Data List - Sales Data Pro vs List Shack vs Others

[JJ2713]

Sales Data Pro and List Shack Pro have a good price point, but others have reported that their data has some problems.

How does their data compare to other list sources? I've seen pricing elsewhere for about $.10 cents/per record.

Or perhaps different list sources for different things - one for direct mail, one for telemarketing, etc.

Your thoughts.

 

[GreenSky]

Generally speaking low cost unlimited list are not particularly good.

Rick

 

[Josh]

One of the challenges with the data world is there is zero transparency. There are some compilers (axciom, infogroup, experian) that are actually collecting the data and then there are resellers such as the ones you've listed. ListShack.com is owned by Affordable Marketing Lists, LLC (which I own), and we offer data from a variety of sources, but far and away the ListShack product is the one people go for and I'll get into why.

With respect to any of the companies other than compilers, you really have no way of knowing how often they update the data (or how current the data is on their "updates"). I know that with ListShack we really focus on that product and on the balance I believe we tend to have above average accuracy for a "budget" product, but it's hit and miss against compiled data. We have a ton of call centers that use us and a ton of agents because even if you consider any differences in accuracy, the difference in cost makes it a no-brainer for them.

So with respect to the different reasons to use different types of data, for direct mail you'll want something that has recently been "NCOA scrubbed", which means it's gone through the USPS national change of address registry to make sure the addresses are the most current and when you do that you generally get a certificate from them which you can give the USPS when you do your mail to get a discount on postage. Most direct mail companies will do that and it's a pretty great way to clean up data so that's the big thing there.

With respect to telemarketing, it partially comes down to what you're calling for and how you're doing it. With ListShack you can pick different areas, filters, etc and if you're calling and don't like an area, you can just login and less than a few minutes later have a brand new list in a different area or with different demographics. If you do something on a per record basis, that generally means you're going to have to pick up the phone/email/something and process an order with a sales rep. Another thing to consider is that no list is going to be 100% so with more expensive data direct from sources you still may be like at a 92% connect rate, so how much is the difference between that worth?

Because data is my full-time career and has been for years I have a lot to say so I'll keep going a little longer, but I'm sure I've already answered the original question

When you're ordering data you also tend to run up against "minimum orders" which may be as much as $150 and you get 1,000 records. The way my business started was I bought a ton of credits in bulk and sold them off in smaller amounts, but the company I was buying them from wouldn't want to do little orders which is why they had the bigger minimum so I offered 1,000 records for $99 and eventually lowered that to $69 which was a price point that just about anyone could afford. As things progressed (and InfoFree.com came out with a crazy deal they no longer offer) I ended up building out ListShack to respond to a market that seemed to be very price sensitive and didn't mind giving up some data quality; so our current $50/month plan will let you download up to 50,000 records a month (literally 10 times what an individual agent could go through); even at 3 cents a record that $50 of data would be literally $1,500, so is it the same accuracy? Hell no, but we're difficult (if not impossible) to beat. To get to the accuracy of ListShack data, we end up getting about 1-2 complaints about data quality out of every 100 signups which doesn't mean we're 98% accurate, but most of our customers end up finding that for $50/month (with no contract) we give them all the data they want and it's accurate enough they keep paying and keep using it.

Was that helpful? Obviously it's biased towards ListShack.com because that's my business, but if you have any other questions or anything let me know. I also have a discount code for anyone from the insurance forum ("insforum" for $10 off your first month) so you can try us out for $40 and know for sure if you like us or not.

Have an awesome weekend!

 

[jacobtn]

Please explain in layman's terms what factual differences exist between your site/service and salesdatapro. Not a troll post but a genuine question. I get the difference between usadata per 1k type lists and yours, but what makes your different from salesdatapro.

One of the challenges with the data world is there is zero transparency. There are some compilers (axciom, infogroup, experian) that are actually collecting the data and then there are resellers such as the ones you've listed. ListShack.com is owned by Affordable Marketing Lists, LLC (which I own), and we offer data from a variety of sources, but far and away the ListShack product is the one people go for and I'll get into why.

