Buyer’s Guide:Best Practices for

MarketinG dataBase cleanse

2Buyer’s Guide: Best Practices for Marketing Database Cleanse

executive suMMary

In partnership with Ascend2, ZoomInfo conducted a study, entitled “Data-Driven

Marketing Benchmarks For Success,” in which 234 marketing professionals were

surveyed. The results showed that even “very successful” data-driven marketers

identified “Improving data quality” as the top challenge to achieving goals.

This should come as no surprise. Multiple studies have confirmed that regardless of

industry, revenue or company size, poor data quality is an epidemic for marketing

teams. The problem is further exacerbated within enterprise organizations whose

Customer Relationship Management software (CRM) store legacy marketing databases

full of leads, contacts, and accounts.

In order to prevent the natural decay of contact and company data in their marketing

database, our study found that 79% of “very successful” data-driven marketers

partner with B2B Contact Data Vendors. With the aid of a B2B Contact Data Provider’s

database and real-time cleansing tools, marketers are empowered to proactively

protect and enhance customer and prospect data.

In fact, 80% of these organizations cleanse their marketing database at least once

a month. The end result? Over 80% of these organizations rated the quality of their

marketing database as “good” or “somewhat good,” while just 3% rate their database as

“very poor.”

The value proposition should seem clear. But this still is your database – a massive

asset to your organization, even if it is rife with holes and inaccurate information.

Suffice to say, entrusting a vendor to help maintain its accuracy and completeness is

no ordinary engagement.

Cause & Effect: B2B Contact Data Provider

Adoption79% of “Very Successful” Data-Driven Marketers Use B2B Contact Data Providers

Result80% of this segment rated the quality of their marketing database “good” or “somewhat good”

79%62%

18%80%

Use Case62% cleanse their data once a month; 18% cleanse customer data daily.

3Buyer’s Guide: Best Practices for Marketing Database Cleanse

aBout this Buyer’s Guide

In an effort to drive transparency to such a critical

initiative, ZoomInfo has produced the following eBook,

which aims to help marketing leadership understand the

following best practices around cost and value:

1. Buying Considerations: Review of important

terminology, metrics, and pricing models related to

database management projects that your buying

committee should understand BEFORE entering an

agreement with a B2B Contact Data Provider

2. Value: From contact appends and cleanse

functionality to database segmentation, a review

what to look for in a vendor-supplied, comprehensive

database audit report.

4Buyer’s Guide: Best Practices for Marketing Database Cleanse

BuyinG considerations: key terMs, Metrics & PricinG Models

B2B ContaCt Data ManageMent use Cases

Make no mistake, even if your organization desperately needs to clean its database,

you should control the entire process. If properly vetted, success is in your hands. To

that point, it’s important that your buying committee understands the terminology

related to contact data management.

aCtion iteMs relateD to DataBase ManageMent

1. update: B2B Contact Data Provider updates piece of inaccurate

information within contact and account record

2. append: B2B Contact Data Provider fills in empty contact and account

fields with up-to-date information

3. Confirm: B2B Contact Data Provider confirms accuracy of field in

contact and account records

4. Segment: B2B Contact Data Provider organizes contacts and accounts

by common demographic/firmographic critieria

VenDor analysis: essential MetriCs your Buying CoMMittee neeDs to unDerstanD

MatCH rateThe rate at which vendors can match information in their database to customer’s

database. The higher the match rate, the more a vendor can help cleanse, append,

confirm contact and company data.

What’s important to understand is that all “matches” are not created equal. Therefore

it is CRITICAL to establish precisely which fields a vendor matches to and if the

correlation between databases brings in new information that meets your needs.

For instance, let’s pretend your main goal is to cleanse and append all the email

addresses within your marketing database. If a vendor claims to match to a record, but

only has the contact’s company address or another extraneous field, then is it really a

match? No, not at all.

Cost Per MatCH (CPM)Another valuable metric in a data management project, CPM is defined by the

actual cost you are spending per updated record. A vendor’s match rate directly

impacts the cost per match.

5Buyer’s Guide: Best Practices for Marketing Database Cleanse

key Metrics related to contact data ManaGeMent Projects

saMPle Cost analysis

Let’s examine two common pricing models B2B

Contact Data Providers use with data management

projects through a hypothetical engagement.

Pretend two organizations, Company A and

Company B, each have an identical marketing

database of 200,000 contacts. Marketing leadership

in both companies are well aware these contacts have

plenty of missing or inaccurate information, including

email addresses and phone numbers.

