How to verify leads in real-time? A complete guide

Legitimate leads deserve to be followed, but it’s hard to prioritize them if you’re also having to wade through a river of irrelevant or redundant contact information to get to them.

Luckily there are tools and solutions out there which allow you to verify leads on the fly, so let’s look at how this is achieved and why this matters.

The basics

Lead verification can be carried out manually, although today it’s more efficient to adopt automated systems that are able to scrutinize prospects in real-time.

The most common context for lead verification relates to phone numbers, although email addresses are also assessed in a similar manner.

The upshot is that sales team members won’t need to waste time trying to get in touch with prospects that aren’t actually contactable. It also declutters your CRM and streamlines your marketing operations as a whole.

Phone number verification

There are a few ways to check whether or not phone numbers are genuine. For example, when customers sign up for more information, you could send a one-time password (OTP) via SMS which they can then enter to confirm the correct details have been handed over.

You could also use an API that can validate phone numbers based on established databases and straightforward detection methods. This includes checking that numbers are valid based on things like area codes and international calling designations.

The latest services in this space are capable of determining other details about the number you’re contacting, including the type of line they’re using and even the carrier that’s responsible for providing their telephone service, whether fixed line or mobile.

Email address verification

Populating a list of leads through web forms that collect email data and other user information is a standard practice in digital marketing and sales. And if you’re looking to target customers through their smartphones, it’s a must.

The problem is that people often make mistakes when typing in addresses, and also might deliberately enter a false one if they don’t intend to be contacted.

Automation steps into the fray here as well, and it can nip issues in the bud at the earliest stage of lead generation by using authentication messages to ascertain whether addresses given are legitimate. Sending messages to leads with verification links embedded in them is a long standing way to filter out fake addresses.

Going a step beyond this, the top validation software is capable of automatically fixing errors that users have made, such as misspelling the domain name associated with their email provider, or adding improper characters through a slip of the finger.

Even things like the name of the prospect can be analyzed to ensure that it is accurate and genuine. This is more about making sure you aren’t breaching email etiquette because of some quirk of how their email address is written, or the metadata attached to it.

The benefits

We’ve covered most of the perks of real-time lead verification already, but it’s also worth touching on the improved efficiency and productivity that is afforded by this.

Rather than sales staff having to take care of the verification by hand, or spend hours making sure that your list of contacts is properly updated and streamlined, all of this will be dealt with behind the scenes.

The bottom line

If you aren’t verifying leads, you’ll be wasting time and money. When you do start doing this for each lead you generate, the advantages will be obvious.

It’s an example of how the quantity of data you collect is not really important, and that it’s more about ensuring that the quality is high.