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121 items tagged ”Address verification”
What is data enrichment for P&C insurance?
By Ryan Muir, Brielle Paul on September 30, 2026
Learn how clean address data, rooftop geocoding, and verification enrich insurance workflows for better underwriting, claims, and customer records.
P&C reinsurance risk modeling: Why data accuracy determines outcomes
By Brielle Paul, Ryan Muir on September 24, 2026
Reinsurance data enrichment is transforming underwriting. See how Smarty helps reinsurers verify and enrich submission data for smarter risk decisions.
Improving the patient registration processes in healthcare
By Bailey Hendrickson, John Hickey on September 22, 2026
Learn how to improve the patient registration process with digital workflows, address verification, and automation to reduce errors and speed check-in.
Healthcare revenue cycle management: Process, challenges, and best practices
By John Hickey, Brielle Paul on September 14, 2026
Learn how healthcare revenue cycle management works and how accurate patient data improves clean claims, billing accuracy, reimbursement, and revenue performance.
Location intelligence software for P&C insurance
By Brielle Paul, Ryan Muir on September 7, 2026
Learn how location intelligence for insurance improves underwriting, property risk analysis, claims, fraud detection, and portfolio decisions.
Is Tornado Alley moving? Yes, and insurers should care.
By Bailey Hendrickson, Ryan Muir on August 5, 2026
Tornado Alley has always sounded like the kind of place you’d avoid on a road trip. Tornado Alley was given this name because twisters are 10x more likely to occur in this region of the US each year. Historically, the term has pointed to the Great Plains states where tornado activity has been especially common, including: Texas Oklahoma Kansas Nebraska The broader Great Plains region However, scientists have discovered an interesting plot twist: Tornado Alley is not staying neatly inside its old stomping grounds .
Healthcare address validation & verification explained
By Bailey Hendrickson, John Hickey on July 20, 2026
Learn how healthcare address validation and verification improve patient data accuracy, compliance, billing, and operational efficiency.
Smarty announces the return of Pinpoint for 2026
By Trent Howell, Bailey Hendrickson on July 14, 2026
OREM, UT, July 14, 2026 —After a wickedly successful user conference in November 2025, Smarty®, the leader in address data intelligence, is bringing back Pinpoint, a free virtual user conference for developers, data leaders, operations teams, and certified address nerds everywhere. Pinpoint 2026 kicks off on October 22–23, 2026, and teaches you how to fight address chaos in your database by reducing failed deliveries, increasing form conversions, improving fraud detection, honing risk pricing, strengthening customer insights, and providing cleaner data workflows.
Smarty now powers cleaner consumer data in EDGE’s cashflow bureau platform
By Ben Roden, Trent Howell on July 7, 2026
Smarty is partnering with EDGE, the cash flow bureau that helps lenders turn bank transaction data into decision-ready consumer insights, to bring verification capabilities into EDGE’s non-credentialed lead screening solution. The integration helps lenders validate and standardize consumer address data, alongside recent cash flow insights, before requiring new account connections from applicants. For lenders, that means cleaner records earlier in the consumer journey, fewer steps for applicants, and stronger data quality across marketing, underwriting, loan servicing, and relationship management workflows.
Provider data accuracy: Healthcare claims processing cost control
By John Hickey, Dave Medlock, Bailey Hendrickson on July 6, 2026
In the first two parts of this series , we looked at how provider location data shapes the healthcare experience from the outside in. First, we sat down with Dave Medlock , CEO and founder of Maven One Health and a contributing thought leader. We covered how inaccurate provider locations create access issues—making it harder for members to find care, trust directories, and navigate networks—and expose healthcare organizations to compliance risks. Then, we looked at how those same data issues show up in member experience, driving frustration, delays, and unnecessary friction at critical moments.
What you need to know about cities
By Adam Charlton, Bailey Hendrickson on June 29, 2026
Understanding cities seems simple until you try to validate an address. Most people think of a city as a place on a map with boundaries, a local government, and maybe a fierce rivalry with the town next door. They aren't wrong. But in address validation , “city” can mean something a little different. Sometimes it means the default city assigned to a ZIP Code . Sometimes it means an alternate city name that USPS recognizes. Sometimes it means a neighborhood, a census-designated place, or a local name people use even though it isn’t technically a city.
Healthcare provider compliance & data accuracy explained
By John Hickey, Brielle Paul on June 18, 2026
Improve healthcare provider data accuracy and compliance to reduce risk, ensure regulatory alignment, and streamline operations.
Puerto Rican urbanization codes: Meaning, USPS use, & lookups
By Ryan Muir, Bailey Hendrickson on June 1, 2026
Learn what a Puerto Rican urbanization code is, why USPS requires it, and how to find and format it correctly for accurate address delivery.
