Radius now cleans your data before it makes predictions

Predicting the future is hard enough without having to compensate for bad data.

So, to better ensure its clients are working with the best available info, B2B predictive marketing platform Radius announced this week an in-house, Data Stewardship service. The company provides predictions as to which customers or leads will be most fruitful.

CEO Darian Shirazi told me that, to his knowledge, “no other predictive marketing provider does in-house data cleaning.”

When they do offer data cleaning, he said, it’s generally provided by a third-party vendor. Previously, he said, Radius offered some data cleaning services internally, but on a limited basis to selected customers.

In its announcement, Radius said that only 70 to 75 percent of the data in customer relationship management (CRM) systems or marketing automation platforms is accurate and complete, leading to thousands, if not millions, of inaccurate records.

B2B data is particularly subject to change, Shirazi said, because leads submit incomplete data, personnel move from job to job and companies change.

The Data Stewardship service, he said, includes filling in gaps in information, such as incomplete addresses, as well as updating information on businesses’ decision-making groups.

Radius says that data is matched — such as the latest address for a business — against the Radius Business Graph database, which the company says is rebuilt every two weeks to keep current on its 20 million businesses. Here’s a typical screen from the Data Stewardship service:

Data is also validated from first-party info in publicly available databases and in the CRMs and marketing automation systems of Radius’s clients, which have agreed to allow their data to be used for validation but not shared.

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.