What is a national address database, and how is it used?
A national address database is a database that contains a list of addresses for delivery points within a specific country.
For example, in 2016, the USA began creating the USDOT (United States Department of Transportation) National Address Database (NAD). The DOT, the US Census Bureau, and other federal agencies began aggregating data from state and tribal governments. As of May 2022, the USDOT National Address Database contains 65.2 million addresses, which represent only ⅓ of the addresses in the United States.
Because federal agency lists may be incomplete, private-sector companies, like Smarty, which processes billions of addresses per day, use proprietary approaches to build far more complete lists of mailable addresses.
When most people refer to an address database, what they usually mean is an address point dataset or a list of addresses within a database. People seeking a national address database are often looking for the most complete address list possible for a certain country, such as those provided by Smarty.
In this article, we’ll cover:
- What makes a good national address database?
- How is a national list of addresses used?
- Data management with national address databases
- What is the best US national address list?
What makes a good national address database?
Before we look at how national address lists are used, let’s establish a baseline for the kind of file that makes the following use cases possible. You’ll especially want to be familiar with the following quality criteria if you’re in the market for a national address database yourself.
Complete
For obvious reasons, you want the most complete list of addresses possible to maximize intelligence and optimize decision-making.
Accurate addresses
It doesn’t matter how big your address list is if it’s not accurate. Be sure to confirm that the addresses in any list you acquire are first standardized per the country’s guidelines and then verified by a reliable address authority as correct, so that you don’t pay a bunch of money for junk.
Current address data
New addresses are constantly being created, and existing addresses frequently change; be sure your list of addresses is updated regularly with current address data intelligence to keep your data squeaky clean.
Persistent unique identifier (PUID)
A leading address point dataset also provides a persistent, unique identifier, such as Smarty’s SmartyKey, which is an integer of up to 10 digits assigned to every location or delivery point. All aliases for a single location share the same unique ID, which helps eliminate confusion and waste from duplicate address point records and makes data blending a piece of cake for even the largest address files.
Cost effective
The above criteria are the baseline for most of the use cases that follow, but your use case may also require additional bells and whistles. For example, do you need address-related metadata, such as a residence/business flag? Do you need the address parsed into component fields, or will a single field suffice? You should be able to make some choices to cost-effectively match the list of addresses to your use case requirements.
How is a national list of addresses used?
Address lists are used in multitudes of ways, including mail delivery, shipping, market research and analysis, data management, and business operations.
An average person might assume a national address database is used only for mailing/shipping. And while the lists are sometimes used for mailing/shipping, some of the most successful companies recognize their value for market research and data management.
Let’s look a little closer at some of these research and management use cases to better understand the value that can be unlocked from address point records.
Market research and analysis
What kind of market research and analysis could you do with a national address list that can be filtered by ZIP, city, county, state, residence/business, and parent/child? Let your imagination run wild, and you’ll realize the possibilities are wide and vast.
Let’s spark your creativity by taking a look at just a few.
Customer intelligence
Because they include addresses for customers and non-customers, companies use national address lists to extract valuable customer and prospect insights for marketing, operations, and other departments.
Resource planning
Companies use lists to analyze where current and potential customers are in relation to resources such as mobile towers and linear assets, such as fiber cable, gas, or water pipelines.
Asset tracking
Some companies have physical assets, such as servers or network equipment, located at various off-site locations. What if the company is multi-counting assets at alias locations? It happens. National address lists with a persistent, unique identifier for each delivery point make asset accounting easier and more accurate.
Sales intelligence
Address lists filtered by residence, business, or both are also used by sales departments to optimize sales territories.
Market saturation research
A variety of businesses, including large national corporations that offer commonly used services like Comcast, invest heavily in national address lists to conduct market saturation studies.
Comcast's linear assets are required for 3 of its 4 “quadruple play” offerings, including TV, internet, landline, and mobile phone service. The cost per linear foot for installing and servicing pipe and cable is high.
Density and Saturation studies help companies make better business decisions based on ROI. For example, companies are far more likely to achieve a good ROI when installing linear assets in densely populated areas rather than sparsely populated ones. Companies look at where the coverage and people are to identify fully saturated and underserved areas based on user population density.
Likewise, retailers and healthcare providers can better determine expansion locations.
Target market analysis
Real estate service and technology companies often use national address lists for target market analysis.
For example, a property management company that targets small apartment complexes may want to see how many complexes have 5 units or fewer in an area they’re considering for expansion.
Or perhaps a cable TV company targets apartment complexes having 20 or more units and would like to know how many of their target properties are in potential new areas.
Additionally, national market research companies purchase national address lists to examine target-market penetration rates for various products or services.
Data management with national address databases
Complete and accurate address lists with persistent, unique identifiers help streamline data management processes, enhance data quality and trust, and improve reporting, analysis, and decision-making to get the most out of address data.
Here are a few ways companies are improving data management with national address lists.
Address record deduplication
Unless a company has always used an address autocomplete solution to standardize and correct all of its incoming addresses, it’ll likely find many duplicate and erroneous records in its address database. Data entry is a leading culprit for duplicates as people misspell or enter addresses in multitudes of non-standard variations like these:
Whether companies realize it or not, duplicate records cost them dearly in postage/shipping, incorrect reporting, and wrong decision-making. However, smart companies remove duplicates from their databases with an address verification service that uses intelligent matching logic to standardize and verify addresses, preparing them for deduplication.
Following deduplication, it’s not uncommon for address components to change, like street name, city name, and ZIP Code. Companies easily solve that problem with monthly updates based on the persistent, unique identifier for each address, so verified addresses are updated rather than creating duplicates.
Deduplication helps companies reduce data clutter, bloat, and confusion.
Address data synchronization and blending
By combining deduplication with regular updates to their national address list, companies are well-positioned to synchronize and consolidate records across disparate data platforms, further enhancing data clarity, management, reporting, and decision-making throughout the organization.
Parent and child connections and counts
National address lists that show not only parent/child relationships but also tell you the precise number of child addresses per parent address, rather than just a broad range, help companies better organize and understand address-level data. Companies perform critical analysis and gain actionable marketing, operations, and strategy insights by examining all parent-child relationships and the number of addresses for properties such as apartment complexes, business parks, and post office boxes.
Processing speed and accuracy
Companies also use persistent unique identifiers to improve processing speed and data accuracy. As you might expect, a persistent, unique identifier of just 10 digits in a single field is much faster and less error-prone to process than multiple address fields of varying lengths. However, this use case pertains more to very large databases.
Internal address unique identifiers
Some companies use a persistent unique identifier, like Smarty’s SmartyKey, as a basis for creating their own persistent unique ID for customers in their address database. This is a powerful data quality tool that further helps companies deduplicate and merge data to remove clutter, inaccuracies, and confusion.
What is the best US national address list?
Smarty's US Master Address List is the most reasonably-priced, complete, and accurate list of mailable addresses in the US, featuring 200+ million verified addresses deliverable by the USPS, each with a persistent unique identifier (SmartyKey) for superior data management, reporting, and analysis.
Smarty provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date lists of mailable addresses in the United States by processing billions of addresses per day, identifying new and changed addresses as they're recognized, and using other proprietary methods. Our list of 200+ million addresses is all verified and mailable by the USPS.
For more information, or to get a sample list, see the US Master Address List product page or contact sales.
