Digitalbox returns to Experian QAS data management after 'bad move' away

CEO tells Computing why Digitalbox re-adopted Experian QAS after things went 'very, very wrong' with its replacement

The grass isn't always greener on the other side, as digital marketing firm Digitalbox - which boasts Visa, O2, Mini and P&O among its clients - discovered when it dropped an Experian QAS email address validation solution to that of a rival provider to cut costs.

Instead, switching solutions led to an increase in inaccurate data about email addresses and other contact details – a hugely negative impact for an organisation that relies on good data management to conduct its business effectively.

"As soon as we have inaccurate data in our systems, it can sit there for a number of months," Digitalbox CEO Alex Attinger told Computing.

Explaining how poor information management is bad for business, he said: "If you're then re-communicating it to consumers, not only is it bad for the consumer who might have mistyped their email address, that consumer isn't going to receive any more information."

Poor quality data doesn't only prevent emails being delivered to those who've provided inaccurate information, but if enough emails bounce, then a firm that relies on digital marketing can find that ISPs mark them down, making it more difficult to send information.

"If the information is incorrect and we're consistently wrongly emailing that consumer, then that gives a bad score with email providers and affects our ability to deliver our good email addresses," Attinger said, adding the cost of poor data management can have a considerable impact.

"It's amazing how it can affect you, especially if you have a high percentage of bad addresses in your system it can really destroy delivery to ISP and cost our business significant amounts of money."

Digitalbox had experienced this type of issue in the past, before adopting Experian QAS, Attinger told Computing.

"We've been through a process like that before we were with Experian when we were validating our data with another company and we found a huge percentage of errors, but it took us months to realise what was going on.

"It was then we realised our validations at the point of capture wasn't working, causing a massive knock-on effect throughout our business," he said.

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Digitalbox returns to Experian QAS data management after 'bad move' away

CEO tells Computing why Digitalbox re-adopted Experian QAS after things went 'very, very wrong' with its replacement

The decision to move away from Experian was a cost-cutting measure, designed to increase margins, but Attinger explained how a poor service from the new provider ended up costing Digitalbox more as 30 per cent of email validations ended up failing.

"The situation became clear just three months after moving away, when customers that use us started to complain about the data they were getting," he said.

"We had massive delivery problems and the money we appeared to be saving was being spent on not ruining relationships. It was a bad move away, so we came back fairly quickly."

Digitalbox had been away for six months before it returned to Experian QAS, something Attinger described as "a very easy decision".

"We don't have any concerns about keeping a large database internally," Attinger said. "The older the data gets, the more you have to go through processes of keeping contact information up to date and accurate, and actually because we're using Experian in a real-time environment, we're not having to update our database half as much."

In essence, the solution is allowing Digitalbox to run its business operations in the most effective way possible, as accurate data means more people are replying to emails the firm sends out on behalf of its clients.

"The data which comes through is accurate, so people are responding, the data is remaining accurate so we can clean our data a lot less frequently. We're seeing huge benefits," said Attinger.

"The key thing seems to be that Experian develops a system themselves in-house while other businesses are happier to outsource," Attinger explained.

"They sell the proposition in and then they're happy to outsource elements of that data and contact management. I think Experian have got it right and they seem to be investing more in the product.

"We can't see ourselves ever moving away from that solution," he said.