- Email append matches your existing customer records against a database to find missing email addresses.
- It works on customers you already have a relationship with, which makes it different from buying a prospect list.
- Match rates depend mostly on how complete and how recent your file is.
- Appended addresses should be validated, and new contacts introduced carefully, to protect your sender reputation.
Most businesses know far more of their customers by name and postal address than by email. Years of orders, sign-ups, and phone inquiries leave a database full of people you can mail or call but cannot email. Email append is the process that closes that gap.
What email append means
Email append, sometimes called e-appending, is the process of matching the customer records you already hold against a larger database in order to add the email addresses you are missing. You supply what you know about each customer. The provider returns the same records with email addresses filled in wherever a match was found.
The important point is that the people on the file are already your customers. Email append does not find you new prospects. It gives you a new way to reach people who already know your business.
How the process works
- You send your file. Typically names and postal addresses, plus any suppression or opt-out files you maintain.
- The records are matched. Each record is compared against the provider's database to find the email address that belongs to that person.
- Matches are verified. Good providers validate the appended addresses and remove invalid ones before returning them.
- You get your file back. The original records come back with email addresses appended, along with counts showing how many matched.
What affects your match rate
No provider can promise a match rate before seeing a file, because the result depends mostly on the file itself. Three things matter most:
- Completeness. A full name and a full postal address match far more reliably than partial records.
- Recency. People move. Records that are several years old match less often than recent ones.
- Accuracy. Misspelled names and badly formatted addresses reduce matches. Cleaning the file first helps.
Email append versus buying a list
The two are often confused. Email append adds a contact channel for customers you already have. Buying data leads adds new people who fit a target audience. They solve different problems, and many marketers use both: append to get more from the existing customer base, and data leads to grow it.
When email append makes sense
- You have a large customer file with many records missing an email address.
- You rely on direct mail or phone and want a lower-cost channel alongside them.
- You are launching an email program and want to start with customers instead of cold prospects.
- Your older email addresses have gone stale and you need current ones.
How to use appended addresses well
An appended address belongs to a real customer, but that customer has not heard from you by email before. Treat the first message accordingly. Remind them who you are and how they know you, make it easy to opt out, and honor opt-outs immediately. Add appended contacts to your sending gradually instead of all at once, and run the file through data validation first so you are not introducing bounces.
Done this way, email append is one of the least expensive ways to expand your reach, because you are not paying to acquire anyone new.
Getting started
R1D Media Group offers email append services matched against a permission-based database. Tell us about your file and we will explain how an append would work for it.