73 blog posts tagged "Address validation"

You finally track down an essential addition to your collector’s set of [insert item of your choice], and you're hyped to buy it until the chaos begins. The cart is hidden in a fly-out on the side, cluttered with blocky, overwhelming text. You spend way too long just trying to find the "Proceed to Checkout" button. 👎 That’s bad UI (user interface): messy, confusing design that makes navigation a chore. You make it to the checkout and start entering your info, but the site keeps rejecting your address.

This June, Klarna and PayPal made some big moves into the physical card space. Klarna teamed up with Visa to launch a BNPL (buy-now-pay-later) debit card, while PayPal’s partnership with Mastercard aims to help the brand make the jump from phone to wallet. Coupled with other wave-making announcements like Stripe’s all-in moves on AI and stablecoins, PayPal and Klarna’s announcements emphasize a broader industry shift as fintechs transform from niche digital players to comprehensive financial services platforms.

When you think about theme parks, you probably think of roller coasters, long lines, and $18 turkey legs. But behind all the fun is a surprising need for something a little less flashy yet still gorgeous as all get out—rock-solid address validation (or address verification, we use them interchangeably). Yes, we’re talking about making sure that the addresses entered by guests are real, valid, and standardized. Why? Because today’s theme parks operate like data-rich, customer-first ecosystems.

Address verification is an essential tool that property insurance companies should use when analyzing risk. Perils are often associated with potential hazards located on or near a property, but they can also be tied to the general area a property is in. Verifying addresses ensures that a policy falls within a covered area, which is vital for both an insurance company and their customers. To start, the insurance policy premium needs to be priced for the property's actual location. Otherwise, a premium could be mispriced because of a misclassified risk area.

International healthcare is complex. Inaccurate or unverifiable international addresses make it worse by delaying claims, increasing compliance risk, opening the door to fraud, and frustrating members. Healthcare companies need global healthcare address verification that’s scalable. Here's how to get there. Why global address verification is especially complex for healthcare companiesHealthcare depends on addresses. While just one datapoint, addresses are foundational to so many critical healthcare management processes and vital to get correct.

When it comes to address verification, getting a match every time might seem like the goal. After all, a system that always returns a validated address must be working perfectly, right?Wrong. If your address verification API always forces a match, no matter what, it’s not being helpful. It’s actually introducing risk. In fact, getting a “no match” result can frequently be the smarter, safer outcome. Let’s talk about why. What is a "no match" telling you?A “no match” means the input address doesn’t align with any known, valid address in the reference database.

Ask most product owners about their address data, and they’ll probably tell you that “it’s good enough. ” But when it comes to address data integrity, the word “enough” should give you serious pause. When it comes to address data, “close enough” is how businesses end up with wasted marketing spend, compliance headaches, failed deliveries, and policies that don’t hold up. It doesn’t matter if you're underwriting insurance on a home, scheduling a broadband install, or mailing a benefits enrollment kit—accuracy isn’t a nice-to-have.

In the world of address validation, not all providers stick to the script. Some go rogue. And while that might work for improv geniuses like Robin Williams or even our own Brady Amundson, when your verification tools start improvising results, creating fictional addresses, and hoping you don’t notice… well, it's like watching a movie adaptation of your favorite book and thinking, “Wait… they burned down the Burrow?!?” (Harry Potter fans, I’m still mad. )If your address verification tool is delivering results that feel more like fan fiction than factual data, and geolocating “validated” addresses in the middle of lakes, it might be time to reconsider the cast.

“Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop. ” Time Magazine (1966). This statement is laughable in today’s society. In the last 60 years, online purchasing has become a daily event, and more online purchases are being made every year. In fact, ​In 2024, total ecommerce sales in the United States reached approximately $1. 19 trillion, marking an 8. 1% increase from 2023. Notably, ecommerce accounted for 16. 1% of total retail sales in 2024, up from 15. 3% the previous year. These purchases aren't just small dollars anymore.

