• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, September 8, 2010

A new study by the DMRSGroup on compiled lists,. "Online Sources of B-to-B Data: A Comparative Analysis, 2010" reveals an evolution in how business data are collected and offered. While business data tend to be relatively accurate, the breadth of company contacts is spotty, says the report.

Ruth P. Stevens, a customer acquisition and retention consultant, Columbia University, and co-author of the study, says "... the fundamental background for this study is the general lack of confidence business marketers have in publicly available prospecting files... but, the large vendors of compiled data...  are eager as to show what they can do.

With the increased use of compiled lists, primarily culled from Internet sources, marketers now have many options when building prospecting databases, says the report. The question the study undertakes is how to choose among the various list-compiler vendors and parse their relative strengths.

One of the most striking results of the study was the differences in the volume of companies and names reported by the different list compilers. In the stone, clay and glass products category, for example:

•  D&B Selectory reported 28,630 companies
• Infogroup returned 26,853
• Jigsaw listed 10,446
• Demandbase found 4,114
•  NetProspex offered up 852

Count variance was similar for most other Standard Industrial Classification niches, such as:

• Chemicals (D&B Selectory with 33,852 companies and Jigsaw with 16,236)
•  Business services (D&B Selectory with 2,434,988 and Infogroup with 894,833)
• Communications (Jigsaw with 59,168 versus Demandbase reporting 6,072)

Count differences for actual contacts within well-known companies also varied widely. For example, when asked to provide contacts at Dell Inc:

• Demandbase found 2,161 people
• D&B Selectory returned 212
•  Jigsaw reported 7,061
•  NetProspex offered up 2,409
• Infogroup listed 199

 Stevens said, "We did find that data from these compilers was more accurate than expected, in terms of names, addresses, company name, ZIP codes...  but... there are a lot of business buyers whose records are not in these databases... the accuracy was pretty good, but the coverage was surprisingly weak... and worse this year than last... "

One weakness of the compiled lists: With individual records, the researchers assumed that vendors would provide direct phone numbers, but many provided only the general company number.

To increase the likelihood that marketers get the data they want, says the report, develop a detailed list ordering methodology. It urges marketers to understand what vendors mean by "complete" information, a definition which can vary.

Bernice Grossman, president of DMRS Group, and co-author with Stevens of the study, says "... the service was to look at the data the way b2b marketers generally look at it, about how to get complete contact data, who's out there and what does it look like in a comparative fashion... "

Recommendations from within the study parameters suggest that approaches vary as noted by vendor techniques...

Jigsaw's model of collecting business contact data consists of "crowd sourced" information. Businesspeople voluntarily list and update their own information in exchange for others' data. The result is 18 million contacts from more than 3.5 million companies-all, presumably, of businesspeople interested in being found.

 Other vendors, such as NetProspex and Demandbase, employ such techniques as DNS reverse look-up, where contacts who visit websites can be tracked back to their companies based on the organizations' Internet domain names. Like D&B, they also employ call centers to verify contact information.

Drawing from the results of the 2010 survey, the authors propose some guidelines as a check list in ordering data from compilers:

• Specify exactly what you mean when ordering data. Drill down in detail to understand what the vendor means.
• Be very specific about industry selections. Find out if the vendor uses SIC, or some kind of conversion algorithm.
•  Watch for vendor specialization by industry.
• Consider whether you want breadth of contacts or breadth of companies-or both. 
• Use reputable vendors. A number of unscrupulous firms have entered the market with spurious claims
• Conduct a comparative test before buying. Check a purchased sample against your house list or by phone, and check for high incidence of duplicates with a narrow criteria sample 

 Please visit the DMRS Group here for the "... Comparative Analysis." white paper.