With respect to any of the companies other than compilers, you really have no way of knowing how often they update the data (or how current the data is on their "updates"). I know that with ListShack we really focus on that product and on the balance I believe we tend to have above average accuracy for a "budget" product, but it's hit and miss against compiled data. We have a ton of call centers that use us and a ton of agents because even if you consider any differences in accuracy, the difference in cost makes it a no-brainer for them.

So with respect to the different reasons to use different types of data, for direct mail you'll want something that has recently been "NCOA scrubbed", which means it's gone through the USPS national change of address registry to make sure the addresses are the most current and when you do that you generally get a certificate from them which you can give the USPS when you do your mail to get a discount on postage. Most direct mail companies will do that and it's a pretty great way to clean up data so that's the big thing there.

With respect to telemarketing, it partially comes down to what you're calling for and how you're doing it. With ListShack you can pick different areas, filters, etc and if you're calling and don't like an area, you can just login and less than a few minutes later have a brand new list in a different area or with different demographics. If you do something on a per record basis, that generally means you're going to have to pick up the phone/email/something and process an order with a sales rep. Another thing to consider is that no list is going to be 100% so with more expensive data direct from sources you still may be like at a 92% connect rate, so how much is the difference between that worth?

Because data is my full-time career and has been for years I have a lot to say so I'll keep going a little longer, but I'm sure I've already answered the original question

When you're ordering data you also tend to run up against "minimum orders" which may be as much as $150 and you get 1,000 records. The way my business started was I bought a ton of credits in bulk and sold them off in smaller amounts, but the company I was buying them from wouldn't want to do little orders which is why they had the bigger minimum so I offered 1,000 records for $99 and eventually lowered that to $69 which was a price point that just about anyone could afford. As things progressed (and InfoFree.com came out with a crazy deal they no longer offer) I ended up building out ListShack to respond to a market that seemed to be very price sensitive and didn't mind giving up some data quality; so our current $50/month plan will let you download up to 50,000 records a month (literally 10 times what an individual agent could go through); even at 3 cents a record that $50 of data would be literally $1,500, so is it the same accuracy? Hell no, but we're difficult (if not impossible) to beat. To get to the accuracy of ListShack data, we end up getting about 1-2 complaints about data quality out of every 100 signups which doesn't mean we're 98% accurate, but most of our customers end up finding that for $50/month (with no contract) we give them all the data they want and it's accurate enough they keep paying and keep using it.

Was that helpful? Obviously it's biased towards ListShack.com because that's my business, but if you have any other questions or anything let me know. I also have a discount code for anyone from the insurance forum ("insforum" for $10 off your first month) so you can try us out for $40 and know for sure if you like us or not.

Have an awesome weekend!

 

[Josh]

Please explain in layman's terms what factual differences exist between your site/service and salesdatapro. Not a troll post but a genuine question. I get the difference between usadata per 1k type lists and yours, but what makes your different from salesdatapro.

It's a very fair question that is a little tricky to answer. Recently there was a thread where someone was talking about SalesDataPro (https://insurance-forums.com/community/threads/my-leads-suck.94669/#post-1255595) and expressing concerns. They decided to try us out and privately I heard some very encouraging news from them, but I messaged them and asked them to speak for themselves about it.

Selling data from a compiler alongside the ListShack data I've seen apples to apples (same areas, filters, etc) the comparison between the sources in terms of accuracy and what's interesting is that usually if we're having a quality issue in a given area with ListShack, it happens with other sources as well. To put that more clearly, if I have someone complain about the quality of data from ListShack (1 or 2 out of 100), if I give them 500 records to try from a very reputable source, they generally come back and are upset at me for wasting their time because it wasn't any better... well, not what I expected, but good to know it's not just our budget product.

Ultimately, in terms of any of these other "budget data" companies, I don't know where they get their data. I don't know if they have full-time staff dedicated only to marketing lists (which we do), I don't know if they get data from multiple sources (which we do), I don't know if they can tell how to clean up data when it comes in (which we do), I don't know if they can verify the legitimacy of the data sets they're buying (which we do). My best guess is that most of these other sites don't generate enough revenue to justify the time and expenses it takes to consistently deliver a reliable customer experience. On ListShack I have customers that have been with me for years, resellers, and a pretty deep customer list and all of this is based off of no contract so people can leave any time they want; I'd like to think they'd just keep paying the bill because I'm a nice guy, but my best theory is they're actually making money with it.