Healthcare fraud isn’t just an occasional headache—it’s a $20 billion-a-year black hole draining financial institutions. And that’s just the fraud we know about. As healthcare systems become more complex, fraudsters are also getting smarter, faster, and more creative at exploiting vulnerabilities, especially in address verification. The healthcare industry is an easy target. Medical data can be more valuable than credit card numbers, billing systems are a tangled mess, and the sheer complexity of transactions creates endless opportunities for fraud to slip through unnoticed.

Address autocomplete is a powerful tool for improving form completions and ensuring users select real, deliverable addresses at entry. However, to maintain long-term data integrity and enhance address-related insights, address verification is a necessary complement. Here’s why:1. Gain up to 55 points of metadata per verified addressAutocomplete provides real-time address suggestions, while address verification appends additional metadata. Address verification enhances each address with up to 55 points of data, such as:ZIP-9 level accuracy geocoordinates (rooftop accuracy also available)ZIP+4 CodesResidential Delivery Indicator (RDI) to identify residential vs.

We know it’s not New Year's anymore, but we can still push for improvement and efficiency in our lives. Maybe you’ve lapsed on that goal to be healthier or slightly slipped on your new reading and writing regimen. No worries. Not only are we here to remind you to KEEP GOING on whatever goals you have, but we’re also here to give you an easy-to-implement solution that will create shipping efficiency and stop sending packages into the void. I mean, we’re assuming you don’t like wasting money. If you do… that’s how we’re different.

My name is Jeffrey Duncan, and at the pestering of Smarty’s editor, I’m writing a blog about the many adventures I’ve had in life and how address data has played a big part in them. I met my wife about eight years ago on a dating website. At the time, I lived in Provo, Utah, while she lived in Palmwoods, Australia, on the east coast of Queensland. On this dating app, I entered the area where I was interested in finding someone, about a 25-mile radius of Provo, Utah. I had no intention of leaving the valley, definitely not the state, and certainly not the country.

Healthcare is experiencing a dramatic shift in how patient information is stored and managed. Electronic medical records (EMRs) and electronic health records (EHRs) have become the new standard, driven by two powerful forces: everyone has mobile devices and the increase in the human population. A growing problem with clean address data in EMRs and EHRsWhile EMRs and EHRs offer amazing accessibility and storage capabilities (way better than a filing cabinet), they've also exposed a critical weakness in many healthcare organizations: address data quality.

Address verification isn't just a nice-to-have feature—it's a critical business function that directly impacts your bottom line and customer satisfaction. The impact of reliable address verification extends throughout your entire operation. Every returned package or piece of mail represents wasted shipping costs, lost time, and potential damage to customer relationships. Most importantly, it's an entirely preventable problem. When addresses are verified before shipping, businesses see immediate improvements in delivery success rates and significant reductions in associated costs.

In any industry that’s regulated and works with PII (personally identifiable information), a simple address error can cost more than just a returned letter. With HIPAA violations ranging from $100 to $50,000 per incident and the possibility of criminal charges, getting patient addresses wrong is more than an administrative headache—it's a serious compliance risk under HIPAA, ACA, and other mailing regulations. Our new ebook explores how address data quality directly impacts regulatory compliance, patient privacy, and health equity requirements, among 12 other hot topics.

There are plenty of address data solutions in the sea. You might need to let them off the hook if:Their data accuracy is sufferingToo many false positivesSpotty data availability (lack of international support? Beuller?)Off-the-mark geocoding (not truly rooftop-level accurate)Missing data enrichment (RDI, FIPS, unique ID, secondary addresses, etc. )They don’t flirt nicely (or at all) with your existing systemsThey don’t have an accurate address autocomplete solutionYour relationship with them has become robotic and mundane (When you need help, you have to talk to a robot instead of a real person for support… ew.

In 2024, it’s estimated that online purchases, or ecommerce, made up more than 20% of global retail, with 2. 77 billion people shopping online, and those numbers will only get bigger in the following years. With so much online shopping, more goods and services are being shipped than ever before—including during the height of the Sears catalog in 1970. Side note: If you’re reading this and you don’t know what the Sears catalog was or how much it impacted the average home, it’s worth taking a trip down memory lane and seeing how your elders used to shop.

