NCOA by the US Postal Service

The NCOALink Product is a secure data set of approximately 160 million permanent change-of-address (COA) records consisting of the names and addresses of individuals, families and businesses who have filed a change-of-address with the USPS®. This data set allows marketers to improve the overall delivery success of their direct mail pieces and reduces postage costs.

Benefits of NCOALink Certification

  • Qualify for USPS® automation discounts
  • Includes Delivery Point Validation (DPV)TM processing, which confirms whether or not an address is a confirmed USPS delivery point.
  • Mail deliverability increases by changing street addresses to their proper names. Example: “Rt 355″ becomes “N Frederick Ave.”
  • Zip+4, carrier route (CRRT), or delivery point number (DPB) are appended to each address

The success rate of our data append services also suffers with out-of-date, incomplete, or poorly entered addresses. ILS offers duplicate removal, CASS Certification, United States Postal Service’s National Change of Address, or formatting options to increase the success rate of our append services.
NCOALink 24 month, 48, month, or mCOA
The USPS reports an estimated 18-20% of the households and businesses in America move each year. Reduce undeliverable mail using the NCOALinkto find relocated individuals, families, and business. The NCOALink data is created from self-reported USPS Change-of-Address Order forms. Address can be searched for changes made within the past 48 months. The average percentage that is updated is 10%.

The processed output file contains:

  1. A standardized input address appended with the correct ZIP + 4. ILS partners with the Geography Department of Texas A&M University for their address processing services. The Texas A&M address parsing provide the ability to both identify the individual attributes of an address as well as validate that an address exists.
  2. Address Error code, other postal values that result from the CASS™ (Coding Accuracy Support System) certification.
  3. For each mailing address for which there is a match to the NCOALinkTM database, a standardized new address with 11-digit Delivery Point Barcode (DPBC) and standard return codes.
  4. When a match is made, the following intelligence codes are appended: effective move date; the specific name and address utilized in the query that obtained the match; and the move type. The move type indicates whether the update was an individual, family, or business match.
  5. For each mailing address for which there is no match, the unaltered input name and address remains intact along with any standard return codes that may be appropriate.
  6. The carrier route information (CRRT) for updated addresses.
  7. The urbanization name information, when applicable.
  8. Delivery Point Validation (DPV) results for the input address.
  9. LACSLink results, if requested (when available).
  10. A summary report containing the statistics resulting from the NCOALinkTM process

Coding Accuracy Support SystemTM (CASS) Certificate
The CASS™ system is the USPS benchmark to measure the accuracy of Zip+4, 5-digit zip, and Carrier Route codes that appear on mail pieces. USPS form 3553 must be submitted with mailings brought to a USPS Bulk Mail facility.

The CASS program overwrites the original address and inserts an address error code when an update cannot be made. The file size and number of fields may vary from the original. We recommend each record have it’s own unique identifier before being exported from your contact manager program.
Remove Duplicates
What makes a record a duplicate entry depends on your organization’s goal. If your list contains registered voters, perhaps you want to narrow the list down to only one adult per household. If your list contains customers, perhaps you want to consolidate the number of times that person has been entered in the data set. ILS establishes links between records and puts them into three categories:

  • Records with a similar name and/or address that appear to be duplicates based solely on name and/or address information
  • Records with a similar name and/or address that cannot be ruled out as duplicates based solely on name and/or address information
  • Records with a similar name and/or address that do not appear to be duplicates based solely on name and/or address information.

Ready to Send a File?
Scroll up on this page for the “Send a file” link on the right hand side. If you have a question before sending a file, call us at (240) 243-4457 ext 116. We require payment via the Intuit Payment Network before the output file is released.