Preventing identity fraud with address verification
By Ben Roden, Brielle Paul on May 26, 2026
Address verification verifies that customers’ addresses are valid, helping financial institutions prevent identity fraud, improve address data accuracy, and enhance identity data quality.
Risk mitigation and location intelligence: The power duo behind smarter decisions
By Brielle Paul, Ryan Muir on May 1, 2026
When businesses across industries base decisions on partial datasets, key decision-making signals become disconnected, fragmented, and inconsistent. That’s why risk mitigation is most effective when it’s based on comprehensive location intelligence. Using authoritative location and property data , businesses can make data-driven decisions that reduce operational, financial, and compliance risk. To ensure their location intelligence stays accurate and contextualized, businesses can: Validate, standardize , and geocode addresses Enrich addresses with property attributes Keep address and property data up-to-date How? That’s where Smarty steps in.
Location truth: The foundation of insurance risk assessment for weather and crime
By Bailey Hendrickson, Ryan Muir on April 17, 2026
Learn more about how location truth impacts insurance risk assessments (and your bottom line and financial stability!) Hint: it all comes back to accurate data.
Predictive analytics in insurance are transforming P&C workflows
By Bailey Hendrickson, Ryan Muir on April 10, 2026
Predictive analytics use artificial intelligence, machine learning, and statistical modeling to analyze large volumes of internal and external data in insurance.
The future of P&C insurance underwriting
By Bailey Hendrickson, Ryan Muir on April 6, 2026
For P&C underwriters, the future of underwriting isn’t just moving from paper to predictive models—it’s moving from processing information to interpreting it.
Provider data accuracy: Provider location data and member experience
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson, Dave Medlock on April 2, 2026
Part two of our provider data series featuring thought leadership from Dave Medlock, Founder & CEO of Maven One Health If you’ve ever searched your health plan’s provider directory only to find your “nearby” doctor is actually a residential home—or worse, a PO Box—you’ve experienced firsthand why clean provider data matters for more than just compliance. Provider data accuracy is also one of the most important aspects contributing to member experience. In part one of this series , we explored how accurate provider location data fuels regulatory compliance.
Verification update: Add provisional addresses to Smarty’s database
By John Hickey, Brielle Paul on February 16, 2026
With the launch of our latest product feature, US Provisional Address Manual Process, US Address Verification users can now submit new or missing addresses, and we’ll verify them against authoritative databases and add any approved records to our database. Better yet, you won’t need to make any integration changes to see your addresses in your API results, it won’t take longer than 30–60 days, and it won’t cost you anything extra. That’s what we call an all-around win! Let us take the stress of verifying new or missing addresses off your plate so you can focus on what you do best.
Ambiguous address matches: What they are and why compliance teams should care
By Jeffrey Duncan, Bailey Hendrickson on February 3, 2026
If you’ve ever run into an address that seems to exist in more than one place, congratulations—you’ve discovered the world of ambiguous address matches. They’re the Schrödinger’s cat of location data: valid, yet potentially two distinct locations. This blog will focus on a few key things: What are ambiguous address matches? Why ambiguous address matches matter for compliance and customer service How to handle matches with address ambiguity Why you should inform your customers of ambiguous address matches Our final thoughts on ambiguous address matches What are ambiguous address matches? An ambiguous address match occurs when an entered address resolves to two or more valid locations with slight but meaningful differences.
Smarty's January 2026 release adds parcel boundaries, provisional addresses, and smarter international geocoding
By Trent Howell, Bailey Hendrickson on January 27, 2026
OREM, UT, Jan 27, 2026— Smarty®, an expert in address data intelligence, today announced a three-part release designed to help organizations turn messy, fast-changing location data into operational confidence. The January 2026 bundle introduces: 1) A brand-new parcel dataset, 2) Expands provisional address programs into core U. S. products, and 3) Upgrades Smarty’s International Geocoding engine—giving organizations more precision and more usable signals for automation at scale. “Address data is never ‘done.
Smarty customers avoid USPS rate limiting
By Ben Roden, Andrew Townsend on January 20, 2026
TLDR: Smarty customers won’t feel a thing from the new USPS API restrictions because Smarty doesn’t depend on USPS’s real-time APIs to do address verification. We’ve always used our own, powerful, hyper-accurate data to back our tools and support client needs. While USPS is capping its address verification service at 60 requests per hour and retiring the legacy Web Tools API on January 25, Smarty keeps verifying addresses at full speed on our own infrastructure. We ingest USPS data updates monthly and run verification internally, so USPS API changes, rate limits, or even a temporary USPS outage don’t ripple into your workflows.