Shipping optimization is rapidly evolving the retail landscape with advancements in shipping technology. From using robotics to increase efficiency and protect workers from dangerous jobs to autonomous vehicles and drones taking items to hard-to-reach areas, shipping has drastically evolved from the infancy of ecommerce in the 1990s. Sure, the 90s are currently having a pop culture resurgence, but your customers don’t want their shipping experience to go retro. One of the most impactful ways to ship effectively is to use a Shipping Execution System (SES).

In healthcare, the havoc an inaccurate address can wreak on your financial results is significant in more ways than one, and the boost in overall profitability from maintaining a clean address database is equally worth noting. Accurate healthcare address validation improves operational efficiency, patient engagement, and compliance and builds revenue to heights that couldn’t be met without it. Here’s what we’ll be covering:Healthcare address validation pros and consCon: Increased claim denials and organizational costsPro: Reduced claim denials and reprocessing costsCon: Increasing patient match error ratesPro: Improved patient matching and data qualityCon: Complicated billing and collections processesPro: Streamlined billing and collections capabilitiesCon: Exposure to legal liabilitiesPro: Enhanced regulatory compliance and risk aversionCon: Misplaced market strategyPro: Data-driven decision-making and market insightsEpilogue: Avoiding the pain (see our summarized financial savings)Healthcare address validation pros and consThere’s a pro and a con associated with having (or not having 🫣) accurate address data in your healthcare systems.

Cart abandonment is the nemesis of ecommerce. With 70% of carts left stranded, every tweak to your checkout process can lead to significant revenue recovery. Here's how to create a seamless experience, win over customers, and boost conversions. PSST! If you like what you see but don’t want to have to read it, here’s a FREE downloadable guide (in checkbox format for your convenience) for all you skimmers out there. We seriously won’t ask you for a credit card… or anything, really. Building a frictionless checkout experienceA smooth checkout makes all the difference.

Smarty's US Street Address API and International Street Address API provide a lot of output. Things like Carrier Route, Congressional District, geocode, eLOT sequence, timezone, and much much more are available with every address check. But there may be points of data that you’re not entirely sure what it means or how to use it. In a recent webinar, we brought Lyle Durland, Head of Support, and Jeffrey Duncan, Technical Product Manager, together to outline some of the more useful points of data, and how to interpret it.

The customer experience (CX) landscape is changing faster than a squirrel on espresso 🐿️☕, driven by technological advancements, consumer expectation evolution, and the need for all things to become digital. Maybe you wanna keep up with the change. That’s great. Or even better, you want to get ahead of all the other guys. That’s where Smarty comes in. Looking at what the future of customer experience will be like in 2025 and beyond (supported by relevant statistics and insights from various studies we’ve collected), address autocomplete and verification play a bigger role than you might suspect.

Do you know what's more satisfying than watching address autocomplete perfectly fill out online forms? Absolutely nothing—except maybe biting into a warm cinnamon roll on National Cinnamon Day. Mmmmmmm. Speaking of warm and sweet experiences, today we're exploring how address autocomplete (when configured without best practices in mind) can turn from a delightful treat into a bitter disappointment and how address verification can save the day. Personalize the experienceYou know how cinnamon shows up uninvited in every fall-themed product from September through December? No one asked for that, and it's pretty presumptuous.

If you’re here, you appreciate a good horror movie, especially around Halloween time. There are many different subgenres of scary movies: slasher, found footage, psychological horror, supernatural horror, monster, folklore, zombie, gothic fiction, paranormal fiction, and the list goes on and on for a frighteningly long time. One thing all horror movies have in common is a scary setting. Maybe the trees are creepy and dead. Perhaps the house is rotting from the inside out. Sometimes, the location has historical significance with real and traumatic events.

Well, whaddya know, it’s that time again: National Smarties® Day! You’re probably thinking, “I honestly can’t believe Smarty®, my favorite address verification company, has its own day celebrated on a national scale. ” And if you’re thinking that, let me congratulate you on your finely tuned instincts—the existence of such a day strains belief. We’re talking about Smarties, the candy, people. You know, those tart, powdery discs that resoundingly answer the question, “What if chalk, but delicious?” Care to learn more about National Smarties Day? You’re in luck—there's plenty to unwrap.

