Need a B2B data source? Here's our experience with ZoomInfo.

Like many custom software development firms that provide services to other companies, CodeStringers utilizes, among other vehicles, email marketing to a "high accuracy" source of company and contact data. We have numerous email program genres, including monthly newsletters, prospecting (emails that directly seek new clients), and thought leadership (white papers and other "high value" content resources).

Beyond the Obvious: What is "Data Quality"?

Contact data quality can be evaluated by multiple metrics, but the first "layer" of quality evaluation is the accuracy of contact information, notably the email address and, if your sales organization makes outbound phone calls, the office and/or mobile phone numbers. So, when you're buying or renting data, data accuracy is the first criterion for vendor selection.

The accuracy of email addresses in contact data sourced from providers is paramount. To combat spammers, the technical powers that be, concerned with how email servers work, created a "reputation" score for each email address that sends emails, particularly bulk emails (one email sent to many recipients). When emails "bounce" (don't reach the intended recipient because the email address is invalid), the reputation of the email address decreases. The lower the score, the more likely email spam filters will block delivery. Worse, send too much "spam," and your sender email address and/or the company domain may become blacklisted.

When CodeStringers sought an email marketing data source a year ago, we narrowed the list to firms with a reputation and customer ratings indicating that they are industry leaders as measured by email address accuracy. In other words, we wanted to partner with the best available option as measured by accuracy.

But data quality can go far beyond accuracy. After all, the business objective isn't to "send email messages at a high rate of deliverability". The business objective is to find matches between companies needing help with custom software development and CodeStringers' offerings that align with their needs. In short, we want to identify potential new customers and ultimately provide them with services.

Thus, many data providers go beyond simply providing company and contact data by offering additional information that purports to enable clients to focus not only on companies and contacts that match basic criteria, but also on the subset with a higher purchase likelihood. When those capabilities are available - as they are from ZoomInfo and other higher-end data companies - data quality really comes down to the percentage of raw contacts that ultimately convert to qualified sales opportunities.

Cutting to the Chase.

ZoomInfo's sales team will proudly state during pre-sales phone calls that their data is 99% accurate. Nope.

Our marketing automation system shows 92.4 percent deliverability, and that's across a statistically valid sample size.

The Basics of ZoomInfo's Product.

ZoomInfo is a web-based application through which users can search for companies and contacts within them, then download the data or sync it to another business system, such as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system like Salesforce, Zoho CRM, or Freshsales.

My use of the term "Search" is misplaced because, in reality, ZoomInfo's application allows you to configure sophisticated filters for both company and contact attributes, so that the number of matching companies and contacts narrows with each new filter criterion added.

In the case of CodeStringers - and this is an important caveat concerning data accuracy - we are looking for software companies globally that meet specific criteria for revenue. Then we're looking for contacts within those companies that are either buyers or purchase influencers for outsourced software development services. I state this merely to note that other industries or contact criteria may improve data accuracy.

ZoomInfo Email Address Accuracy (or the Lack Thereof).

When we engaged with ZoomInfo, our team received an excellent sales presentation and demo of the product, and honestly, assuming that all the claims made by ZoomInfo's salespeople and marketing materials are accurate concerning data quality, most notably data accuracy.

Our salesperson, and later, when we discovered problems, his manager clearly stated in multiple conversations that email addresses for ZoomInfo-sourced contacts are 99 percent accurate, meaning that for every 100 emails sent, only one will bounce due to address inaccuracy (there are other factors that cause bounces). The reality is 92.4 percent accuracy, and the sample size is statistically trustworthy.

The sad irony is that, before paying ZoomInfo a LOT of money, we used an inexpensive solution that scraped contact info from LinkedIn. We paid $200 per month to pull up to 20,000 contacts. And... (pause for effect in my best "Gru" voice), the GetProspect data accuracy as measured by email deliverability was MORE THAN that of ZoomInfo. We consistently saw 94 percent accuracy from GetProspect contact data.

Hang in there... it gets worse.

One of the main selling points for ZoomInfo was a capability called "Intent". It's meant to be exactly what it sounds like. For companies (not individual contacts), ZoomInfo claims to have a method for determining a company's purchase intentions based on a ZoomInfo-created catalog of intents. In our case, two intents (of the six that came with our subscription) in the catalog relate to outsourcing services: "Offshore Software Development" and "Software Development Outsourcing".

The way intent works is as another filter in the search capability described above, except that the Intent is the first filter applied.

So, as a user, I open the "Intent" page to search for companies that need custom software development help and:

• Select the two Intent topics referenced above;

• Set the Intent date range, meaning how far back in time the system looks for signals of buying intention;

• Add industries, specifically those for other software companies;

• Set company revenue ranges;

• Add company location.

ZoomInfo then shows me a list of matching companies and even shows an intent "signal score" that's supposed to increase the higher the "accuracy" of intent. Once you have the list of companies, at the click of a button, ZoomInfo lets you search for contacts in those companies and then use all of the same filters to narrow the contact list by job title and other attributes.

Our ZoomInfo Results.

In the time we've used ZoomInfo, we've ONLY pulled contacts that show purchase "Intent" and match the other company and contact criteria. And our open and click-through rates are in the "you're doing pretty well" category for tech companies running similar campaigns, suggesting that the content of our emails is at least satisfactory.

And for all of the money spent with ZoomInfo on data and the thousands of hours our sales and marketing teams have put into these programs, CodeStringers has not sourced a SINGLE NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY from ZoomInfo data. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nothing. Not a f#%king sausage.

Typically, ZoomInfo commands a two-year contract, among other terms. And, by default, the contract they ask you to sign will, like most SaaS companies, automatically renew. We made one good decision. We only signed a one-year contract, and that contract does not automatically renew.

And needless to say, we won't be renewing it.