CoMPany a - FixeD Cost

Company A engages with a B2B Contact Vendor

that uses a “Fixed Cost” pricing model for database

appends. Here is how the project actually prices out:

- The total cost in this scenario is based on the size of

the database a vendor is appending.

- Let’s assume that with 200,000 records, the vendor

prices out the project at $.10 per contact, which leads

to an up-front total cost of $20,000.

- The vendor then runs a match analysis and brings

back 50,000 updated records.

Note: Remember, with

this pricing model,

we’re still not even

sure what constitutes

a match – which,

depending on your

needs, is a huge drawback.

CoMPany B - Cost Per MatCH

Company B engages with a B2B Contact Vendor that

uses a “Cost Per Match” pricing model for database

appends. Here is how the project actually prices out:

- The cost is based on the number of records a

vendor can actually match to.

- Since size of the database is irrelevant at this point,

the vendor takes 200,000 records, runs the append

project, and returns 80,000 contacts which can be

updated.

- With an exceptional match

rate, the vendor prices

out the project at $.35

per match, which leads

to a total (potential)

cost of $28,000.

Total Cost Per Record:

$0.40Total Cost

Per Record:

$0.35

6Buyer’s Guide: Best Practices for Marketing Database Cleanse

key Metrics related to contact data ManaGeMent Projects

Best PraCtiCe: get Free analysis oF MatCH rate anD Cost Per MatCH Prior to entering agreeMent

Let’s review a few important elements to consider in the engagement examples given

above: First and foremost, remember, the detail of what baseline data is required to

constitute a match rate can be open to interpretation. Fortunately, leading B2B Contact

Data Providers will run a match assessment free of cost at the outset of your project.

The result of the assessment should be an easy-to-understand report that precisely

defines what information within a record is being appended, updated, and confirmed.

We will review this report in more detail in the next section of this Buyer’s Guide.

wHat iF BotH VenDors MatCHeD uP to tHe saMe reCorDs?

Next, as far as this particular example detailed on the previous page is concerned, two

drawbacks occurred with Company A’s engagement. Clearly, the organization missed

out on an opportunity to update 30,000 more records. Secondly, $.05 difference in

cost per updated record may not seem expensive, but at scale the pennies add up.

For instance, let’s assume the vendor serving Company B could only update the same

amount of records (50,000 contacts) as the vendor working with Company A. The

difference in CPM adds up to $2,500 or 13% of the project’s total cost.

Total Cost (for 50K contacts)

Company A

$20K

Company B

$17.5K

$0

$5K

$10K

$15K

$25K

$20K

7Buyer’s Guide: Best Practices for Marketing Database Cleanse

how to MaxiMize value of your contact data ManaGeMent Project

oVerView oF DataBase auDit analysis

After developing a shortlist of B2B Contact Vendors

to engage for your contact data management project,

you should not only consider previously mentioned

pricing metrics, but have a thorough understanding

of the exact information that will be either appended,

updated, or confirmed by the vendor.

Leading vendors will add transparency to the

engagement by providing a comprehensive report

about the current health of your database, as well

as the information they can append, update, and

confirm, as well as other key findings.

Note: This is a critical piece to the engagement

process for any database append project.

Reputable vendors will offer this report to

potential customers prior to entering an

agreement.

Best PraCtiCe: wHat your DataBase auDit sHoulD inCluDe

Engagement Scenario: For further clarity, let’s review a sample version of this report from a fictional vendor.

Figure 1 “Match rates”: The report should help potential customers immediately understand the overall match rate

that this vendor can match to on a “people” (contact) and “company” level. However, as previously discussed, a match

rate is not nearly enough insight to determine whether a vendor can meet your needs. The report should go deeper

and get into specifics.

Vendor Match Rates (Fig. 1)

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 100%90%

CompanyMatch

Input Company Records: 538,609Vendor Matched Records: 425,499 | Unique Contacts Matched: 158,411

79%

Person Match

Input People Records: 538,609 Vendor Matched Records: 383,431 | Unique Contacts Matched: 370,617

