Melissa Data Quality Reviews

We use Melissa Data Global Address Verification Web Service for address validation and parsing into individual attributes.

By validating and parsing the addresses our customers submit to us, we have reduced the number of addressing errors encountered during our processing.

Address validation and parsing are most valuable to us, as we require the address segmented into its individual attributes for processing.

Address validation and parsing in a few countries have room for improvement.

The solution has been very stable.

No issues with scalability.

Tech support has been very prompt and helpful with any and all questions and issues we have submitted.

Yes, we had a previous solution. We switched because we were looking for a more global solution.

We required significant field mapping on our side due to our country specific needs. Understanding how Melissa responded with its standard field for each country took some time to internalize. However, the initial set up was quite simple.

Fully understand your volume, both monthly and annually. Speak with a Melissa account manager, they will put together an effective solution to meet your needs.

AddressDoctor, Experian, PostcodeAnywhere.

• Read the API documentation thoroughly.
• Understand how you are currently capturing address information.
• Test multiple addresses per country to ensure you can consume the results effectively.

We do hundreds of thousands to millions of customer deliveries. By using Melissa Data, we are able to scrub and verify, then better validate the end customer's address to ensure a more consistent delivery of products. 

We only use the address hygiene tool, so I can't really comment on their other tools. We did look at their email verification as well, because we also use another service for it. We do not switched to them, but it was not due to the functionality of that service. It was just that it required some reengineering on our end to do so. We did not feel that we had the right capacity to do it at that time. All I can say is we use the address hygiene service, and we have been pleased with it. 

An area for improvement is where an end customer's address is not found in the Melissa Data database, even though it is a valid address.

I would like a little more intelligence around handling addresses that are not in the system and providing back some better options on how to present the corrections to the user.

Over the lifetime of us using it, we have only had one issue where there seemed to be an availability issue. We use it as a service, and the service was unavailable. It was for a very short period of time. I think part of a day, something like that. Otherwise, it has been a very stable product, and we have not really dealt with any performance-related issues.

No issues. We do a very high volume of traffic in a condensed window during the September-October-November timeframe, and we have never had an issue with performance or scalability. 

We really have not had to use it. During the one incident I am remembering, we contacted customer support, and I don't remember if it was resolved through them, or I get the impression it was a larger issue than just affecting us, and it was resolved. So, I can't really give a great comment on that. I do not think other than that one time we have really used customer support, because we have not had a need to do so. 

Initial setup was fairly straightforward. The documentation was very good in terms of how to integrate and consume the service(s) that we use. It did not take an abundance of time to set up things on our side to use the service and incorporate it into our e-commerce platforms. So, it went very smooth. 

The pricing is okay. Like many transactional service-based platforms, I always feel that the pricing is a little bit high. I think it is competitive with other products on the market. The only complaint that I have towards it is they sell licenses based on a range of usage, and I feel those ranges are too large. As an example, we licensed a two and a half to five million range of transactions, yet we use somewhere between two and a half and three million. Therefore, we have to pay for five, even though we only use roughly half of it. 

Unfortunately, I can't remember the other products we looked at. 

Follow the documentation as it is very good. Engage with their support team as by the little bit of experience that I had with them, they were good. Be confident that the scalability and load are not going to be an issue with the services. 

We use:

• Contact Verify to cleanse customer data such as first and last name, address, email, and phone number.
• MatchUp to verify existence of people within our source data using three key attributes.

 identify valid, and better formatted, data which improves the data we store in our database

Both Contact Verify and MatchUp are valuable to us. Without cleaning the data and matching existing data, it would be challenging to accomplish our clients' requirements.

Contact Verify is very simple to use and performs very fast.

MatchUp is a more complex product and I recommend a test area before upgrading to production. Performance can change from version to version.

Sometimes you need to reboot the server to apply patches. No product is completely error-free after upgrading.

MatchUp seems to be single threaded, and limits the amount of data that can be processed automatically.

Support is very good and they spend the time you need to understand the tool to accomplish your goals. Escalation to level 2 or 3 if necessary.

Very straightforward, point and click.

Spend time learning how it works. Perform testing to understand the return codes.

We use Rooftop Geocode files, FTP batch file upload, for data annotation.

It's an enabling technology for us.

Accuracy. Our downstream data analytics solutions depend on quality data.

Speed of delivery/ease of use. They advertise a 24-hour, next business day turn time on data annotation, but I’ve found it is usually closer to 72 hours. This is still excellent, just make sure you add in the appropriate fluff to your delivery timelines. 

No issues.

No issues.

Eight out of 10.

