All posts by Davin Perkins - SEO Marketing Team Lead

On October 21, we celebrate Marty McFly Day, dedicated to honoring the time-traveling teen's contribution to the world of time travel in the "Back to the Future" universe. In the spirit of this iconic day, we embark on a journey to learn from Marty's adventures and apply those lessons to address data quality in the business world. Just as Marty's actions set off ripples through time, we'll explore how address data accuracy—or the lack thereof—can create a ripple effect with profound consequences.

You've asked for it, and now you’ve got it. The next time you log into your Smarty account, you’ll see the option to log in to Smarty using your Google account. Merge an existing Smarty account with GoogleMerging your account with your Google account will not affect your available lookups, security keys, or any other part of your Smarty account. Merging your Smarty account will:Increase security by reducing the number of managed passwords and how often you have to enter your password. Allow you to leverage additional security features offered by Google, such as 2-factor authentication when you log in with Smarty.

When considering business software tools for Customer Relation Management (CRM), Business Intelligence (BI), Geocoding, Address Validation, and more, most organizations are either looking specifically for on-premise options, cloud options, or they’re still debating between the two. On-premise and cloud have been dueling each other for many years. However, a new challenger has entered the ring: hybrid cloud. What is hybrid cloud?A hybrid cloud environment uses a mix of on-premises infrastructure, private cloud services, and public cloud services—such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, or Google.

As you're evaluating potential new business software for your organization, inevitably, someone will bring up the cost. Your purchasing department will likely want to know if moving to the cloud is cheaper than on-premise solutions or vice versa. "Money doesn't grow on trees," they might remind you. To truly compare cloud vs on-premise costs, you should first calculate the total cost of ownership or TCO. The TCO is a financial estimate created to help buyers and owners determine the direct and indirect lifetime costs of a product or service.

A plethora of inspirational quotes float around the internet and office lobbies about how "Wise men don't blindly follow rules, they use them as guidelines" or "Making up your own rules is the trick to success. "That's great for a motivational speech, but for industries like healthcare, insurance, banking, and others, the rules are very important. These are some of the most regulated industries in the United States; organizations in these industries must comply with strict rules and regulations from the government.

No matter the industry, data security is, and always will be, paramount. Data breaches can cause significant revenue loss and customer trust. No doubt you remember the 2017 Equifax data breach. This breach affected 148 million records, including social security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and, in some cases, driver's license numbers and credit card information. Equifax paid out $700 million in damages to help people affected by the data breach, and suffered through reputational damage and congressional inquiries.

Since the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe in early 2020, organizations have realized that being successful in the digital age requires agility not just in software development and delivery, but also in business strategy and operational execution. Achieving agility in your business's actions and reactions requires a culture of continuous improvement—and the right software to support those actions!Every company relies on a network of complex systems and software, including Customer Relation Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Business Intelligence (BI), Geocoding, Address Validation, and more.

One of the biggest questions in IT infrastructure planning is whether to go with on-premise or cloud software solutions. Each type of software comes with its own pros and cons. To help organizations choose the software that best fits their needs, we created an executive guide that walks you through 6 key factors and breaks down cloud and on-premise strengths and weaknesses for each factor. Download it here to learn about all 6 factors or read on for an overview of on-premise versus cloud software deployment speed and complexity.

In our ebook, 8 Questions to Ask When Selecting a Geocoding API, we break down the key features to look for in a geocoding provider and what questions you should ask vendors so you know you’re choosing the solution that will work best for your business. In this article, we dive into whether you should look for a geocoding provider that also offers address autocomplete and reverse geocoding. Validated address autocompleteAddress autocomplete is a form feature that pre-populates address information to users as they’re typing an address into a form.

On-premise vs. the cloud is a constant debate when it comes to software purchases. Geocoding software is no different. How your geocoding solution is deployed can greatly impact both the performance and the cost. In our ebook, 8 Questions to Ask When Selecting a Geocoding API, we talk about the pros and cons of on-premise and cloud-based geocoding options, as well as other key features to consider. In this article, we’ll summarize why on-premise versus cloud-based matters, and touch on another deciding factor for your API purchase: third-party basemaps.

The right geocoding API can help your business reduce costs and increase profits through accurate location data. But how do you know if a service can handle your data needs? Capacity and speed are two key topics to consider when comparing geocoding services. You can find out more about all the questions you need to ask in our ebook, 8 Questions to Ask When Selecting a Geocoding API by clicking the link here:API capacity and speed: What you need to knowThe higher the capacity and faster your geocoding API works, the faster you can utilize that address data and make money.

If you’ve made it to this blog, you’re clearly interested in taking advantage of location data and geocodes. Welcome to the club—we’re so happy to have you!Not all geocoding APIs offer the same levels of service and accuracy. That’s why we wrote an ebook all about how to choose the right geocoding provider. In this article, we’ll summarize two points from the ebook: How are no-matches handled and are sub-address geocodes offered?How are no-matches handled?First things first—what do we mean by “no-match?” A no-match is the result when a geocoding service can’t find a match for the address you entered.

Choosing the right geocoding service is the first step toward unlocking better location intelligence and helping your organization make more strategic decisions. From our ebook, we’ll cover two key questions to ask when choosing a geocoding API:Does the API include address validationHow accurate are the geocodes?Question 1: Does the geocoding API include address validation?Fitness advocates are fond of saying things like “Abs are made in the kitchen” and “Fuel your body for success. ” Our kitchen still hasn't produced any abs, but they’ve got one thing right, if you put garbage in, you’re going to get garbage out, even when it comes to geocoding!The data you get from any geocoder is only as good as the data you put into it.

We get a lot of questions about USPS CASS certification and how it differs from NCOALink certification. They are both methods of address validation that originate with the USPS. While they look the same and smell the same (probably), they are in fact, very different. Even still, these methods are frequently confused, conflated and equated. So, we decided to cut the confusion and answer all your burning questions about CASS and NCOALink. Here is some of stuff that future you (who has read the article) already knows:When you notify the USPS that your address has changed, NCOALink only hangs onto those updates for 4 years.

September 22, 2020 - PROVO, UTAH - SmartyStreets, the leader in location data intelligence, announces the release of their US Rooftop Geocoding and US Reverse Geocoding. These new products will provide customers with the highest precision geocodes available in the market today. Most other geocoding providers provide “parcel-centroid” geocodes. That means that the geocodes are approximations of the center of a property or parcel. While providers in the past have called their geocodes “rooftop accurate,” in reality, their geocodes are often quite far from the actual rooftop of a property.

May 28, 2020 - PROVO, UTAH - SmartyStreets, a leader in location data intelligence, announces the release of the new US Autocomplete Pro API, a service that improves data governance at the source and simplifies address data entry in real-time. The US Autocomplete Pro API starts suggesting valid addresses as soon as the user first starts typing an address. All addresses suggested are 100% validated and standardized, and are returned to the user in a fraction of a second. Additionally, the API can determine if an address should also include a unit number, and will suggest valid unit numbers to the user accordingly.