Provider data accuracy: Regulatory compliance and hidden network risks
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson, Dave Medlock on January 15, 2026
Welcome to part one of our new blog series on provider location data—an exploration into the messy, high-stakes world of healthcare compliance, address accuracy, and network adequacy. To kick things off, we sat down with Dave Medlock, founder of Maven One Health and a contributing thought leader, to discuss why clean provider data is essential for achieving peak regulatory compliance and meeting requirements with ease, thereby avoiding serious consequences if it isn’t done correctly. Here’s what he had to say about understanding CMS, state DOIs, continuous audits, rosters, data decay, messy inputs, and the future of address data itself.
How to build and validate address lists for direct mail marketing
By Ryan Muir, Brielle Paul on December 4, 2025
Looking to build a direct mail marketing campaign? You’ve come to the right spot. Before you can send marketing mail like a pro, you’ll need to build a list of verified addresses. Otherwise, frequent misdeliveries and costly redeliveries can take the wind right out of your campaign’s sails. On top of that, a bad address list could lead you to miss out on mind-blowing postal discounts. 😱 Don’t let bad addresses capsize your campaign. With a US Master Address List of over 210 million verified addresses—available by state, county, or nationwide—and shipshape US Address Verification , you can construct new lists or clean active ones with the swagger of a seasoned captain.
2026 UPDATE: Revisiting USPS API rate limits after rollout
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson on December 3, 2025
At the time USPS rolled out its new APIs on January 25, 2026, its documentation stated that address verification was limited to 60 requests per hour. That stood in sharp contrast to the newly retired Web Tools API, which had previously supported approximately 5 address lookups per transaction . This included the legacy USPS Address Information APIs , which many organizations had relied on for years. For teams that depend on low-latency , reliable validation, this appeared to signal a major operational disruption.
Pinpoint 2025: Day 2 recap
By Bailey Hendrickson, Andrew Townsend on November 28, 2025
For two days, Smarty gathered address data experts for Pinpoint, our first-ever virtual user conference. There, developers, product specialists, and industry experts delved into the nitty-gritty details of address data that you need to understand in order to succeed in your industry. Attendees learned how to process addresses faster (much faster) than the blink of an eye, with and without using code! They also got to look under the hood on how insurance is evolving and becoming even more efficient than ever to create a “delightful user experience.
Pinpoint 2025: Day 1 recap
By Andrew Townsend, Brielle Paul on November 28, 2025
For two days, Smarty users gathered together with other address data experts for Pinpoint, Smarty’s first virtual user conference, where developers, industry experts, and product specialists talked all things addresses and pulled back the curtain on address data solutions. Attendees asked questions about cloud-based software, the impact of accurate address data on fintech and insurance companies, and the ROI of good address data across all industries. Plus, attendees got to take a peek behind the scenes and see what makes Smarty’s address data solutions tick.
What to look for in an address data solution: Data accuracy
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson on November 14, 2025
Once you know what capabilities you need, the next challenge is choosing a provider that actually delivers—pun intended. This blog is part of our five-part series, What to look for in an address data solution . Previously, we discussed the need to find an address data solution that understands the importance of speed, scalability, and reliability, enabling you to maintain automated, efficient, and accurate workflows in any industry that deals with addresses. Today, we’ll focus on the hidden costs of inaccurate data, defining and combating the “validation gap”, and why it’s important in any industry.
What to look for in an address data solution: Speed, volume, and reliability
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson on November 12, 2025
Not all address tools are created equal. The right platform should do more than validate—it should verify, enrich, and future-proof your data. This blog is part of our five-part series, What to look for in an address data solution. Previously, we discussed the hidden costs of poor address data, including misdeliveries, lost revenue, billing errors, and operational inefficiencies. These creep up because companies mistakenly assume that their CRM or ERP already validates and standardizes addresses.
Open floor Q&A with Smarty developers: A webinar recap
By Andrew Townsend on October 27, 2025
Let's be honest, when it comes to addresses, “'close enough” just isn't good enough. At our recent panel discussion with Smarty’s product team members, we really dug deep into what makes address validation work and why it's so crucial for businesses. The themes spanned from Google Maps myths to international quirks, from “non-postal” mysteries to best practices for keeping databases clean. Why Google isn’t the benchmark One of the most common statements we hear from other business owners is the “but Google Maps says…” objection.
Tariffs are high. Your address accuracy should be higher.