Happy National Ask a Stupid Question Day! Today’s the day you get a free pass on asking dumb questions like, “Do fish get thirsty?” or “Why isn’t 11 pronounced ‘onety-one’?” We can’t stop people from teasing you until the cows come home (what time is that again?), but we can tell you it’s allowed on this day. In the US, Ask a Stupid Question Day’s default day is today, September 28, but it’s usually observed on the last school day in September. But why?!? Who started this nonsense?Teachers. And….

Nerds. While programmers/coders/engineers are extremely clever, we've found they may not fully understand addresses. Sure, they're ready to talk about variables, loops, arrays, the scope of stuff, callbacks, hosting, events, overloading, pattern matching, packets, elements, and more. But if you point out that most house numbering starts at "1" and not "0," their heads may explode. We've worked with quite a few developers and helped them understand the facts around address data, beginning with our own engineers.

We had a sit-down with Smarty crew members, Caroline Roweton, Associate Product Manager, and Landon Fackrell, Software Engineer, and delved into Smarty's innovative new Excel plugin. This powerful tool makes address validation easier than ever, allowing users to clean and verify their address data directly within Excel. With a focus on simplicity and efficiency, Caroline and Landon talked about the features and benefits of the plugin, demonstrating how it can save time and enhance data accuracy without any need for coding.

Astronomers and astronauts are obsessed with accuracy. (We’re not hating. So are Smarty® pantses. )And for good reason, too. If you're sending a rocket to some point in space when you're moving, your target is moving, and the rocket is going to be affected by gravity and solar dust, the math and accuracy could be the difference between millions of dollars wasted and, quite literally, life or death. For accuracy reasons, Pluto was reclassified from planet to dwarf planet. And that's OK. Sometimes, reclassification and reassessment are needed if we really care about accuracy and precision.

Webinar recap: We recently hosted a webinar that featured a detailed demonstration of our Excel plugin for address validation, showcasing its powerful capabilities. If you use Excel and need to validate addresses, this is for you. Introducing the Excel pluginOur Excel plugin is designed for simplicity and ease of use, allowing users to validate addresses without any coding skills. By highlighting a range of addresses, the plugin batches them, sends them to Smarty, and returns formatted data directly in the spreadsheet.

In our recent webinar, we invited Easton Gibson, one of our US Street API software engineers, to discuss key features of address validation and give insights into the functionalities of both strict and enhanced modes. In this blog, we'll cover:Understanding strict modeIntroduction to enhanced modeFAQ for enhanced modeWebinar about "enhanced mode"Understanding strict modeStrict mode is precisely what it sounds like—it rigorously validates addresses against the official USPS database, ensuring that only fully accurate, postal-verified addresses are accepted.

One of the most popular and successful movie franchises—by far—is George Lucas' Star Wars. The impact Star Wars has had on the culture of the United States and the rest of the world is incredible. From 1977 on, Hollywood has been producing large, fantastical blockbusters packed with practical and computer-generated special effects. Movies have started being considered based wholly on the merchandise they could sell. Toy laser swords have been selling like hotcakes, and every child finds themselves secretly trying to turn off the light from their bed using the Force.

In a recent webinar, Berk Charlton, Chief Product Officer at Smarty™, provided an in-depth look at our industry-leading address intelligence suite designed to provide highly accurate geocoding and address validation. Here are the main points Berk covered during the session:Comprehensive product suite: Smarty offers a wide range of products, including address validation, rooftop geocoding, global address auto-complete, and address data enrichment. These tools are designed to handle various aspects of address management and enhancement in industries from Insurance to Healthcare to Telecom and more.

We recently hosted a webinar where Brent Francom and Jeffrey Duncan, two of our Product Managers, talked about the lessons we learned and the improvements we've made in 2023. Here are the highlights. When you process so many addresses, you see thingsWe processed 327 billion+ addresses in 2023, equating to nearly 900 million per day or over 10,000 per second. When you process that many addresses, you find many funny and interesting ones. We keep a "Wall of Shame" with funny and malformed addresses that somehow validate.

