Get the most out of US Address Verification: Are you using the 55 points of metadata?

If you’re using Smarty’s US Address Verification, you're already sitting on a treasure trove of up to 55 points of metadata, already included in every response. Sure, it cleans and standardizes your addresses like a pro, but that’s just the beginning. Without any upcharges, you can use metadata to make your systems smarter, streamline your operations, and sharpen your marketing and business decisions.

Whether you're focused on fraud prevention, operational efficiency, compliance, logistics, or customer experience, Smarty’s metadata delivers powerful insights to your tech stack that will help you rise above your competitors. Sadly, many businesses overlook these hidden gems, but after reading this blog, you won’t be one of them.

So, how are the kings in any industry using metadata to perfect their craft? Let’s find out.

The footnotes in the first point below are often where companies stop, but that means missing out on the rest of the powerful metadata included with every validation. Keep reading to see how you can unlock new business value by tapping into the full data set that comes with each address.

• DPV footnotes and change footnotes: These reveal how an address was validated and what, if anything, was changed. Your developers depend on this info to decide which addresses meet your business’s requirements for legitimacy and operational use.
• DPV (Delivery Point Validation): Confirms whether an address is recognized as deliverable by USPS. Prevents sending mail, packages, sensitive documents, or technicians to dead ends.
• Vacancy indicator: Flags addresses that haven’t received mail for 90+ days. Useful for fraud detection, fulfillment decisions, and record hygiene.
• Enhanced match: When the match parameter is set to "enhanced," this field provides extra details about the result, like whether the address comes from Smarty’s non-USPS address data.

• Geocodes: Rooftop-precise geocodes are available for purchase, but ZIP+9 geocodes are included in your address verification metadata at no extra cost. They’re highly useful for general reporting, service availability checks, and meeting regulatory requirements, making them a smart default for many use cases.
• Time zone, UTC offset, DST: Match timestamps to the expected local time. Handy for fraud detection, support timing, and scheduling notifications.
• Record type, ZIP Code type, carrier route: Understand how mail moves through the system for better logistics planning and delivery forecasting.
• Delivery point barcode: 12-digit POSTNET™ barcode; consists of 5-digit ZIP Code, 4-digit add-on code, 2-digit delivery point, and 1-digit check digit. This information is a necessary component of the Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb) that helps improve mail tracking and delivery speed.
• Residential Delivery Indicator (RDI): Identifies whether an address is residential or commercial. This is especially helpful for shipping rate calculations, since private carriers typically charge more to deliver to residential addresses.

• SmartyKey® (PUID): A persistent, unique identifier that stays the same even when an address changes. Perfect for identifying duplicate records and accurately merging data from 3rd-parties.
• Input ID: You can tag each input address with any unique identifier, such as a customer ID, CRM key, or row number. This is a simple way to keep results tied to their original entries, even if inputs are messy, duplicated, or nearly identical. Whatever ID you send gets echoed back in the validation response, making it easy to maintain context across systems.
• Input index: If your system doesn't send custom input IDs, input_index guarantees that each address in a batch is still uniquely identifiable, using simple numerical ordering (starting from 0). That’s a big win when reconciling input and output.
• Candidate index: Tells you which result is which when multiple possible address matches are returned. When an input address returns multiple valid matches (aka candidates), each one is given a candidate index. The candidate with candidate_index: 0 is the top-ranked match—the one Smarty thinks is the most likely intended address. In your product’s UI, you can show users multiple suggestions and let them pick the correct one. Use candidate_index to label or track their selection. Want to automate address selection based on candidate rank or reject ambiguous results? candidate_index makes that logic easy to implement.

• Residential Delivery Indicator (RDI): Confirms if an address is residential or commercial. Useful for identity checks and flagging address misclassifications.
• LACSLink® match: Detects if an address has been converted (e.g., rural route to city-style), often used by fraudsters trying to pass stale or fake addresses.
• CMRA flag: Identifies commercial mail receiving agencies like UPS Stores, often used in synthetic identity fraud.
• DPV footnotes (e.g., C1, M3, N1): Indicates that you need to take a closer look at the address because something specific isn't quite right.

• SuiteLink® match: Appends known missing suite numbers for business addresses. Prevents delivery failures and misrouted documents.
• Address components: Each part of the address—street predirection, street name, street postdirection, street suffix, etc.—is parsed and returned to you in its own field. If something’s missing or incorrect, we’ll fill it in or fix it. And if we make any changes during validation, you’ll get a full breakdown of what changed and why, so there are no surprises.
• Standardized formatting: All addresses are cleaned, parsed, and standardized according to the postal authority’s requirements to make your records uniform and analysis-ready across systems.

• County and congressional district info: Used for regulatory reporting, jurisdictional compliance, CRA/HMDA analysis, and more.
• ZIP type and FIPS codes: Help with marketing segmentation, policy boundaries, licensing, eligibility checks, tax calculations, and public-sector data analysis.
• SmartyKey (PUID): A persistent, unique identifier that stays the same even when an address changes. Perfect longitudinal analysis and master data management. 

• Residential Delivery Indicator: Tailor messaging or service offers based on whether a location is residential or commercial.
• Metadata-powered segmentation: Use ZIP type, ZIP Code, congressional district, county FIPs, and RDI to target campaigns more accurately.
• Reduced returned mail: Cleaner addresses = fewer bounced deliveries and frustrated customers.
• County and congressional district info: Used for creating segmented marketing lists.

If you're validating addresses, you already have this

Everything listed above is available right now in Smarty’s U.S. and international address verification responses—even on basic plans. No extra licensing. No extra money. No secret menu items.

The real unlock? Actually using it.

Talk to the stakeholders in your org: dev team, analysts, operations manager, or product owners. Ask what metadata you're already pulling back—and discuss which points of metadata might help elevate your business. 

Because that "extra" data? It’s doing heavy lifting in fraud detection, compliance, UX, fulfillment, and more.

Want help decoding your metadata output or exploring use cases specific to your org? Head over to Smarty.com, or chat with us live here.

You might already have the answers. Let's help you use them.