By Kajsia McCoy, Bailey Hendrickson on October 15, 2025
Tariffs are spiking. Shipping costs are climbing. Margins are shrinking. You can’t control global trade policy, but you can control how efficient and accurate your operations are in response. Most ecommerce teams, logistics planners, and data managers miss one of their best cost-saving opportunities: addressing accuracy. Bad address data isn’t hidden. It sits in your systems, shows up in carrier returns, and quietly drains profits every day. When tariffs rise to 15 to 50 percent in some product categories and import volumes are falling, every shipment becomes more expensive, every delay costs more, and every lost customer hurts more.
2025 Pinpoint: The Smarty virtual user conference, because the world is better validated
By Andrew Townsend, Bailey Hendrickson on October 9, 2025
November 2025 | 100% online | 100% awesome Join us this November for the Smarty Virtual User Conference, a two-day event packed with insights, tools, laughs, and $1000 worth of prizes. This event is for you, whether you’re optimizing delivery accuracy, improving compliance, or just trying to figure out if your neighbor really has a breakfast nook. What to expect 2 days, 12 hours of content, zero fluff Live sessions from address data pros Hands-on demos of Smarty’s latest tools and plugins Giveaways galore, like gift cards, swag, and even a chance at a massive LEGO set Hidden Easter eggs throughout the event (no, seriously—find them and win) An after-party with games (shoutout to Brady Amundson) Tailored tracks for every role For developers Roll up your sleeves.
Welcome to the Address Zoo #1 | Override & underride city addresses
By Adam Charlton, Brielle Paul on October 7, 2025
The benefits of reliable, easy-to-implement address data are straightforward. Actual addresses, on the other hand, aren’t always so cut and dry. If you’re looking to become an expert in everything that begins or ends with an address, this series is for you. We’ll demystify the types of addresses that have developers scratching their heads and introduce you to the tools keeping your address data best-in-class. Come one, come all, and enter the wonderful world of peculiar addresses! Let’s see what’s on exhibit.
Address component analysis: A smarter way to validate addresses
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson on September 26, 2025
Most address validation tools give you a simple thumbs up or down on an address because it either matches or it doesn’t, right? But what if you need more than just “valid” or “invalid” as a response? What if you could know exactly what part of the address is off, like a misspelled street name or an unconfirmed vanity city (like Hollywood), and why it isn’t considered valid? What if part of an address needed to change in order to make it a mailable, valid address? We think you’d want to know that, too.
AI address validation: Can you really verify an address with AI?
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson on September 22, 2025
AI address validation (also referred to as AI address verification) is the sometimes unpredictable and inaccurate process of checking that an address is valid or verified using Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, and more.
Get the most out of US Address Verification: Are you using the 55 points of metadata?
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson on September 10, 2025
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.
How address data became Fabletics's (and others') secret sauce
By Andrew Townsend, Bailey Hendrickson on August 20, 2025
Address data accuracy isn't just about getting mail delivered. Having quality address data will directly impact revenue, compliance, and customer experience. In a recent webinar , we explored real-world customer stories showing how companies across industries leverage address verification and geocoding to solve expensive problems and unlock new opportunities. Healthcare data: Compliance and accuracy at scale Curatus , a healthcare data provider, faced a critical challenge with provider directory accuracy.
USPS Intelligent Mail® barcode - How it works and why it matters
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson on August 5, 2025
Learn the USPS Intelligent Mail® barcode (IMb)—what it is, how it works, and why it matters. Discover IMb tracking, discounts, and how Smarty generates them.
Build address data into your health insurance platform to stay HIPAA and ACA compliant
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson on July 29, 2025
Your product might be HIPAA and ACA-compliant in theory, but a mistyped ZIP Code or invalid apartment number can still trigger privacy violations, eligibility errors, and failed mailings. Misdirected mail is explicitly named in HIPAA breach cases. For example, the Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has publicly cited misrouted or misaddressed mail as a cause of HIPAA breaches in their breach portal . Aetna paid $1. 15 million in 2018 for a mailing breach where envelopes revealed sensitive information to the wrong recipients.
Improving user/customer experience in every industry with clean address data
By Brent Francom, Bailey Hendrickson on July 21, 2025
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.
Data integrity: The life raft of modern insurance
By Ryan Muir, Bailey Hendrickson on July 3, 2025
Insurance is drowning in data. Some of it’s a goldmine, but much of it’s misleading or incomplete. The sheer volume of information available today—third-party databases, public records, customer input—means that insurers are often using data they can’t fully trust. That’s a big deal. Faulty data leads to underpriced policies. It also leads to overpriced premiums, which turn away potential customers and damage NPS, as well as allows your teams to build faulty risk models. This ultimately leads to destabilized portfolios and paying out more than your fair share in claims, potentially leading to a bankrupt program rather than a profitable one.
