National Change of Address

Do you trust your data? For any organization conducting a direct mail campaign, data integrity can mean the difference between successfully raising funds and wasting dollars mailing to constituents that have relocated. Even worse, it could mean losing your connection with valuable donors.

More than 40 million Americans change their address each year. With direct mail expenses continuing to increase, it is more critical than ever to be certain that the addresses in your system are valid. Your organization will recapture revenue and avoid wasting thousands of dollars on unproductive mailings with NCOA services from Target Data Enrichment Services.

As the table above shows, improving address accuracy by a small percentage can yield a significant combination of cost savings and revenue improvements.

Target's data enrichment process will locate valid addresses for your donors using the United States Postal Service National Change of Address (NCOA) service. The standard NCOA file goes back 48 months, allowing you to update your database with current addresses of constituents who moved in the past four years.

How It Works: The USPS name and address matching guidelines are tightly regulated to ensure quality. When an input record meets USPS matching criteria and matches the NCOA database, Target Data Enrichment will provide the new forwarding address. If a match cannot be made due to tight match requirements, we will be able to provide coding information as to why there is no address available. Target will return your original file with change codes and the corrected address appended.

Go deeper with NCOA Plus! An estimated 30% of U.S. movers do not report their address changes to USPS and are not included in standard NCOA updates. For this reason, Target also offers an expanded change-of-address processing with National Change of Address Plus. With NCOAP, Target will compare your file to another database of an additional 25 million households, going back ten years to capture even more correct addresses.

With NCOA and NCOAP, Target will help you reduce direct mailing costs and ensure lifelong relationships with your valuable donors.