I do apologize if that wasn't concrete or factual enough, but it's hard to say how I'm different from the other sites if they don't let me see all their secrets Was that helpful?

 

[sshafran]

I order mailing lists from sl360.

After 60 days or so I use melissadata for ncoa update on the list.

I pay more than if I subscribed to list shack (I had subscribed in the past).

It seemed to me like the data, though more expensive, was higher quality (more accurate) with sl360.

Josh - would you agree or would you disagree - as far as accurate names/address and demographic? I assume you might know which source is technically more accurate.

I think I’d care a little less if telemarketing and not paying per mail piece... accuracy trumps list cost.

 

[Josh]

I order mailing lists from sl360.

After 60 days or so I use melissadata for ncoa update on the list.

I pay more than if I subscribed to list shack (I had subscribed in the past).

It seemed to me like the data, though more expensive, was higher quality (more accurate) with sl360.

Josh - would you agree or would you disagree - as far as accurate names/address and demographic? I assume you might know which source is technically more accurate.

I think I’d care a little less if telemarketing and not paying per mail piece... accuracy trumps list cost.

In theory if you took a list from sl360, melissadata, and listshack and then ran a NCOA on it, since all of the data basically comes from the same sources, you'd end up getting roughly the same list with very very very similar accuracy.

You bring up a great point about telemarketing vs mailing, if you're sending a direct mail piece, most of your cost is in printing it and postage, so is it worth it to split hairs about what would be 86% accurate vs 94% accurate? Probably not. When it comes to telemarketing aside from the phone, the only real expense is the data, so if you're making 200 calls a day do you really want to be spending $20/day on data? If you can cut that down to $2/day is it worth getting a few more disconnected calls? For some the answer is yes, the others no, but that's what the debate is.

 

[myinsurebiz]

In theory if you took a list from sl360, melissadata, and listshack and then ran a NCOA on it, since all of the data basically comes from the same sources, you'd end up getting roughly the same list with very very very similar accuracy.

You bring up a great point about telemarketing vs mailing, if you're sending a direct mail piece, most of your cost is in printing it and postage, so is it worth it to split hairs about what would be 86% accurate vs 94% accurate? Probably not. When it comes to telemarketing aside from the phone, the only real expense is the data, so if you're making 200 calls a day do you really want to be spending $20/day on data? If you can cut that down to $2/day is it worth getting a few more disconnected calls? For some the answer is yes, the others no, but that's what the debate is.

Can you filter new home owners?

 

[Josh]

Can you filter new home owners?

Nope Age, income, homeowner status, property value, purchase month, dnc status, and a few others.

 

[justsayinisall]

When I first started I used Sales Data List because I got it included with SalesDialers.com (special from this site). Then I paid $50 to get lists from SalesData Pro. I think the data was very comparable as far as quantity and most names/numbers overlapped.

I then switched dialers to Xencall (MUCH better btw) and was strictly using SalesData Pro. The $50 goes a LOOOONG way. I concentrate on turning 65 and I was starting to run out of names/numbers to call. My telemarketer was getting through my list of names very quickly so I started adding states just so I could get more data to dial.

Telemarketers come and go and most of them would tell me that the leads weren't good. I just assumed that they were saying that to excuse their poor performance. I mean a name and number is a name and number. Well, I was told this again by my last part-time telemarketer so I decided to try List Shack. I fully expected that they would have the same names and numbers I got with SalesData Pro. pfffftt totally not the case!!!

List Shack has about 7-8 times MORE names/numbers than SalesData Pro. Plus, way more answered calls. To give you an idea the day prior to trying List Shack I was on the dialer for one hour. In that time I had 3 machines answer and no live answers. That was it- In one hour of dialing (2p-3p). The day I tried List Shack I dialed the same time and in 1/2 hour I had 18 answers; combo machine/live.