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4 Ways MAK™ Optimizes Address Data - Global Intelligence Blog

Written by Melissa Team | May 1, 2019 7:00:00 AM

4 Ways MAK™ Optimizes Address Data

Melissa Team | Address Check, Address Correction, Address Quality, Address Standardization, Address Validation, Address Verification, MAT | , , , , , , , , ,

Any book made publicly available can be identified by an ISBN. It’s a unique identifier used worldwide by publishers, booksellers and libraries. Just like an ISBN, your business can utilize a unique identifier for every street address – the Melissa Address Key™ (MAK).

MAK technology is address data management at its finest. With address identifier technology, organizations can transform global address data into a reliable index of numerical keys, essentially creating coded addresses. Entire addresses are translated to and from randomly generated 10-digit keys to provide optimal security and easy storage.

MAKs are ideal for analytics, mapping, risk management and logistics applications. Outlined below are just a few ways that using a MAK can streamline your database and optimize your address data applications.

1. Privacy and Security – MAKs are unique global address keys comprised of randomly generated numbers to identify a discrete physical address. Because they are randomly generated, they cannot be reverse engineered – unlike Google Plus Codes which are sequential numbers based on grid location, providing no randomization or anonymity. MAKs are the ideal vehicle to share with vendors or partners while maintaining true data anonymity. It provides the ability to share information yet remain secure and compliant by representing sensitive personally identifiable information with a random 10-digit integer. Because of these secure, private and anonymous capabilities, MAKs are ideal for the healthcare and finance industries.

2. Easy Search and Match – Before MAKs, the only way to uniquely identify an address was with the actual address itself. Searching and matching these records was an imprecise method because even slight variations in the address or its presentation could cause incorrect matching. MAKs never change. Regardless of any changes made to the address by postal authorities, or in the event that an address disappears, your MAK retains that updated information without changing its numbers.

3. Verification – Speaking of updates, postal authorities make changes to their address database anywhere between 30,000 to 40,000 times per month. These updates can include changes to ZIP codes, street names, city names, house numbers and more. Melissa provides updated lists that indicate these address changes monthly, so you no longer have to process millions of records regularly, you just have to update the deltas.

4. Data Enrichment – MAKs can easily be tied with other Melissa enrichment services that add comprehensive demographic, firmographic and geographic information appends to a particular address. Melissa has multiple on-prem and Cloud APIs that accept a MAK as the input, making it a breeze to enrich records. These include APIs like Global Address, GeoCoder™, SmartMover™, Personator™, and Business Coder™.

MAKs have the unique ability to remain consistent in the ever-evolving world of address data. Check out our MAK brochure for a more complete look at MAK capabilities or call 1-800-MELISSA to set up a demonstration of our Melissa Address Key technology.