Although location data has always been important, dating back to times predating the “location data” terminology, recent years have seen an explosion in this value. Some of the largest and most recognized brands – think Amazon, Uber, DoorDash, among many others – rely heavily on location data to serve their customers, and an increasingly large number of small ecommerce businesses are doing the same. In turn, those customers have begun to expect service directly to their door, which is a more complicated process than some may realize, even just in terms of storing, organizing, and sifting through said data.
Precisely is one company looking to help those companies better manage their data in order to maximize their business capabilities. The Massachusetts-based location intelligence company recently hosted a webinar on Geo Week News highlighting their offerings and how they can streamline operations. The presentation, entitled Unlock Efficiency with Your Address Data Today for a Smarter Tomorrow was given by Carmen Adame, a product marketing manager with Precisely. On-demand viewing is available for this webinar here.
Adame began her presentation with some background about both the company and the overall issue that they are working to solve. Precisely calls themselves the “leader in data integrity,” with Adame noting that they have 12,000 customers around the world including 99 of the Fortune 100. In working with all of these companies, it becomes clear that data is absolutely crucial to everything a modern business does, but there is also an inherent tension between sustaining current practices and innovating into the future.
“Most business leaders want their organization to be data-driven,” Adame told the webinar audience. “They want to make business decisions based on data they can trust. However, there is tension between things you need to fix today and the places you want to go tomorrow.”
Adame took the time to poll the live audience for the webinar regarding their main initiatives they are working towards with regards to data in their companies, with a number of different options. The answers were wide-ranging, as one would expect, but some of the most popular responses included moves towards increased efficiency and optimization, modernizing their company, addressing risk and compliance, and – of course – artificial intelligence.
These are all common goals for companies regardless of industry, but large companies and ecommerce businesses in particular have to worry about address data. As Adame covers throughout this presentation, this data can be more complex than one might initially think. For example, she notes that in the United States one address can have 13 different components, most of which need to be normalized, as in changing things like “St.” to “Street,” to say nothing of address changes, towns being annexed or created, etc.
For ecommerce businesses in particular, accurate and easy-to-use address data is crucial. This is a space that is exploding in recent years – Adame cites studies that indicate over $8 trillion in ecommerce revenue is expected by 2026, while 23 percent of all retail sales in 2025 are projected to be from ecommerce sectors – but is also one that is vulnerable to bad address data. She also cites research indicating 20 percent of all online shoppers have abandoned carts due to address entry issues, and four percent of all checkout abandonment is due to “problematic address entry.” Similar growth and problems exist in hyper-local delivery segments, as one would expect.
It’s exactly this issue that Precisely sets out to fix for these companies, taking this crucial data for their work and ensuring that it is accurate and usable. Adame outlined a lot of this work throughout the presentation, including the workflow for preventing risk when handling customer data. She also highlighted what Precisely refers to as “Geo Addressing,” which is a combination of three processes related to an address – address verification, geocoding, and the creation of a PreciselyID. The latter piece, as explained in this presentation, is an alphanumeric code unique to an address which allows data to move through systems more easily and quickly.
This just touches on a few of the points and themes Adame discussed in this webinar presentation, but there were many more important details about both address data broadly and Precisely’s work more specifically that were not included in this article. At the core, though, Adame sums up the company’s work nicely by saying, “At Precisely, we like to ensure that your address data is serving you in a way that is going to be impactful and meaningful to your business.”
Access the free, on-demand recording of this presentation here.
