How do we stack up?
When choosing a data provider, it’s important to understand their processes and the work that goes on behind the scenes to harvest legal, compliant and effective data.
Are they compliant? How do they gather their data, and does this result in effective data? Are there any red flags that should concern you?
We’ve looked at some of our individual competitors in more detail so that you can make an informed choice.
The Data
- We own all our own data. We’re not aggregators and we buy no data from external sources.
- Our research team is full-time employed by us and UK-based. All researchers are native speakers.
- Our data is collected in the proper way to ensure compliance, accuracy and quality.
- 3-month training and ongoing monitoring of researchers for quality control. Automated systems to help highlight errors, omissions, or inconsistencies.
- We don’t use 3rd parties, forbidden tactics, or rely on tech.
- Data compliance, quality & accuracy is guaranteed in SLAs.
- Collected from 125 data sources.
- Open sources – websites, press articles & other online media
- Closed sources such as Crunchbase & other third-party vendors.
- Effectively perpetual use of data due to credit system. Causes:
- High bounce rates
- Non-compliance
- Loss of reputation.
- Scan public sources to obtain data using unique algorithms that perform daily scans then cross-check data from multiple sources and combine numerous data points to create one business contact or company profile. Rely on public information being accurate.
- Community of members, customers & stakeholders who share their professional networks with Lusha in exchange for more data/to access premium features. Open to abuse, could impact data quality.
- Buy data from 3rd parties such as Crunchbase.
- Millions of profiles: how is quality & accuracy managed?
- Scan (often referred to as scrape) various online sources.
- Buy data from other companies.
- Acquire through market research surveys.
- ZoomInfo Community: Users must install ZoomInfo software which accesses their email program to extract data.
- History of acquiring other data companies to expand database.
- Effectively perpetual use of data because ex-clients do NOT have to delete the data . Causes:
- High bounce rates
- Non-Compliance
- Loss of reputation
This analysis is based on information provided to us as of 17/12/21 (E & OE).
Compliance/GDPR
- Data subjects are fully informed how their data will be processed & with whom specifically, we will share.
- ALL clients received any opt-outs every week, ensuring clients are abiding by the data subjects' marketing preferences.
- No control over compliance of data purchased from 3rd parties.
- Data processed on grounds of “legitimate interest,” NOT consent.
- No alert when a contact opts out of the database. This can lead to non-compliant and ineffective marketing campaigns.
- There is a global opt-out API that you can access but NO automated change notifications. This means you effectively have to cleanse the data yourself.
- Their GDPR documents state that it is up to YOU the client to guarantee compliance before using the data for direct marketing.
- Data is cleansed against the TPS/CTPS service.
- Individuals can opt-out via a self-removal form but opt-in is NOT obtained in the first place which is required for compliance across many European countries.
- Opt-outs are NOT passed onto their clients. This can cause compliance issues.
- Updates NOT provided when specific contact records change. This means data can quickly become outdated and inaccurate.
- Very little information on the consent obtained to add contacts to their database. GDPR compliance information is very vague. As a client, it would therefore be your responsibility to ensure compliance before using their data.
- Also collect personal email addresses (B2C) which without an opt-in (for every country) is not compliant.
- UK data is NOT screened against the TPS/CTPS service leading to compliance problems.
- No control over compliance of data purchased from 3rd parties.
- No control on compliance of data acquired through acquisition of other data companies. If data is simply integrated into their database, compliance, and quality is in doubt.
- Opt-outs not passed onto clients. This immediately makes client use of the information non-compliant.
- Intent data obtained from Bidstream which is user behaviour captured by an ad pixel and shared through ad exchanges – highly unlikely to be GDPR compliant.
- Claim to send notification emails to all contacts but when tested this did not happen.
- Profile held for i-4business contains fictitious contacts with falsified i-4b email addresses. Associated LinkedIn accounts clearly showed they had never worked for i-4business.
This analysis is based on information provided to us as of 17/12/21 (E & OE).
Contracts & cost structure
- Simple subscription service.
- Free 30 Day Account for you to test our database yourself.
- 12-month contracts with a fixed fee and flexible payment terms (typically monthly but quarterly and annual payment plans are available).
- Dedicated and experienced support team with the experience and the knowledge that’s required.
- 12 or 24-month contract required on sign-up.
- 25 free contacts to evaluate the data. Must agree to demo to receive the data.
- Pricing works on credit-based system. You purchase credits and redeem them against the contacts that you want. If a contact opts out, you don't get your credit back.
- You can download the data in one-off lists but you will NOT be notified of any changes.
- Your credits refresh every month and credits from previous months rollover effectively giving perpetual use of the data (see above for problems this causes)
- Credit-based pricing system. You pay for access upfront and are allocated credits for the year.
- Offer a free plan which gives you 5 credits = 5 contacts per month to test their data.
- Additional credits can be purchased at any time.
- No flexibility in terms of other commercial models or pricing.
- No single point of contact.
- Typically, 24-month contract with payment is required upfront.
- 1 week view-only free trial.
- Very US-centric organisation.
- Price depends on a number of variants such as how many credits you need, the number of users, access type, and any extras you want to add.
This analysis is based on information provided to us as of 17/12/21 (E & OE).
Why choose i-4business for your B2B contact data?
In-house research team with native speakers
We are the only data provider who has an in-house research team of native speakers – other data providers use web-spiders and most of the time rely on technology, not real people, which again limits accuracy and quality.
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Greater depth of data
We have a greater depth of job roles than our competitors, ranging from decision making CIOs to influencers like IT developers. This is important so you can get your products in front of more potential decision makers rather than presuming which single contact you need in an organisation.
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Specialist provider
We specialise in providing data for B2B companies. We have data from over 300 vertical markets, covering both enterprise and public sector organisations.
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GDPR compliance
Our database is the only opt-in database available. This makes our data the most GDPR compliant. What’s more, the vast majority of our competitors are not GDPR compliant outside the UK which is a big problem if you’re looking for overseas data.
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We have greater coverage & experience across Europe
Our competitors lack European coverage and quality. Most have only offered European data for 5 or 6 years. We’ve been providing it for over 25 years.
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We’re not aggregators
We own all of our own data. A lot of other data providers don’t own 100% of their data as they aggregate other data sources.
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Experienced support team
We support you by providing an experienced support team who are there when you need them. They have the experience and the knowledge that’s required. They know the data laws so you don’t have to and they can also support you with marketing advice – they know what works. For example they can tell you all about the importance of targeting and segmenting data.
