMS includes features such as address standardization, multiple address validation processes, and integrated mapping capabilities. The AMS API can help businesses ensure their mailing lists are up-to-date and accurate.

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Delivers enriched information from various data sets, including US Property Data, US GeoReference Data, US Risk Data, and US Secondary Data.

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Pulls addresses out of unstructured text such as documents, emails, or webpages. Useful for organizations needing to discover addresses hidden in large datasets.

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Converts latitude/longitude coordinates into the closest 10 known U.S. mailing addresses, including distance to each address from the coordinates.

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Pinpoints the latitude and longitude of the rooftop of a structure on a parcel, providing more accuracy than parcel centroid or interpolated geocodes. Results are delivered through the US Street Address API.

Smarty’s flagship U.S. Address Verification API. It standardizes, corrects, and validates U.S. mailing addresses against USPS and other authoritative data while also returning geocodes, metadata, and deliverability indicators.

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An API for looking up a ZIP Code from city and state or vice versa. Also, you can use this API to append ZIP+4 Codes.

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The quality of a user’s interaction with a product or service. This is specific to ease of use and satisfaction. Usually, the overall perception and feeling a person has when interacting with a product or system.

The means by which a user interacts with a machine, device, or software, encompassing everything they might interact with, like audible, tactile, and visible elements or components.

Also known as the Domestic Mail Manual, it is the official publication issued by the United States Postal Service (USPS) that covers all aspects of domestic mail services. The manual provides information about what types of mail can be sent, how to properly address and label mailpieces, delivery times and standards, and pricing for various products and services. This publication is regularly updated to reflect changes in USPS operations, regulations, and standards.

Perform a multitude of functions. They can verify that an address has the proper ZIP Code affixed to it, append a ZIP Code to an incomplete address, augment an address's ZIP Code by adding ZIP+4 Code data, and much more.

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A USPS dataset flag that marks an address as currently unoccupied. Helps businesses avoid wasted mailings to vacant properties.

The global standard coordinate reference system used for mapping, navigation, and geolocation. It defines the Earth’s shape, orientation in space, and gravitational field, and provides a consistent framework for latitude, longitude, and elevation measurements worldwide used in GPS systems. In practice, when coordinates are expressed in decimal degrees (latitude/longitude), they are usually based on WGS84.

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The term "ZIP" in ZIP Code stands for "Zone Improvement Plan,” and a ZIP Code is a 5-digit number that specifies an individual destination post office or mail delivery area in the USA. These numbered codes help to determine mail sorting for more efficient postal processes and parcel/mail delivery.

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A regular ZIP Code with an additional 4 digits added at the end for increased specificity. Because of this, it’s also referred to as a 9-digit ZIP Code or ZIP 9. As the US population grew and expanded, ZIP+4 Codes were incorporated to continue to provide efficient mailing services with more specified postal routes.

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