Yes, we had a previous solution. We switched because of the cost.

Straightforward, as long as you’re used to working with large tabular data.

Quality comes with a cost which is updated frequently.

On smaller batch runs they have an Excel plugin called Listware which can get you the data instantly, but it’s pricier per datum. Once you get above a few thousand line items it’s better to do the FPT batch, wait the extra days, and save the costs.

We did evaluate other products, but the particulars are confidential.

Know the question you are asking. More data doesn’t give better solutions if it’s the wrong data for the question.

Validating customer addresses.

Helps our organization provide accurate address information to our customers for direct mailing (household) and other campaigns they want to do.

Ability to validate customer addresses.

Validating more addresses accurately.

No issues.

No issues.

Always responsive and helpful.

It was pretty straightforward to set up on Windows. Then we move to Linux and it was more complex, but still manageable.

We've only used this one.

• Understand what you want to do.
• Know the limitations of the product.

We use Address Object, Phone Object, Name Object, Email Object (current versions) for address verification for package shipping.

Decreased chance of incorrect shipping addresses and, thus, returned packages.

• Address/county data lookup
• Address correction

• More/better search tools are needed.
• State and local tax data would be nice.

No issues.

No issues.

Nine out of 10.

This is our first solution.

Setup was straightforward. Could have more API examples for different languages.

Depends on situation. We prefer to have data onsite, but some might prefer web access.

Google, USPS, SmartyStreets.

Search all options and decide which is the best fit.

Data merge, purge, quality, and append.

I was able to dedupe millions of records in the past, and append the most recent email.

• The flexibility of their products
• Services for all manner of data-driven organizations, no matter their size or budget.

Better email append coverage (but every vendor struggles with this).

No issues. Everything worked as expected, and exceeded expectations.

It depends on whether you can run extremely large lists on multiple servers. Any sort of dedupe or fuzzy match is processing intensive, regardless of the vendor.

I requested a hands-on webinar and received it the same day.

I will continue to use Discover RainKing, as well as D&B for firmographics, Synthio (formerly Social123), HG Data, Reachable, Smarte, GoodData. Each vendor has unique strengths and weaknesses. Melissa Data is often best for the price, quality, thoroughness, and speed.

For my particular need, it required about an hour to learn their online system, but they also provided a live webinar session – fantastic!

Be sure to determine how the data is priced (record-based versus credit-based or some hybrid of data and services).

Melissa's sales executives can be of tremendous value in pricing and best practices.

I still use D&B, Synthio, Discover.org and RainKing, but Melissa Data is always a contender for B2C data needs.

Regarding advice to others looking for similar solutions:

1. Explore Melissa's products and services online.
2. Speak with one of their sales reps.
3. Schedule an online demo.

I rate it a 10 out of 10, based on value, quality, speed, and features.

Start with Melissa Data, explore a few of their competitors, and then decide based on these factors: data type (B2B or B2C) / pricing / data quality / data fields / system utility / customer support.

Looking up cell phone numbers and demographic data.

Allows us to identify cell phones before dialing, and giving us data about callers.

Melissa Data Personator and Global Phone Check.

Needs more specific data in a single lookup.

No issues whatsoever.

Have not tested, but sure the calls can be scaled.

Very good. All engineers are top-notch.

Whitepages.com and other sites.

Straightforward. Good API documentation.

Check out all options and get what you need.

We evaluated Whitepages.com.

Work with an integration partner.

Parsing address data from a single field.

Address parsing. Our other software does not have this functionality.

Better results in parsing, as described on the website.

No issues.

No issues.

Tech support itself is okay, but they could not achieve desired results.

We switched because we were doing it manually.

It would be nice if it also had a user interface, as it did in years past.

Test the product thoroughly before buying.

There are no other viable options.

Did not work as advertised.

Understand its limitations.

We need to verify NCOA for sending out bulk mailings.

NCOA address verification was a requirement from USPS to send out the mailers. This was the only option that charged per address, which was extremely helpful since we are a small non-profit school. We didn't need the 10,000+ list verification services that the other providers offered.

Enables us to send out bulk mailings when we need to verify NCOA.

Once a list is processed it gives a report, which is great. However, if there was a section with report history, that would be very helpful.

If I had multiple Excel files open and ran Listware it would crash Excel, charge the credits, and not save the results.

No issues.

I haven't needed it.

It was unique given the type of application, but it was easy to set up. Plug and play.

By far the best pricing and licensing option we have found for a small organization, since we can buy credits in small increments and they don't expire.

We evaluated top results in Google.

Pick what fits your needs, ask around.