How to set up a mailing list
Before submitting your list to SmartyStreets, you will need to do some preparations to make sure you can easily upload and submit your address list.
First, make sure that your address list can be matched to the required fields in our software.
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You will need to tell our software where the data (name, street, city/state/ZIP) in your address list is located. The data for each record in your list needs to be in the same order. Here is an example of a list that cannot be mapped and processed effectively:
Karen Thomas 1257 Main Street Oakland CA 94878 Bob Jones 400 Elm Boulevard Suite 203 San Fransico CA 98718 Kevin Tomlinson 2342 Oakdale Drive Vancouver WA 98665 Notice in this list that the address information is not lined up properly—the city, state, and ZIP code fields for the records are not in a corresponding city, state, and ZIP Code column. When you process this list, some of the addresses will fail the standardization process. You can improve your performance by making sure that the each record's data fields (i.e. city, state, ZIP Code, etc.) are stored in corresponding columns in your address list.
This is an example of the same address list organized in such a way that it can be effectively submitted for processing.Karen Thomas 1257 Main Street Oakland CA 94878 Bob Jones 400 Elm Boulevard Suite 203 San Fransico CA 98718 Kevin Tomlinson 2342 Oakdale Drive Vancouver WA 98665
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In order to process your file, you are required to submit the following information:
- The street address in one or two fields. One of these fields can be an apartment or suite number.
- The city, state, and ZIP code can either be in three separate fields or one combined field
(known as the "last line" in the mailing industry). One of the following combinations of a city,
state, and ZIP code is required for each record.
- city and ZIP code
- state and ZIP code
- city and state
- ZIP code only
- city, state, and ZIP code
- The street address in one or two fields. One of these fields can be an apartment or suite number.
Next, make sure that you are submitting a file type that is compatible with LiveAddress for Lists. We currently accept Microsoft Excel, tab-delimited text files, and comma-separated text files (CSV). If your file is in a different format, look on Google for ways to convert your file to a supported format. If you have trouble, you can call us and we may be able to help.
While not required, it is highly recommended that you give the columns in your list a field/column name (such as "City", "State", or "ZIP Code"). Here is an example of our address list with recommended column names added.
| Name | Address 1 | Address 2 | City | State | ZIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Karen Thomas | 1257 Main Street | Oakland | CA | 94878 | |
| Bob Jones | 400 Elm Boulevard | Suite 203 | San Fransico | CA | 98718 |
| Kevin Tomlinson | 2342 Oakdale Drive | Vancouver | WA | 98665 |
Finally, if you are submitting an Excel file, make note of the table or sheet that contains your data. This information will be important when you upload the file. To avoid this, you could export the sheet with your address data to a CSV file (or other delimited file).
Once your file is ready to go, login to your account to get started with processing your list!