Reducing Cart Abandonment Rates with data8 address validation™: The Complete Solution

According to research from the Baymard Institute[1], 69% of all eCommerce visitors abandon their shopping cart. While the research identified a number of reasons why online shoppers may abandon their cart, one of the most common cause of abandonment (28%) was a “too long / complicated checkout process”.

In order to remedy this (and, in part due to the increased use of mobile devices with tiny virtual keyboards), minimising the number of keystrokes a user has to type has become something of a priority for managers of eCommerce systems and other websites. If a site requires a new user to type in all information, such as their whole address, abandonment becomes much more likely than on sites that predict information based on the minimum possible keystrokes.

In relation to address validation, this has the additional benefit of ensuring that the information is accurately captured and correctly formatted. The more information the user has to type (into their phone), the greater the chance of them mis-typing, resulting in uncontactable customers, un-deliverable goods and increased costs.

 

Postcode Address File (PAF®)

Postcode Lookup Demo

For many years in the UK,  ‘postcode lookup’ was the standard, making use of the Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF®). This contains 1.8 million UK postcodes covering over 29 million residential and business addresses[2]. Updated with more than 3000 address changes every day, the PAF is used by 37 thousand businesses. When the user types in a postcode they are presented with a list of all the addresses to which that postcode applies. There are, however, a number of limitations to this system:

I don’t know my postcode

This is a fairly fundamental limitation. Many people don’t know, or can’t remember their postcode, in which case they will have to enter the entire address manually.

How many addresses?

According to the Royal Mail, the average number of properties per postcode is 15, however, the range quoted is between one and a hundred. If you were to include multiple residences, such as university accommodation, the number increases dramatically. The University of Warwick, for example, has 5,800 addresses[3]. This makes picking from a list trickier than you would expect.

The address is overseas

Postcode lookup using PAF only works for the UK. In the increasingly globalised business climate, this can be a limitation.

Here at Data8, PAF is just one source of address capture and validation. In order to provide a complete solution, we combine a range of sources to provide a much higher level of service.

 

data8 predictive address™ – The Total Solution

Data8 address validation diagram

 

Not Yet Built

There are approximately 100,000 new properties annually in the UK
Capture accurate address details for customers that are moving in to properties under construction or in the planning stage by combining the Not Yet Built File which contains over 500,000 records, with PAF[4].

Multiple Residency

Reduce fraud and assist with deliveries.
By using combining Royal Mail’s Multiple Residence with PAF®, you can identify individual dwellings and businesses within multiple occupancy buildings that share a front door such as shared entry addresses, self-contained flats, and university or nurses accommodation amongst others.

The file contains more than 750,000 records, with 2,000 records added every month[5].  Multiple Residence can help reduce fraud by verifying and identifying addresses behind a delivery point and the knowledge of how many households / units are connected to each delivery point can be a big benefit particularly if you are involved with deliveries.

Multiple Residence data is vital for any business with customers in densely populated areas.

AddressBase

AddressBase[6], from Ordinance Survey, allows you to link additional information about a property to a single address and to locate it on a map. For example, when a house is divided into six flats, you need to know about all of the different households within; their lifestyles and the services they use.

It includes historical addresses to identify fraudulent use of a residence that no longer exists, and provides alternative addresses (e.g. that 21 Croxton Road and Primrose Cottage are the same place).

data8 geocoding™

Converting addresses into geographic coordinates, such as latitude and longitude to allow markers on a map
Our UK geocoding web service provides accurate locations for postcodes, towns, streets or other full or partial address details With data from Ordinance Survey we can provide locations to the nearest metre for postcodes in England, Wales and Scotland. We also continue to provide cover for Northern Ireland and Isle of Man with locations accurate to 100 metres.

This service provides you with a quick and powerful tool to direct customers to their nearest store, office or other location. It can either be integrated directly into your business applications, or we have a fully functional application ready to be used in your website.

How it works

PredictiveAddress Demo

Data8’s predictive address technology extends the usefulness of the PAF by combining it with other sources, including international coverage in over 250 countries, to provide the complete solution for address validation.

