Email Append Source

The practice of email appending (see Wikipedia) uses your customer database to add deliverable email addresses to said database; however the process varies greatly depending on if your database is comprised of consumer or business records as well as the vendor that you’ve selected and your stance on customer preference.

Appending Consumer Email Addresses
For consumer email appends, a successful project requires that you have at least the names and postal addresses (or in some cases phone numbers) of your customers before you can append email to your database. Here’s the basic process.

Step 1. Batch Data
Once you’ve selected an email append supplier(s), all they will need to start the process is your list of customer names with their postal addresses, as stated above. Once they receive the file, your supplier will first remove all duplicate records and apply postal address hygiene standards, including CASS, to your database to ensure the highest possible match rate.

Step 2. Consumer Matching
Your customer file is matched against to the supplier’s database consumer records (and potentially the databases of other suppliers in their network) to retrieve the corresponding email addresses.

Step 3. Permission request is sent.
Using a strict “opt-in” approach, the supplier will work with you to create and send a customized permission request message that will direct your customer to a branded or 3rd pary website. There, your customer can either opt-out of future messages, update their contact information, or provide an alternate contact. While other marketers may choose to use an ‘opt-out’ method, whereby the consumer will receive future email if they do actively opt out. A point of great controversy.

Step 4. Appended records are returned.
All undeliverable matches are omitted and opt-out responders are flagged or omitted. In any case a final file containing deliverable matches is returned to you.

Appending Business Email Addresses

For business email appends, a successful project requires that you have the names, company names, and postal addresses (or in some cases phone numbers) of your business customers.

Step 1: Batch Data
Your customer file, including company name, will be received and standardized by your email append supplier(s). There they’ll remove duplicate records and apply standard address hygiene including CASS.

Step 2: Business Matching
Your supplier then locates the domain used for email by your contact’s company. (e.g. @us.sony.com for Sony USA). Then the common naming conventions or permutations (e.g. firstname.lastname@ or firstinitiallastname@) for that domain(s) are determined. The contact’s email address is then derived by following the pattern for the domain.

Step 3: A permission request is sent.
Exactly like consumer email appends, you’ll work with your supplier to create and send a customized permission request message using and opt-in or opt-out method. Unlike consumer appends, if the suppliers’ first derivative of the contact’s email address is unsuccessful, they may attempt other possible nicknames (e.g. William to Bill) or other common naming conventions or domains. If the address remains undeliverable, it is discarded.

Step 4: Your file with email addresses appended is returned.
All undeliverable matches are omitted, and people who unsubscribed are flagged or omitted, depending on your preference. A final file containing only deliverable matches is returned to you.

Additional Resources
Understanding Email Appending  for Advanced Practitioners (Direct Marketing Club of New York)

Take Away
As you can easily surmise, there is a lot of flexibility in the process. For example, do you go for opt-out or opt-in? How do you deal with the vendor? What traps do you watch for? What criteria does your vendor when determining which emails are undeliverable? Once you’ve received your appended email have you established a nurturing process?

The best way proceed is to continue your due diligence on the append process itself as well as due diligence on your prospective email append services companies. Here’s a directory of email append companies that you might find helpful.

If you feel as if this section is lacking or inaccurate, in any way, please email me.