New cards, new challenges | How Klarna & PayPal’s card launch highlights the need for reliable card issuance
By Ben Roden, Brielle Paul on June 16, 2025
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.
How address verification and rooftop geocoding enhance risk analysis
By Ryan Muir, Brielle Paul on June 9, 2025
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.
Solving the global healthcare address verification problem
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson on June 4, 2025
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 companies Healthcare depends on addresses. While just one datapoint, addresses are foundational to so many critical healthcare management processes and vital to get correct.
Why you want "no-matches" in your address verification API results
By Jeffrey Duncan, Bailey Hendrickson on May 28, 2025
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.
Horseshoes and hand grenades: What's the real cost of “good enough” address data?
By Ben Roden, Bailey Hendrickson on May 20, 2025
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.
Is your address verification tool going off-script?
By Ben Roden, Bailey Hendrickson on May 15, 2025
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.
Address autocomplete, verification, and customer satisfaction: The unseen connection
By Kajsia McCoy, Bailey Hendrickson on May 12, 2025
“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.
Ecommerce fulfillment: How accurate address data builds trust and reduces costs
By Kajsia McCoy, Bailey Hendrickson on May 9, 2025
Getting deliveries right starts with getting addresses right. In today’s “I want it now“ world of online shopping, customers expect their orders to show up on time and without any hiccups. And the stakes are high: 87% of customers trust brands with excellent customer service . That’s a big deal when it comes to loyalty. But when something goes wrong — like a package sent to the wrong place, delayed by days, or lost in shipping limbo — trust takes a nosedive. Frustrated customers are less likely to come back and more likely to spread the word (the not-so-good kind).
How address verification helps solve medical billing address fraud
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson on April 21, 2025
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.
Why address verification is the necessary complement to autocomplete
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson on April 14, 2025
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 address Autocomplete 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 Codes Residential Delivery Indicator (RDI) to identify residential vs.
Ecommerce shipping efficiency tools you need: Address autocomplete and verification
By Kajsia McCoy, Bailey Hendrickson on March 18, 2025
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.
Patient form optimization: The $17.4 million problem
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson on March 12, 2025
Let's start with a number that should make every hospital administrator do a double take: $17. 4 million. That’s how much the average hospital loses annually—just from denied claims due to patient misidentification. This isn’t from equipment costs, not from staffing shortages, and not even from insurance negotiations—just from keeping bad patient data. Surely, our forms aren’t that bad. (Yes, they are, and stop calling me Shirley. ) But here’s the reality: According to the 2016 Ponemon Misidentification Report , 30% of hospital claims get denied, and over a third of those denials are caused by inaccurate or incomplete patient information.
The GPS adventures of a distracted developer
By Jeffrey Duncan, Bailey Hendrickson on March 11, 2025
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.
Improving address data quality in healthcare
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson on February 27, 2025
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 EHRs While 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.
Discover built-in address verification: Popular platforms with Smarty integrations
By Andrew Townsend, Bailey Hendrickson on February 26, 2025
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 .
Falling out of love with your address data solution?
By Brent Francom, Bailey Hendrickson on February 14, 2025
There are plenty of address data solutions in the sea. You might need to let them off the hook if: Their data accuracy is suffering Too many false positives Spotty 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 systems They don’t have an accurate address autocomplete solution Your 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.
Global game-changer: Level up your customer retention in 2025
By Andrew Townsend, Bailey Hendrickson on February 6, 2025
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: Boosting your bottom line
By Kajsia McCoy, Bailey Hendrickson on January 29, 2025
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).
How I reduced my returned mail from 27% to 1% using address autocomplete
By Andrew Townsend on January 13, 2025
The following is based on a true story. Some of the names and relationships have been changed to protect the anonymity of individuals and companies. However, the numbers are 100% accurate. In 2023, I wanted to mail some really fancy cards to 165 businesses. I collected their addresses by asking for them or finding them in their online listing and collected them all in a neat little row. Then, I went a step further and ran these addresses through Smarty's Bulk Address Validation. Everything was set and perfect.
The ROI of accurate healthcare address validation: Stop hemorrhaging red on your financial statements
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson on January 8, 2025
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 cons Con: Increased claim denials and organizational costs Pro: Reduced claim denials and reprocessing costs Con: Increasing patient match error rates Pro: Improved patient matching and data quality Con: Complicated billing and collections processes Pro: Streamlined billing and collections capabilities Con: Exposure to legal liabilities Pro: Enhanced regulatory compliance and risk aversion Con: Misplaced market strategy Pro: Data-driven decision-making and market insights Epilogue: Avoiding the pain (see our summarized financial savings) Healthcare address validation pros and cons There’s a pro and a con associated with having (or not having 🫣) accurate address data in your healthcare systems.
