ACT! Database Cleanse

The world changes every day. So must your data as events threaten to make it obsolete...

• Every year 3.25 million adults move house
• 362,000 people emigrate each year
• Up to 1,600 deaths occur in the UK daily
• Over 14.7 million individuals are currently registered with the Telephone Preference Service
• Over 5.7 million business and employee details change each year
• Every 6 minutes a business moves location, every 4 minutes another fails
• Over 35% of named business information is incorrect within a year

• Over 1.1 million businesses are currently registered with the Corporate TPS

A marketing database that isn't up-to-date is a business liability. Mailing to the deceased is distressing to the bereaved and damaging to brands.

Organisations found in breach of the TPS can face a fine of up to £5,000. A flawed consumer list wastes money and reduces your return on investment.

A DataVision Cleanse examines your data using five distinct steps:

• Cleaning Data
• Validating Data
• De-duping Data
• Suppressing Data

• Enhancing Data

Free ACT! Data Check

Using these findings, we provide a free data health check report that will give you a detailed breakdown of the quality of your ACT! contact data so you can select the services that will enable you to clean, suppress and optimise your marketing database.

Click to download an example of a Data Cleanse Report

Clean Data

The DataVision Cleanse uses a range of data sources and processes to clean names, addresses and phone numbers to ensure communication is accurate and deliverable.

Address clean up

The Postcode Address File (PAF) contains over 27 million addresses and is the most complete, up-to-date address database for the UK. The file updates missing address elements, corrects out-of-date address information and standardises address details, helping to ensure accurate and deliverable addresses.

Contact clean up

Proprietary software will identify and rectify poor quality contact data. Suspected profanities, unrecognised names and misspelt job titles are flagged for attention.

A DataVision Cleanse provides a number of validation services to verify consumers, businesses and phone numbers.

Residential validation
Name and address validation is performed against the current UK Electoral Roll. The file contains approximately 40 million adults and can be used to help validate your data at both address and contact level. The validation also gives you the opportunity to enhance your dataset with further individuals within that household for improved targeting of your marketing communications.

Business validation
Business validation is performed using a dataset of over 2.7 million live business addresses and 3.5 million business contacts.  This validation ensures your marketing is correctly targeted to the intended business.

Telephone validation
With access to over 17 million telephone number connections, a DataVision Cleanse will screen your data to identify live and disconnected phone numbers, helping improve connection rates for any telemarketing campaign.

Proprietary matching software will identify duplicate records within your data at address and contact level within one file or across multiple files supplied.
 

The DataVision Cleanse identifies all individuals and businesses within your data that cannot or will not respond to any marketing communications by screening against goneaway and deceased files as well as all preference services.

Goneaway identification
The DataVision Cleanse uses a range of industry recognised reference files to identify business and consumers that have moved premise or house including:

• Business Suppression File: Contains over 10 million verified gone away and ceased trading records. Using a combination of sources from data marketing companies and Companies House financial records, it processes over 30 million records before reaching final file size.

• Goneaway Suppression File: The direct marketing industry’s most trusted gone away suppression file for consumers. Containing in excess of 13.4 million records with an independently audited accuracy rate of 98.2%, the GAS file captures 90% of all home movers within 12 months.

• Equifax disConnect: Equifax provide a database of goneaway and deceased records. There are over 25 million records collated from over 6 years worth of suppression data that's updated with over half a million new suppressions each month.

Deceased identification

The Bereavement Register: Specifically designed to reduce the amount of direct mail sent to the deceased. Each registration is verified before being added to the register, often within just 2 weeks of a death.

Preferences services

• Mailing Preference Service: The MPS register allows any individuals to opt out of receiving unwanted mailings.
• Baby MPS: Created to help reduce the number of baby-related mailings sent to couples that have had a death of a baby.
• Telephone & Corporate Preference Service: used by businesses and individuals that wish to opt out of unsolicited telesales calls. It is unlawful to make unsolicited calls to any phone number on this register.

• Fax Preference Service: Used by businesses to opt out of unsolicited sales and marketing faxes.

A DataVision Cleanse provides a number of business or consumer enhancements to your ACT! contact data. Refine your targeting based on key characteristics to improve campaign response rates and return on investment

Consumer data enhancements

The UK Consumer Contact File contains details for approximately 40 million individuals. A DataVision Cleanse can provide the following consumer data enhancement variables:

• Gender
• Age Bands
• Marital Status
• Length of Residency
• Personal Income Model

• Geo-Demographic Codes

Business data enhancements

The UK Business Contact File contains details for over 2.7 million live business trading addresses. A DataVision Cleanse can provide the following business data enhancement variables:

• Industry Codes (SIC, LBM and Thomson)
• Site Employees
• Established Date
• Turnover
• Premise Type
• Site Type

• Middle Management Contacts and Emails