In the fast-paced and competitive world of telecommunications, where high customer expectations and intense rivalry prevail, the strategic use of address data intelligence, including geocoding and address verification, is increasingly essential. For professionals in the telecom sector, understanding and utilizing these tools can significantly streamline operations, enhance customer satisfaction, and drive business growth. This article delves into how Smarty's address data solutions address common pain points in the telecom industry.

With over 240 countries supported, each with unique address formats, language variations, and data complexities, verifying international addresses is no simple task. We recently hosted a webinar about the slippery mess of standards and exceptions that make up international address data. We brought in experts Caroline Roweton, product manager, and Acacia Warner, a backend software engineer, to guide attendees through the maze of mastering international address verification. Crumbling under bad address data International addresses may appear straightforward on the surface, but chaotic complexities lurk underneath.

At Avengers headquarters, Tony Stark is busily creating gadgets for Spider-Man as a thank-you for his dedication to superheroism. Stark places the final touches and debates how to deliver the package. He could suit up and deliver it himself, convince Doctor Strange to teleport it, or use the boring, everyday mail system. Stark runs all these scenarios through his head— Doctor Strange's focus has been a little divided lately, so he'll probably mess up the location and drop it on some poor lady’s head.

In our previous post, we prescribed solutions to the problems associated with having bad address data in the software side of healthcare. If you would like to go over those again, or if you stumbled upon Post 3 before the previous blogs, you can read Post 1 or Post 2 now. In this third and final installment, we hope to provide even more solutions to healthcare hiccups on the SaaS side. Software and real-time data go hand in handPreviously, we discussed how many healthcare companies are struggling to keep up with their data storage and why it’s essential to clean up the mess.

Software in the healthcare industryIn our previous post, we diagnosed the problems associated with having bad address data in the world of healthcare. If you would like to go over those again, or if you stumbled upon Post 2 before Post 1, you can read about those problems here. In this second installment, you'll learn about the solutions to those problems from a software development standpoint. As you may already know, the healthcare system often relies on robust software systems to keep patient’s electronic health records and billing in the same place.

Why accurate addresses matter to healthcare professionalsThe healthcare system typically relies on human entry for its data entry. Whether the information is added by the customer, a receptionist, a nurse, or even a doctor, there are a lot of areas for the information to be misentered. Not only that, but hospital staff members frequently edit or enter additional information following the patient's first visit. The constant editing and entering of data by a human results in more than just a tiny typo now and again.

Geocoding is converting a physical address into geographic coordinates with latitude and longitude. Accurate geocodes are critical for many applications—routing deliveries, analyzing insurance risk, mapping utilities, and more. In a recent webinar, Smarty's customer service specialist, Ben Rivera, outlined best practices for maximizing geocode accuracy using our APIs and tools. Here are some of the key takeaways:The problem of inaccurate geocodes Many common geocoding services provide ZIP Code or centroid-level accuracy at best.

Did you miss our recent webinar on how to use our new Google Sheets and Excel plugins for address validation? Don't worry; we've got you covered. This blog post provides an in-depth summary, highlighting essential functionalities, setup processes, and answers to some pertinent questions raised during the webinar. Here's what you can expect to read about in this blog:The basicsFunctionalityGetting startedQ&AThe basicsWe want to make it easier for businesses to validate addresses and retrieve necessary data efficiently.

August 22, 2023 - PROVO, Utah - Smarty, the location data intelligence leader, has secured its place as a finalist in the prestigious 2023 SaaS Awards program, competing in the category of Best SaaS Product for Shipping, Inventory or Vehicle Logistics. Now celebrating its 8th year, the SaaS Awards continues to recognize and honor outstanding SaaS innovations from all corners of the world. Entries from hundreds of companies spanning North America, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and Australasia were received.

World Wide Web Day on August 1 celebrates the birth of the World Wide Web and its significant impact on modern society. While the Internet and the World Wide Web are not the same (the Web refers to a web of linked pages via hypertext links while the Internet refers to the exchange of information by people on their own computers), the World Wide Web played a crucial role in making the internet accessible and user-friendly to the general public. Let's explore how the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web have improved address validation and geocoding.