71%

8Buyer’s Guide: Best Practices for Marketing Database Cleanse

COMPARE NEW UPDATE CONFIRMED EXISTING EMPTY GRAND TOTAL

First Name

Last Name

Title

Function

Email

Direct Dial

Industry

2 · 0.00%

1 · 0.00%

4.160 · 0.86%

209,342 · 43.06%

145,743 · 29.98%

358,315 · 61.81%

26,785 · 5.51%

11,172 · 2.30%

244,601 · 50.31%

73,063 · 15.03%

22,473 · 4.62%

295,623 · 60.80%

311,232 · 64.01%

49,452 · 10.17%

138,046 · 28.39%

7,855 · 1.62%

163,791 · 33.69%

163,789 · 33.69%

165,618 · 34.06%

275,093 · 56.58%

44,181 · 9.09%

1 · 0.00%

8 · 0.00%

22,371 · 4.60%

276,860 · 56.94%

265,950 · 54.70%

127,887 · 26.30%

486,202 · 100.00%

486,202 · 100.00%

486,202 · 100.00%

486,202 · 100.00%

486,202 · 100.00%

486,202 · 100.00%

486,202 · 100.00%

how to MaxiMize value of your contact data ManaGeMent Project

Figure 2 “Information Matrix”: Here’s where transparency comes into the picture

in a contact data management project. A vendor could claim to match to a record, but

may only have irrelevant information that doesn’t meet your needs.

Record Gap Analysis (Fig. 2)

NEW: Vendor able to append data to empty Customer record field | UPDATE: Vendor has updated data in Customer record field | CONFIRMED: Customer and Vendor has same data in record fieldEXISTING: Customer has data in record field, Vendor does not | EMPTY: Neither Customer nor Vendor has data in record field

Be wary of vendors that do not explicitly reveal exactly which pieces of information

they can append, update, confirm or cannot provide In the below chart, you can clearly

see the types of information the fictional can provide this hypothetical customer with.

9Buyer’s Guide: Best Practices for Marketing Database Cleanse

Updated

13%22,473

Confirmed

4%7,855

New

83%145,743

how to MaxiMize value of your contact data ManaGeMent Project

Figure 3 “Contact Data overview”: Just like all matches are not created equal,

neither is all types of data. Most organizations in need of a database management

cleanse want to ensure contact information is accurate so that they can execute

Contact Data Overview (Fig. 3)

marketing campaigns and ensure sales has information needed to follow up on

converted leads. Consequently, vendors should dedicate a section of their match

report strictly to contact information.

Email Status Direct Dial Status

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

100%

90%

Vendor is able to UPDATE: 73,063 emailsCONFIRM: 138,046 emails

Updated

35%73,063

Confirmed

65%138,046

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

100%

90%

Vendor is able to ADD: 145,743 direct dial phone numbersUPDATE: 22,273 direct dial phone numbersCONFIRM: 7,855 direct dial phone numbers

10Buyer’s Guide: Best Practices for Marketing Database Cleanse

how to MaxiMize value of your contact data ManaGeMent Project

Figure 4 “Persona & industry insights”: Chances are,

your organization understands its Total Addressable

Market (TAM) and buyer personas. However, in this

complimentary report the B2B Contact Provider

should provide insights into the characteristics of your

marketing database.

Moreover, vendors can turn these insights into action

after the initial database cleanse and append is

complete. Examples of database segmentation can be

based on customized firmographic and demographic

criteria. With this level of organizations, your marketing

team is better empowered to develop and execute

personalized campaigns.

Database Segmentation Examples (Fig. 4)

Management Level

Non-Manager

Manager

Director

VP-Level

C-Level

0% 10% 20% 30%

Human-Resource

Engineering & Technical

Operations

VP-Level

Sales

Marketing

Medical & Health

Legal

Top Level Job Function

0% 20% 40% 50%30%10%

Headcount Range

<100%

20%

15%

10%

5%

10-20 20-50 50-100 100-250 250-500 1K-5K500-1K 5K-10K 10K+

11Buyer’s Guide: Best Practices for Marketing Database Cleanse

conclusion: you can control success throuGh a transParent Process

Every component explained in this Enterprise Buyer’s Guide should be provided to you free of charge by a B2B Contact Data Provider. Again, all information is not created equal.

Thus, it’s critical that you not only understand the sheer volume of records each vendor can append, update, confirm, or segment, but also the exact types of information within

those records they can clean.

If your organization needs its database cleansed, look no further than ZoomInfo. With a database of 140 million professionals and nearly 13 million companies ZoomInfo has

helped companies maintain and enhance their databases for over a decade.

“It’s not enough to grow your database. You have to keep your data clean – and do both in a way that’s cost effective for the

company. ZoomInfo has made those challenges a lot less daunting.”

Anna Glushkovsky, Data Marketing Manager, Eloqua

“Bad data was handcuffing the sales, marketing, channel, client development, field services, customer experience, and

sales operations teams, ultimately making a big impact on our productivity, people, and revenue. ZoomInfo’s accurate data allowed the sales team to spend more time selling and less time researching.”

Sean Goldie, Senior Segment Marketing Manager, Concur

Accelerate your growth with ZoomInfo. Visit www.zoominfo.com or call 866-904-9666 to find out how.