Search ahead technology allows users to just start typing the address, or postcode, and uses advanced fuzzy matching technology to search the available sources and predict possible addresses. In many cases this can be achieved in a few keystrokes. Once the correct address is identified, other information such as map position can be combined.

Other services can be appended, such as our geodemographic profiling facility data8 geodem™, or electoral roll information, can be used to append additional information, based on the address.

Postcode Lookup or data8 address validation™?

Which solution works best for you? The table below highlights the features of each option.

  data8 predictive address™ Postcode Lookup
International coverage in over 250 countries and territories ✔
Advanced fuzzy matching technology ✔
Search ahead technology ✔
Full address gained from a postcode ✔ ✔
Address data validated at entry ✔ ✔
Address data formatted at entry ✔ ✔
Free technical support ✔ ✔
Easy and quick integration in web, CRM, eCommerce platforms, ePoS ✔ ✔
Reliable UK data sources (UK PAF) ✔ ✔
Bespoke integration available ✔ ✔

[1] https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate

[2] https://www.royalmail.com/business/services/marketing/data-optimisation/paf

[3] Data8 Multiple Residency service

[4] https://www.poweredbypaf.com/product/not-yet-built/

[5] https://www.poweredbypaf.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/102295_RM_PAF-Infographics_Multiple-Residence_290618.pdf

[6] https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/products/addressbase-premium.html

Data8 Partner Showcase at Summit in Phoenix, with live data8 duplicare™ demo

Blog-Header-Slim-CRMUG-Summit-PHX18

In addition to exhibiting at Summit, Booth, Data8 are proud to be presenting our partner Showcase in Phoenix on October 16, at 2:30pm.

CCPS12: Duplicate Data: Detect and Merge Like a Pro! Live Demo of duplicare™ Presented by Data8

Data8 has over a decade of data quality experience and have put all our knowledge into duplicare™. See Mark Carrington and Matt Beard demonstrate their solution that helps you find existing duplicates with rules that are impossible out of the box, prevent future duplicates appearing, handle multiple duplicates in one go and even standardise your telephone number and addresses with an entirely code-free approach. Includes customer case study from CRMUG organizers, Dynamic Communities! by guest speaker and CRM Administrator Ashley Steiner.

Full program details are available here.

Why not drop in on Data8 at booth 1522 for a  live demo of data8 duplicare™

The many different ways to transfer a file to Data8

To cleanse your data quickly online, please upload it to our Data8Online data cleansing portal and we will quickly return you a full Data Quality Report.

However, if you need to transfer a file to us for more manual processing, you have a number of options of how to get it to us. Whichever option you choose, you must have first registered for an account with us. Your email address will be your username and you will be sent a default password when you register. These same details can be used for each method of sending us your data.

FTP

We support the following protocols:

  • SFTP
  • FTPS

For both protocols, please connect using the following details:

  • Server: ftp.data-8.co.uk
  • Username: your email address
  • Password: password for your Data8 account

Please upload your files to the /ToData8 folder.

When using FTPS, please note that we support only FTP with explicit security (port 21) and not the deprecated FTP with implicit security (port 990).

FTPS and SFTP are secure data transmission methods and do not require additional encryption.

Website

Go to your Dashboard on our website, open the Cleansing tab and click on the Manual Files tile to go to the Secure File Transfer page.

Click Browse… to select your file and click Upload.

All website traffic is secured using SSL / TLS and additional data encryption is not required.

Compression

If your data file is large you may prefer to compress it before transferring it to us to save time and bandwidth.

We support files in all standard data compression formats:

  • zip
  • gzip
  • 7zip
  • rar

PGP Data Encryption

PGP is a method for encrypting and decrypting files. It can be quite technical to set up and use, but there are a number of resources on the web to help.

A good starting point is getting the free GnuPG software which implements PGP. A Windows version is available at www.gpg4win.org. There is also a link on that site to the Gpg4win Compendium which descibes how to use the software in some detail.

Once you’ve got your PGP software installed, you’ll need to import our public key. You’ll encrypt your data using our public key before sending it to us – only we will be able to decrypt this data using our private key.