From cart to commitment: Ultimate ecommerce checkout guide
By Kajsia McCoy, Bailey Hendrickson on January 3, 2025
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 experience A smooth checkout makes all the difference.
The API whisperer: How to analyze Smarty's API output like a pro
By Andrew Townsend on December 18, 2024
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.
Computer Security Day
By Dan Lambourne, Bailey Hendrickson on November 30, 2024
Here is a day to consider protecting sensitive data, whether it's names, addresses, social security numbers, telephone numbers, email addresses, driver's license numbers, passport numbers, financial data, or biometric records! Today's the day to double-check your systems and ensure accurate information management. It’s Computer Security Day, baby! 2-factor authentication? Check. Fingerprint and facial recognition? Check. Passwords over 15 characters long with alternating capital and lowercase letters, symbols, and numbers? Check! Your IT team is metaphorically making you double-pull on that yellow tab to ensure you’re strapped in securely.
2025 and beyond: The future of CX
By Kajsia McCoy, Bailey Hendrickson on November 18, 2024
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.
Get more Black Friday & Cyber Monday sales using address data
By Kajsia McCoy, Bailey Hendrickson on November 12, 2024
Webinar recap: The holiday sales race is almost on, and if you’re not prepared with your checkout game plan, you might be left behind with a sea of cart abandonments and “Where’s my order?” calls. But fear not! We recently held a webinar with address data experts Caroline Roweton and Brent Francom to talk about the ways bad address data can WRECK your holliday sales bump. They covered 7 ways you can use address data tools like autocomplete and address verification to crush the competition faster than a Black Friday doorbuster crowd will crush your beautiful holiday displays.
Boo! Scary street names in horror movies
By Kajsia McCoy, Bailey Hendrickson on October 16, 2024
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.
Standardizing country information: Easier said than done
By Jeffrey Duncan, Bailey Hendrickson on October 10, 2024
At first glance, standardizing country information seems like a straightforward task. After all, how complicated can it be to manage country codes and names? However, once you start diving into the complexities—multiple users, various languages, diacritics, and more—it becomes clear that this process is far from simple. What if Germany has a different name for France than France does because of language barriers between German and French? (They do. The name “France” in German is “Frankreich,” but “France” in French is “France.
National Smarties® Day
By Ben Roden, Bailey Hendrickson on October 2, 2024
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.
Keep ‘em coming back: The simple strategy you may be missing for customer retention
By Kajsia McCoy, Bailey Hendrickson on September 24, 2024
Everybody in ecommerce, marketing, or sales knows that it’s not just about the 1st sale–you want customers to come back—a lot. On the surface level, it seems fairly simple to understand why. #MoreMoney 💸 Return customers liked their first interaction with your company and product so much, they’ve returned to purchase from you a second time. There’s no set schedule to when they’ll return again, and they may only make one more purchase. Repeat customers are loyal customers who keep coming back again and again.
Programmers don't fully understand addresses
By Andrew Townsend, Bailey Hendrickson on September 20, 2024
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.
Marrying accelerated insurance claims with address data
By Ryan Muir, Bailey Hendrickson on September 5, 2024
Remember that phrase we all used in middle school, “Well, if you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?” Well, we couldn’t agree more. Address data and insurance claims have been partners in an ever-evolving landscape of technology and property for years. Insurance claims rely on geocoding to find the exact location, and property data is used to assess the property's condition and attached amenities before losses. Efficiently deploying adjusters and accurately assessing damage is impossible without accurate address data.
An interview with Smarty’s experts on the new Excel plugin
By Andrew Townsend on September 3, 2024
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.
Enhancing underwriting efficiencies with address data
By Ryan Muir, Bailey Hendrickson on August 20, 2024
For underwriting efficiencies and commercial insurance success, the accuracy and reliability of data are crucial. Accurate data improves the risk assessment process and optimizes the overall workflow, saving both time and money. Leveraging Smarty's high-quality address data solutions, precise rooftop geocoding, address verification with PUIDs, and address autocomplete provides a significant advantage in improving insurance underwriting processes. The significance of a single rooftop geocoding vendor Traditional geocoding cascades pose challenges.
Effortless address validation in Excel: No coding needed
By Andrew Townsend on August 2, 2024
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 plugin Our 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.