Every July 11, technology enthusiasts, scientists, and curious minds come together to celebrate a milestone in the annals of scientific achievement - Laser Day. On this day in 1960, Theodore Maiman first operated the laser, introducing the world to a tool that would significantly shape industries, from manufacturing to healthcare. At first glance, lasers and processes like address validation, geocoding, address enrichment, and address autocomplete may appear worlds apart, relegated to vastly different domains.

As a distinguished leader, diplomat, and explorer in the Star Trek universe, Captain Picard's legacy extends far beyond the realm of science fiction enthusiasts. In 2007, fans decided to bring a piece of Star Trek lore into reality: Captain Picard Day. This 'holiday,' first introduced in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Pegasus," is an annual celebration observed on the Enterprise by its youngest crew members. The date mentioned in the episode is Stardate 47457. 1, which translates to June 16.

Lost packages equal lost revenue. It’s a simple equation—if USPS or another delivery service can't deliver your products to the listed address, you’re likely out the cost of the item and the shipping, and you might even have to pay a return fee. However, one simple addition to your workflow can get your balance sheet back to black—address verification. Use a full address validation service that includes secondary address data like apartment unit numbers to cleanse your delivery list. Clean address data helps you reduce costs from misdeliveries, delays, lost mail, returned mail, reshipments, and change of address fees.

Did you know that something as simple as a mistyped address could open you and your customers up to potential fraud?Fraud can take a huge bite out of your profits, as well as lead to reputation damage and other risks. It takes most companies an average of 14 months to catch on to fraud happening, resulting in average losses of $8,300 a month. However, you can take steps to reduce fraud, risk, and reputation damage by implementing address verification. 4 common types of address-related fraudCommercial mail receiving agency (CMRA) scamsCriminals use Commercial Mail Receiving Agencies (CMRA) to bilk customers for purchases of misrepresented or nonexistent products and services.

PROVO, Utah--Smarty, a leader in address data intelligence, today announced that it has been named an industry leader, receiving 22 awards and top honors across address verification and e-commerce tools categories in G2's Spring Report. Awards and rankings originate from customer feedback and reviews, highlighting the best software products for businesses. Smarty ranked first amongst over 50 address verification services, honored with recognition in the following areas:LeaderEasiest To UseMost ImplementableEasiest AdminBest ResultsBest RelationshipBest UsabilityHighest User AdoptionBest Meets RequirementsMomentum LeaderG2's address verification category awards are based on customer feedback and verified reviews from nearly 1,000 customers.

In our recent webinar, Ryan Cox, one of our highly skilled API developers, walked through setting up and using the Smarty Go SDK. The webinar covered various essential topics, from obtaining the SDK to understanding the ins and outs of implementation. Ryan explained that the Smarty Go SDK is easily accessible on GitHub. He then moved on to discuss the key differences between embedded keys and secret keys. Embedded keys are ideal for client-side applications because they provide limited access and don’t reveal sensitive information.

Master data management is but one section of our recent ebook “Data Governance: An Executive’s Survival Guide”. You can download the full ebook for free here. What is master data?Master data is all the data critical to your business's operation. It's the data that multiple departments depend on to make decisions and drive success. From customer data to product data, financial data to inventory data, master data is the backbone of many organizations. Without it, businesses would struggle to operate efficiently and effectively.

On average, customers of Smarty process 3. 3 billion addresses collectively a day. If you were to count a single Cheeto for each address, that’s enough Cheetos to fill up 1,930 vans per day. If you were to start walking along the equator of the Earth and you took one step for each address, you’d make 38 trips around the planet. That’s a ton of address lookups. So with that much address data flying through our systems, we decided to host a webinar sharing some of the insights we’ve gained from the over 440 billion addresses that were validated in 2022.

Certain surprises are fun. Finding out the person in front of you at Starbucks paid for your coffee? Java-tastic! Finding out you've been shipping products to addresses that don't exist? That's a postal catastrophe. Luckily, many shipping snafus can be prevented by using address validation software. Address validation (or verification) is the process of checking a mailing address against an authoritative address database. If the address matches an address in the known database, it is marked “valid”—meaning it's real.

