Knowledge Base

Learn address industry terms and practices

Feature or term Summary Recommended products

Address de-duplication

More often than not, address lists become unmanageable and the data quickly becomes costly. Address de-duplication flags duplicate addresses for you, even if they are written in different ways. More »

Address standardization

Address standardization involves converting a potentially malformed address into a CASS-Certified™ format by correcting the address and appending missing or incomplete data. More »

Address verification/validation

Address verification (or validation) is the process by which mailing addresses are "cleaned up" and determines the deliverability of mail to a given address. More »

API

Services with an API, or an application programming interface, enable your program, website, or app to connect directly to it and use its results on-the-fly. More »

Append counties

Because a ZIP Code may cross county boundaries you can't be sure of the county for a given address unless the address has been verified using our services, which will append county data. More »

Append missing ZIP codes

When the ZIP Code in your data is missing, we can quickly and easily identify and then append the correct ZIP code for the address in question. More »

Append carrier route

Carrier route (CRRT) refers to a grouping of delivery points from a 5-digit ZIP Code which receive delivery from a single mail carrier. More »

CASS™ Certification

CASS™, or Coding Accuracy Support System™, is the USPS regulation for address formatting, accuracy, and matching. SmartyStreets is a CASS-Certified™ vendor. More »

CASS™ processing

Find out what goes into processing an address list using CASS™-Certified software. More »

CASS™ Summary Report

You know you processed your list and we know you processed your list, but the USPS has to have a paper trail. So, we provide you with a PS 3553, CASS™ Summary Report with every list your process. More »

Delivery Point Validation

The meat and potatoes of address verification, validating delivery points will assure you that an address exists and can receive mail. More »

Geocoding (Latitude & longitude)

Geocoding is the process of translating an address to geographical coordinates, or latitude/longitude values. This is a huge engine of today's economy and is vital for many operations. More »

Identify CMRA mailboxes

Using our services provides the benefit of identifying commercial mail receiving agencies (private companies that rent private mail boxes). More »

Improve address data

Addresses are always in flux. Is your data current and accurate? More »

Intelligent Mail Barcode

Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMB) is an alternative to the POSTNET barcode. It has not yet become required to qualify for automation rates with the USPS. More »

LACSLink®

LACSLink® updates old rural route, highway route, and box number addresses to newly updated street addresses to assist 911 emergency response teams. More »

List processing

Processing a database, spreadsheet, or other list which contains addresses, for accuracy, formatting, and more, is a complicated process ... unless you choose SmartyStreets! More »

LiveAddress

LiveAddress is our custom-built, CASS-Certified™ address processing engine. With it, you can verify a list of addresses all at once, or plug it into your website or program to get good data from the start. More »

NCOALink®

People and businesses move around a lot. NCOA is a USPS product that provides the updated address of those who submitted a change of address form to the USPS within the last 4 years. But it often doesn't help as much as you want. More »

POSTNET barcode

A POSTNET™ delivery point barcode (DPBC) can help you receive USPS discounts and save money on costly returned mail. More »

Prepare your mailing list

Make sure your list is ready for processing with our LiveAddress for Lists service. More »

Pushy salesman

Rather than trying to sell you to our services, our services sell themselves. You don't have to worry about being solicited at SmartyStreets. More »

Publication 28

There actually is a standard for formatting mailing addresses (and we follow it). Curious? More »

Regular expressions for street addresses

Regular expressions (regex) are used to help find patterns in text, but that's not a good idea for addresses. Find out why addresses aren't compatible with regular expressions. More »

Qualify for postage savings

One of the major benefits of our LiveAddress for Lists service is helping our customers qualify for postage savings on large mailings. Why pay more than necessary? More »

RDI (Residential Delivery Indicator)

Need to know which addresses on your list are residential and which are commercial? That's exactly what address verification with RDI does. Designed for use in shipping rate comparisons it will let you know (before you ship) so that you can make any adjustments necessary. More »

Standardization and verification

Any self-respecting address processing system will include both. What's the difference? More »

Web-based

When something is web-based, that means there's nothing to download, install or maintain. That's how LiveAddress works: right in your web browser. It can also be embedded into your application using simple HTTP calls. More »

ZIP+4 code

5-digit ZIP Codes are one thing, but appending the specific ZIP+4 code for an address provides many additional benefits. More »



LiveAddress comes in two flavors Compare »