Why check at all
The price of a list is the small cost. The large cost is the time you spend contacting it, and the damage a bad list does on the way: calls to closed businesses, email that bounces and marks your sending domain as careless, and messages to people who should never have been on a business list.
So judge a list by what it will cost to use, not what it costs to buy. The cost per lead guide shows how to put a number on that.
The eight checks
- 1The count, for your exact filter. Ask how many rows match your niche and your area, not how many records the seller holds in total. A database of millions says nothing about dentists in your city.
- 2Real sample rows. Ask for rows from the list you would receive, not a showcase file. Look up three of the businesses yourself. Are they real, open, and the kind of business you asked for?
- 3How full each column is. A list of 5,000 rows with 400 phone numbers is a list of 400 for a calling campaign. Ask for the share of rows with a phone number, a website and an email address, separately.
- 4What verified means. The word covers very different checks: that the address is well formed, that its domain accepts mail, or that the single mailbox answered. Ask which one, and when it was done.
- 5How old the data is. Businesses open, move and close. Ask when the list was last rebuilt, and expect some rows to be out of date whatever the answer.
- 6Where it came from. Information businesses publish about themselves is one thing. Scraped personal profiles, purchased consumer files and lists with no stated origin are another, and the legal risk of using them becomes yours.
- 7What the licence allows. Can you email it, call it, load it into your CRM, share it with a client? Is it sold to you once, or to everyone? Get it in writing with the file.
- 8What happens if it is wrong. Is there a refund, a replacement, or nothing? Who holds your money while you check the file? A seller confident in the list has an answer.
Red flags
- No count and no sample until you pay.
- Every row has every column filled. Real data has gaps.
- Private email addresses and mobile numbers of named individuals on a list sold as business data.
- A promise that every email is delivered. Nobody can promise that.
- A price that falls sharply the moment you hesitate.
- No licence, no source and no way to ask for a correction.
The same eight checks, answered for our lists
It would be odd to publish these and not answer them.
| Check | On LeadsByCity |
|---|---|
| Count | Shown on every list page, for that niche and place, before you pay. |
| Sample rows | 5 real rows from the list, with contact details partly hidden. |
| Columns | The number of rows with a phone number, a website and an email address is on the page. |
| Verified | An email on the business's own domain whose mail servers were found when checked. The single mailbox is not tested, and the file marks each address as verified or not. |
| Age | Lists are rebuilt when new information has been processed. How the data is built. |
| Source | Public business information. Business-level data only, no consumer records. |
| Licence | A licence notice comes with every file: business-to-business outreach, no resale. |
| If it is wrong | See refunds and acceptance. Files from other sellers on the Lead Market are paid through escrow. |
A list costs $7 per 1,000 rows. Start from the lead finder to see the count and the sample for your niche and city.
After you buy: a ten-minute test
Before a full campaign, take 50 rows at random. Call ten, open ten websites, and send a small first batch of email from a domain set up for outreach. If the sample holds up, the list will. If it does not, you have lost an hour, not a month.
Questions and answers
- How do I know if a lead list is good?
- Check the count for your exact filter, look up a few sample rows yourself, and ask what share of rows have each contact detail, what verified means, how old the data is, where it came from, what the licence allows and what happens if it is wrong.
- What does a verified email list mean?
- It depends on the seller. It can mean the address is well formed, that its domain accepts mail, or that the mailbox itself answered a check. Ask which, and when. No check can promise that every message will be delivered.
- Is it legal to buy a lead list?
- Buying a list of businesses and the contact details they publish is lawful in most places, but the rules for contacting them differ by country and by channel. Lists of private individuals are treated far more strictly. Check the rules for the countries you contact before you send.
- How many rows of a bought list are usually out of date?
- Some always are, because businesses close and change details every month. Test a random sample of 50 rows before a full campaign to see the rate for the list you have.