One of a Kind
New merge/purge service cleans e-mail lists New software for merging and purging e-mail files to remove duplicate names is being evaluated by e-mail service companies including New York-based NetCreations Inc.
The software, developed by IntraSource LLC, based in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, was also provided free for evaluation to 24/7 Media Inc., New York, and Impower, Peterborough, NH.
Marketers have been begging list management companies for merge/purge services, but because of privacy concerns, e-mail list owners won’t reveal their customers’ e-mail addresses for comparison with other lists. Unlike the postal address venue where there are no restrictions on revealing names for merge/purge, Internet customers opt in to have their e-mail addresses used for a specific purpose. For example, they register on a Web site to receive certain marketing information from certain marketers, not to have their e-mail address used any other way.
IntraSource thinks it has a solution. The software uses a numerical matching code system that assigns a unique identification number to each e-mail address. By using matching codes, list owners can avoid releasing e-mail addresses when sending lists to third-party vendors for maintenance or brokering list-rental transactions.
“The list owner runs the software and sends us the list of numbers,” explains Greg Williams, managing partner at IntraSource. “We do the merge/purge work and send back the file after running it against other lists encrypted with numbers.”
In addition to uncovering duplicates, the software also validates addresses by searching for missing and extra letters or inappropriate spaces, and places inaccurate addresses in error files. But it doesn’t have a change of address function like the one developed by the U.S. Postal Service.
Like previous generations of direct marketers who developed data-sharing principles for catalogs and direct mail, Williams hopes the new generation of online marketers can create a standard for renting and maintaining Internet data. “List owners have to get together to set rules and standards for merge/purge,” he says. “I think the privacy people will want to embrace this.”
NetCreations, which already provides merge/ purge services for its clients trading lists amongst themselves, recently began testing the software using “dummy lists.”
NetCreations uses a double opt-in process to verify e-mail addresses for the 300 Web site registration lists that it manages. Its clients route customers registering on their Web sites to NetCreations, which collects the data and sends out an e-mail confirmation. NetCreations handles 12 million e-mail addresses total.
“If they don’t respond to the e-mail, we won’t put them on the list,” says Timothy Skennion, senior sales executive at NetCreations. “Also, every time they receive an e-mail message, they have an opportunity to change their profile preferences or opt out.”
Marketers are forging a new frontier to determine how to make e-commerce work, says IntraSource’s Williams. “When you check your e-mail and there are 99 messages but only four that you want, it’s intrusive. You can’t just sort them and decide which ones to look at later. You have to look at each and every one.” Not doing anything will result in the alienation of customers and large numbers of consumers opting off lists, he remarks.
Indeed, the risk of inundating customers with multiple e-mail offers is growing because many companies are creating huge database files with 20-million-plus names.
“Chances of duplication are increasing on large lists because there is a tremendous amount of lifestyle selection information when a person registers at multiple Web sites,” Williams adds.
Yet the majority of marketers using e-mail don’t perform the most basic list maintenance task of removing duplicate names through merging and purging lists, he says.
