At Marketfish, we take data very seriously. Hosting quality data in our platform is critical to our ability to deliver our service offerings. With such a focus on data, you might imagine that we have a few thoughts on the subject. So, here’s the process that Marketfish goes through when selecting a data partner. This process is a tool that you can use to assess the quality of your own data partner.
The best lists are always permission-based and authorized to receive third-party marketing offers. These lists should be permissioned on either a single or double opt-in basis. Double opt-in is preferred. There are also “forced” opt-in lists. This category includes lists permissioned around pre-checked boxes. We don’t consider “forced” opt-ins a best practice, and therefore, try to avoid lists permissioned in this manner.
Once a list owner meets these basic criteria, we then further qualify the data source. We always check a potential list owner’s privacy policy. It’s essential for Marketfish to ensure that the customers on the list are aware that they have opted to receive third party offers. Additionally, we always ask for a sampling of records from the potential list provider, this allows us to evaluate their quality. On a similar note, we ask for a data dictionary so that we can see what kind of information is captured in the list provider’s records. We also require a screenshot of the opt-in page so that we can verify that the records are obtained in an ethical manner.
Finally, when we ingest data into our platform, we require that every record contain three pieces of data: time & date stamp, IP address, and opt-in URL. This allows Marketfish to mitigate potential customer complaints. We can go back and show customers exactly when they opted-in to a particular list. Of course, we are fully CAN-SPAM compliant, and therefore require that any advertiser or marketer that uses our platform to include an opt-out URL within their email creative. This ensures that any customer, who wants off a list, gets off that list.
There you have it, the Marketfish data partner vetting process. We try to make this as comprehensive as possible so that we can hand our customers the quality data they need. If you have any questions, comments, or thoughts on our process, please let us know.