Every business executive knows that good data is critical. When you’re developing your sales strategy and talking about how to increase revenue, you probably turn to data to answer questions like these:What areas of growth can we exploit?Which products are performing well?Is mobile or desktop driving more sales? Where is traffic increasing?How do we identify the “low-hanging fruit” customers?Where can we reduce costs?But how do you know if your data is accurate? What steps do you need to take to ensure your data is actionable and driving revenue?In our free ebook, 4 Steps to Unlocking Latent Revenue and Driving ROI with Your Address Data?, we show you how to get clean address data, and then how to use that address data to unlock latent revenue and drive ROI.

Typos, typoes or typo's?No matter how you spell the word, typos are a problem. Even the most accurate typist occasionally misspells a word, leaves off a letter at the end, or just types a different word than intended. Typos in a text to your friend aren't a big deal. They'll figure out what you mean using context clues. But in a business data scenario, if you're following the logic of traditional address matching, where an address is either an exact match or not a match, you can't account for different formats or misspellings.

We recently released a free ebook, 4 Steps to Unlocking Latent Revenue and Driving ROI with Your Address Data, in which we show you how to use your company’s address data to unlock latent revenue and drive ROI. In our last article, we reviewed address parsing. Today, we’ll explain address normalization and why it matters for data cleansing and analytics. Address Normalization (or making an address look normal) is the process of formatting an address so that it matches the proper address format of the national postal authority, such as the USPS for those in the United States.

Our global economy comprises many industries—healthcare, financial services, insurance, commercial development, and more. But one thing all companies have in common, no matter the industry? They’re all chasing a bigger and better return on investment (ROI). While there are many drivers of ROI, have you ever considered the role that address validation plays?Clean address data is essential for many business functions. Consider eCommerce, one rapidly growing example. Forecasting shows this retail channel will account for 22 percent of all global retail sales by 2024.

There are many problems you may run into if you're working with address data. In our recent webinar, our own Adam Charlton went over some of the challenges he's encountered the most, and how to deal with them. Here’s some of what he talked about. You can view the full recording at the link below. StandardizationStandardizing addresses helps solve many of the problems inherent in data blending (combining two or more address databases together). To properly blend different address databases together, you need to either have an external ID correlate the two sources or have identically formatted address fields.

Parcel shipping costs have been rising since 2020. We’ve all seen inflation on the consumer end, whether we’re checking out online or paying at the gas pump. And skyrocketing freight rates have made headlines. Today, we’re going to focus on the impact of the increasing cost of shipping on your business and what you can do about it. But don’t lose hope—while we’re going to explore climbing shipment costs in this article, we’ll also chat about what your business can do to make shipping more efficient.

It’s November, and online shopping is ramping up to its climactic end-of-year blitz. www. blackfriday. com estimates that between Thanksgiving and Black Friday of this year, consumers will spend approximately $13 billion (1). That’s great news for your business. But if you don’t have the right tools in place to help you meet that demand, you might be left wishing you had better prepare. Staffing may be one issue for many businesses. According to the US Chamber of Commerce, the wholesale and retail trade industry has experienced the second-highest quit rate of all industries since November 2020(2).

We brought out the big guns in the way of our Development Team Lead, Kent Gividen, in a webinar all about authenticating your APIs. He went over some of his most useful tips and tricks that he uses to ensure APIs are authenticated. Was it helpful? You betcha. You wanna get the SparkNotes? Read on. Common and not-so-common APIs to know aboutKent began by outlining the APIs that he has run into the most in his years as a developer. Some of them he dug into a little deeper than others, but these are all useful to be aware of.

With innumerable formats and unfamiliar spellings, standardizing and validating global address datasets can be a real pain. But it doesn't have to be. International address validation is an essential part of virtually every business that works with international address data. But how can you keep your address data in multiple countries accurate while not wasting your time and money?In our recent webinar, Jeffrey Duncan went over the details of international address validation. You can view the recording below, or continue reading for the quick recap.

Smarty unveils unmatched QGIS geocoding accuracy with release of geocoding plugin - US addressPROVO, UT - June 21, 2022 - Smarty, a leader in location data intelligence, announces today the release of their QGIS Geocoding Plugin for US Addresses to provide an easy way for users of the popular GIS software platform to validate, standardize, and convert addresses to their latitude and longitude coordinates (geocodes). The plugin allows manual address entry as well as batch geocoding via CSV. Millions of people worldwide use QGIS to map, visualize, and share geographic information.

