Have you Tested and Validated your data

Many businesses fail to test their data before and after the data vendor has added, appended or updated it.

The ideal approach should be that once the data is cleansed and you have zeroed in on a vendor, run a test. Select a random sample of 5,000 records and ask the vendor to run them through the data append process to append the elements you want. This test will let you get an idea on how good the match rate will be for your full file.

Matching will never be at 100 percent, but the test can let you know if the rate will be enough to produce a useful file in the 60 to 80 percent range. And, because not all data elements are likely to be appended to all records, you will be able to determine how much coverage you will get of the data elements you want the most. European Lists provides a Free Trial test to show the accuracy rate, the turnaround time, the details of the data and the support we can provide in helping you interpret the results.

You should ideally validate the results when you have selected a vendor and have your whole file processed. Use your pre-processing documentation to check that you got back all the records you sent, that the file format is what you specified and that the items you wanted appended were actually added to your file. Your vendor should provide process audit reports that tell you the match rate, the matching on different items and the details of the file you received afterward.

European Lists follows all these steps, and you may take a try with us here