Address Validation Tools

What are Address Validation Tools?

Address Validation Tools are used to verify, correct, and organize addresses and other identifying location data. They can be used to help standardize, manage, and correct addresses for mailing lists, customer relationship management (CRM) software, and from other data generation tools that gather physical address identifiers. Addresses can be sorted or corrected according to local, regional, or national rules for address formatting.

Address Validation Tools are helpful in identifying and addressing issues with incorrect customer information. This can improve delivery, shipment, or other tasks dependent on physical location. Since Address Validation Tools can cross-reference CRM, USPS, and other databases, they can be used to build more complete individual customer and household profiles.

Address Validation Tools can be thought of as a form of Data Cleansing Tools or Data Quality Software that are specialized in cleansing data related to physical addresses. Address Validation Tools tend to lack the depth or robustness in their data management of software found in those categories, but their more limited scope makes them easily adoptable and useful to businesses that rely on mail and parcel services.

Address Validation Tools Features

The most common Address Validation Tools features are:

• USPS, non-postal, and international address verification
• Automated address correction
• Data cleaning tools
• Batch data processing
• Global geocoding
• Customer profile generation
• Data deduplication tools
• Data conversion tools
• Address component searching
• Lead scoring
• Demographic segmentation
• Third-party integration and API support
• Customer checkout autocomplete features
• Customizable dashboard

Address Validation Tools Comparison

When choosing the best Address Validation Tools for you, consider the following:

Mailing assistance. If your business uses traditional mail systems, you may be interested in an Address Validation Tools with printing support features. These features include creating personalized envelopes, printing labels or shipping barcodes, or tracking shipments. These tools are usually included as part of larger software or service packages and thus tend to be comparatively more expensive.

Non-physical data management. As a general rule, products in this category efficiently manage and correct postal addresses. However, if you are interested in full suites to manage phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and other non-physical identifying data, some tools in this category offer these services as part of larger data management or integration packages.

International addresses. If international addresses are a concern, you’ll want to make sure that your chosen Address Validation Tool can handle these addresses in accordance with local or international standard parcel formatting. This is also an important consideration for security purposes, as you need to make sure that your data protection measures comply with both national and international safety standards for customer data.

Pricing Information

Many Address Validation Tools can be used for free, although with limitations on the number of addresses verified, address regions serviced, or other restrictions. Vendors ask that interested customers contact them directly for pricing. Many free demos and trials of paid services are available.