In this webinar, our geocoding and address expert Adam Charlton went over the ins and outs of address data. He gave details about address components and how they influence the way an address is composed. He also dove into the difference between ZIP9 and ZIP11, what a non-postal is, and other address hacks you didn’t learn in primary school. Standardization and validationWhat exactly is a valid address? There are lots of different definitions depending on what your goal is with the address. For example, a parking lot address could be a valid address for a real estate developer, but not for package delivery.

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.

The difference between a physical address and a mailing address is that a physical address is where you are geographically located and a mailing address is where you get your mail. Often a physical address and a mailing address are the same—but not always! Whether you're trying to mail important account paperwork to thousands of customers or a single high-dollar customer appreciation gift to a key account, having the right address is important. Before you send off that precious cargo, ask yourself if you're sending it to a physical address or a mailing address.

July 20, 2021 - PROVO, UTAH - SmartyStreets, a leader in location data intelligence, announces the release of the new US Address Verification - Enhanced Matching. Enhanced matching successfully verifies the messiest of addresses and includes 15 million additional valid addresses not found in the USPS address database. The new enhanced matching engine successfully validates and corrects more ill-formatted addresses than ever before. Corrections include greater varieties of misspellings, redundant text, incomplete addresses, and sloppy data.

A deceitfully comforting illusionIn the US today, there are nearly 800,000 registered sex offenders. As part of the registration process, each sex offender is required to report their physical address to a local police department (the exact process varies from state to state). This is intended to empower the public to be able to identify where these offenders live and if one of them lives near you. Having this information, you are supposed to be able to better protect your loved ones and yourself.

This post contains additional data referenced from the original sex offender registry post. Records containing the following were excluded from our statistical analysis:[Click to return to article]state=?? and zip=00000 or 11111 street contains "not available" street contains "incarcerated" or "incac" or "incrc" or "incarc" street contains "prison" street contains "absconded" or "absconced" or "absc" street contains "detention" or "det" or "det ctr" or "det center" or "detain" or "dt ctr" street contains "deported" street contains "incarc" street contains "unknown" or "unk" street contains "deceas" or "deseas" street contains "jail" street contains "custody" street contains "immigration" street contains "transien" or "transnt" or "trnsnt" street contains "homeles" or "homles" street contains "inmate" street contains "out of state" street contains "xxx" street contains "failure" or "fail" street contains "fail" street contains "register" street contains "verif" street contains "behav" street contains "institut" or "inst" street is blank street contains "vicinity" street contains "fugit" street contains "no longer" street contains "correctio" or "corr" or "correct" street contains "complia" street contains "reform" street contains "block of" or "blk of" or "blk" state is blank and city contains "unk" street contains "&" street contains "underpass" street contains "offend" street contains "resident" street contains "between" city contains "unknown" AND zip contains "00000" street contains "moved" street contains "nonresident" street contains "unconfirmed" state and zip are same AND city is blank zip contains "jail" city contains "Not available" and zip is unintelligible as a zip street = city street contains " street + city + state has more than two entries street contains "complex" street contains "reincarc" city contains "convict" street contains "usp" street contains "penit" street contains "hosp" street contains "louis" and city is "St.

While it's an unfortunate truth of of today's e-commerce world, it is one that cannot be ignored: Fraud is ever-present in online transactions. The expense of unnecessary shipping costs and human resources, disgruntled customers, and the time it takes to investigate disputes adds up. And the damage to a company's brand may result in untold amounts of lost sales. Using an address verification service (or AVS) as one of the tools in your fraud management toolbox is a smart and cost-effective move.

Must have address to playEvery month, tens of billions of apps are downloaded from the Google Play store. Users of those apps have historically had limited contact with the app developers for asking questions or lodging a complaint. And getting a response from some developers has proved to be a very difficult experience. Google briefly considered requiring app developers to provide their physical address or have their app removed from Google's play store. Providing a physical address where customer questions or complaints can be handled would work well for developers that have a separate business address.