In order for us to send you data back securely, you’ll need to generate your own key pair and provide us with the public key. We can then encrypt the data with your public key and only you will be able to decrypt it with your private key.

Pre-configured Automated Workflows (PAWS)

A pre-configured automated workflow (PAW) is a workflow that has been agreed between us in advance to serve a specific data processing purpose. This allows you to more easily automate your data processing activities. Almost any data processing task is possible but typical examples include:

  • a daily job to trigger TPS status updates
  • a monthly job to remove duplicates
  • an adhoc job to append telephone numbers

PAWs are activated by us intercepting a file uploaded to us that meets one or both of the following conditions

  • the filename matches a specific pattern eg starts with “TPS_Cleanse”, or contains the word “duplicate”, or matches the file pattern “TA_*.csv”; and/or
  • has been submitted by a specific user or users

A file that is uploaded to us will activate a relevant PAW if it is uploaded to us via any of the following methods:

  • Manual Files link in the Cleanse dashboard
  • Submit File link in the Cleanse dashboard, and then choose to submit to the PAW
  • FTPS/SFTP to our FTP site

A typical PAW has the following properties:

  • The same file format is expected from you every time
  • The same file format will be returned every time
  • The same data processing will be performed every time
  • The PAW will be documented and agreed as an ongoing Order in advance
  • It may be chargeable or not; it may be chargeable depending on the number of hits so impossible to predict the cost of the processing. This will all be agreed in advance.

62% of UK retailers are already planning for Black Friday, yet 69% of all eCommerce visitors abandon their shopping cart

Black Friday

New research published by Acceleration Partners shows that 62% of UK retailers are already planning ahead for Black Friday. November 23rd may seem a long time away, but Black Friday is becoming one of the biggest days in the retail world and this research finds that three fifths of UK retailers are already planning for it.

Acceleration Partners surveyed 416 online retailers about this annual event. When asked why they are preparing well ahead, 56% said that they wanted to have the best offering on the market, and to ensure that they have plenty of time to market these offers (44%).

Of those who have taken part in Black Friday previously, 92% saw an increase in the number of visitors to their website, and a further 71% saw an increase in sales.

“Once an American tradition, Black Friday has really taken off in the UK over the past few years, particularly in online retail and forward planning is essential to maximise return from the event,” commented Sophie Parry-Billings, EMEA marketing manager at Acceleration Partners.

Is all this preparation being wasted?

Other research, this time from the Baymard Institute, shows that 69% of all eCommerce visitors abandon their shopping cart. While the research identified a number of reasons why online shoppers may abandon their cart, the third most common cause of abandonment (28%) was a “too long / complicated checkout process”.

Enhancing the User Experience

Incorporating Data8’s validation services such as address, phone and bank validation, can help to enhance the user experience, reduce cart abandonment and maximise the return: on Black Friday and every other day.

Whilst preparing for Black Friday, it would also be good to look to clean up your database or CRM. Data8 cleansing services could help increase the effectiveness of your advance marketing including reducing duplicates, screening for TPS and appending new information.

Data 8 to Present Partner Showcase at Summit in Phoenix

 

In addition to exhibiting at the Summit meeting in Phoenix, as a Gold Sponsor, Data8 will be presenting a Partner Showcase on Tuesday, October 16, 2018 at 3:00 PM.  Make a note in your calendar. More details will be posted here nearer to the time.

Data-8 will be on Booth 1522 – come and see us for live demonstrations of:

data8 duplicare™ provides Dynamics 365 users with advanced fuzzy duplicate detection and multi-record merging, both in bulk, and at the point of capture

data8 provenance™ helps Dynamics 365 users to comply with the requirements of GDPR by managing records of consent and the legal basis used to justify processing, and by implementing “right of erasure” requests to erase personal data without loss of other information such as sales data.

10% of the population of France may have Googled “GDPR” in May!

 

Now Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad GDPR?

Back in December, I wrote a blog post about how Google Analytics keyword searches for the term “GDPR“, variants, and local language equivalents, could be used as an indicator of the relative interests that countries have in GDPR in the two years from November 2017 to October 2017. (more…)