Leveraging Smarty's address intelligence and geocoding tools to mitigate insurance losses
By Brent Francom, Bailey Hendrickson on July 31, 2024
The U. S. homeowner’s insurance segment is facing unprecedented challenges, marked by the worst underwriting results since at least 2000. According to a recent report by AM Best , the segment experienced a staggering $15. 2 billion underwriting loss in 2023, more than double the losses seen in the previous year. They credit this dramatic increase in insured losses primarily to population migration into areas where weather-related events occur more frequently, coupled with rising urbanization and development in regions susceptible to natural perils.
SmartyKey® now in US Address Verification and why that rocks
By John Hickey, Bailey Hendrickson on July 29, 2024
Up until now, SmartyKey®, a persistent unique identifier for all 210+ million addresses in Smarty’s database, has only been available to customers who purchased US Master Address List or geocoding products . We’re happy to announce that, as of today, it's also available at no extra cost with US Address Verification . Yippee! But … what is SmartyKey? SmartyKey is the persistent, unique identifier of your dreams. It remains constant through the vast majority of address changes It’s an incredible tool that improves data hygiene and management processes by providing a historical view of the same location over time.
Black Friday ready: Real-time ecommerce address verification
By Andrew Townsend, Bailey Hendrickson on July 26, 2024
Don’t panic. We’re not telling you to set up your Christmas lights or tune into your favorite holiday station in July. We’re not crazy here (mostly). But also, do your thang. What we ARE saying is that if you’re in ecommerce, you know just as well as Smarty does that you have to start prepping for those big holidays months in advance. Today is as good as any to see how setting up the right real-time address capabilities, like suggesting verified customer addresses as they type, can get your business in the black on Black Friday.
When to use strict vs enhanced matching in your address API
By Andrew Townsend on May 20, 2024
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 mode Introduction to enhanced mode FAQ for enhanced mode Webinar about "enhanced mode " Understanding strict mode Strict 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.
6 ways telecom & internet companies leverage address data
By John Hickey on February 14, 2024
Webinar recap: In a recent webinar, we showed how address data tools help managers improve business performance in the following areas: Network Planning Asset Management Customer Acquisition and Retention Data Blending Mail and Parcel Delivery Fraud Reduction 1. Network planning Accurate address data plays a critical role in overcoming network planning challenges. We presented solutions at each of the following steps in the network planning process: Clean existing address data with US Address Verification Keep incoming data clean with US Address Autocomplete Map all addresses using our US Master Address List and hyper-accurate US Rooftop Geocoding Add context to maps with enriched US Property Data Analyze, get spatial insights, and make confident business decisions 2.
Smarty's 2023 address data deep dive: Trends, challenges, and breakthroughs
By Andrew Townsend on January 23, 2024
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 things We 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.
Optimizing telecom with geocoding & address verification
By John Hickey on January 15, 2024
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.
Mastering international address verification and autocomplete with Smarty™
By Andrew Townsend on December 12, 2023
With 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.
Tips for setting up a geocoding API recap
By Andrew Townsend on November 2, 2023
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.
Smarty's Excel & Google Sheets plugins for geocoding & address validation
By Landon Fackrell on September 26, 2023
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 basics Functionality Getting started Q&A The basics We want to make it easier for businesses to validate addresses and retrieve necessary data efficiently.
USPS CASS Cycle O: A comprehensive guide
By Jeffrey Duncan on September 20, 2023
Introducing USPS CASS Cycle O, enhancing address validation with precision and efficiency. Find all you need to know about Cycle O now.
Smarty™ named a finalist at the SaaS Awards for Excellence in Shipping, Inventory, and Vehicle Logistics category
By Trent Howell on August 22, 2023
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.
Celebrate World Wide Web Day
By Andrew Townsend on August 1, 2023
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.
Address verification reduces overall cost of shipping & routing
By John Hickey on June 14, 2023
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.
Reduce fraud and reputation damage with address verification
By John Hickey on June 7, 2023
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 fraud 1.
Smarty named as "Data Intelligence Leader" across address verification and e-commerce categories
By Trent Howell on May 23, 2023
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: Leader Easiest To Use Most Implementable Easiest Admin Best Results Best Relationship Best Usability Highest User Adoption Best Meets Requirements Momentum Leader G2's address verification category awards are based on customer feedback and verified reviews from nearly 1,000 customers.
How many false positives is your address tool spitting out?
By Jeffrey Duncan on March 9, 2023
Address false positives are dangerous for businesses because it can lead to lost revenue, increased liability, and upset customers Smarty has the solutions!
Lessons learned from validating over 440 billion addresses in 2022
By Andrew Townsend on February 1, 2023
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.
Revenue-driving benefits of clean address data
By John Hickey on January 31, 2023
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.
Pros and cons of the fuzzy address matching algorithm
By John Hickey on January 17, 2023
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.
What is address parsing and how can it help your bottom line?
By John Hickey on January 6, 2023
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.
Common problems when working with address data
By Andrew Townsend on November 29, 2022
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. Standardization Standardizing 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.
Rising parcel shipping costs 2022: How to cut your shipping expenses
By Wes Arnold on November 21, 2022
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.
Helpful hints to authenticating your APIs
By Andrew Townsend on November 2, 2022
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 about Kent 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.
New QGIS Geocoding Plugin: Rooftop-accurate geocoding for US addresses
By Wes Arnold on August 17, 2022
QGIS is an open-source GIS (geographical information system) platform that helps millions of users throughout the world map, visualize, and share geographic information. Use cases range from mapping water usage to selecting new retail store locations. It's a highly capable tool for GIS professionals, and it's free. Because QGIS is open source, individuals and organizations are free to build and offer plugins to help users accomplish specialized tasks. This extensive library of plugins offers users a wide range of tools that allow them to build maps for very specific needs.
Using a master address list to improve asset tracking
By John Hickey on August 10, 2022
Companies purchase national master address lists to use in many ways for many reasons. Though some might assume the only reason to purchase a national address list is to blanket-mail or ship things to people not already in a company’s database, the lists are extensively used for asset location tracking, resource planning, market intelligence, operations optimization, business strategy, and decision-making. Let’s take a closer look at the first non-mailing use case: asset location tracking. Asset location tracking Many companies have physical equipment located throughout their service regions.
Smarty unveils high-accuracy QGIS Geocoding Plugin
By Trent Howell on June 22, 2022
Smarty unveils unmatched QGIS geocoding accuracy with release of geocoding plugin - US address PROVO, 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.
Address data masterclass webinar recap
By Andrew Townsend on May 23, 2022
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 validation What 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.
Why validation & accuracy matter for geocoding APIs
By Davin Perkins on May 10, 2022
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 validation How 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.
International address lookup: 3 steps to cleaner data
By Wes Arnold on December 22, 2021
For address validation, an international address lookup is the process of matching foreign addresses against the local authoritative postal databases to ensure they are real and mailable. The process commonly corrects typos, parses the addresses into its component parts and standardizes it to match countries' approved formats. The task of looking up and combining data sets for thousands, or even millions of international addresses is a daunting one. Just trying to keep track of each country’s valid address format alone, is a time-consuming challenge.
Better UX with International Address Autocomplete
By Trent Howell on October 19, 2021
Provo, UT - Smarty, a leader in location data intelligence, is pleased to announce the release of International Address Autocomplete to help companies better serve their global customers and users. Smarty International Address Autocomplete predicts global addresses in real time while users complete forms with address fields. Whether companies use address forms for customers on a website or for employees via internal applications, International Address Autocomplete streamlines the data-entry process through predictive analytics while the user types.
Mailing address vs physical address: What’s the difference
By Jeffrey Duncan on August 11, 2021
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.
SmartyStreets adds 15 million US addresses and better match rates
By Trent Howell on July 20, 2021
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.
What is a Residential Delivery Indicator (RDI), and where to find it
By Brent Francom, Bailey Hendrickson on September 11, 2019
What is RDI, and where can you find it? Use our single address validation tool or API to see if an address is residential or commercial. Try it now!
Address data management "like a boss" - Smarty
By Jeffrey Duncan on April 6, 2018
What bad address data is costing you | How to
fix it.
Can I validate an address using addMarker with the Google Maps API?
March 5, 2017
The addMarker method in the Google Maps API doesn't offer address validation. However, we'll show you a workaround by geocoding the address first. Learn now.
How often should I re-verify addresses? - Smarty
March 5, 2017
How often should I reverify addresses in my database?
Is move-update/NCOA required? - Smarty
March 4, 2017
Are you wondering if Move-Update/NCOA is Required? We've gathered dos and don'ts, as well as some helpful tips to save you time and money. Find out how!
Using regular expressions for street addresses
By Aaron Beenfield on May 17, 2016
Using regular expressions for street addresses? There is a better way.
Finding a quality address validation API
May 17, 2016
Looking for an Address Validation API? Here are some things to consider before you commit.
What is address validation/verification?
By Brielle Paul, John Hickey on February 4, 2016
Address verification is a little more complicated than checking addresses against an authoritative database. Here’s how it typically works, in four steps.
America's sex offender registries
May 26, 2015
A deceitfully comforting illusion In 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.
Appendix: America's sex offender registries
May 26, 2015
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.
Using USPS address verification to prevent fraud
November 10, 2014
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.
Google retracts physical address requirement for Play Store developers
By Rob Green on September 23, 2014
Must have address to play Every 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.