Even when vendors brag about monthly refreshes, they're getting rate-limited to hell by ISPs and LinkedIn throttling API calls, so in reality that fresh data is already 30 to 90 days stale before it even lands in your inbox. And it gets worse in February because these guys know which info decays fastest like current company and phone numbers, yet they're basically profiting off that decay - a stale list means you come back next quarter begging for the new data they're selling. If you actually want to hold them accountable, push back hard -- demand in writing that they show you exactly how fresh each field is, hit them with bounce-rate penalties, and threaten to bail if they flake. If a vendor won't sign off on that, they're basically admitting they're just running automated scrapers, not legit data feeds. And even if someone figured out true real-time re-verification, big if, given the costs and ISP headaches, it probably doesn't make financial sense at scale anyway, which means your best bet is probably a mixed approach like nail the real-time updates on active deals, refresh the cold prospects quarterly, and stop waiting for vendors to magically get honest
Even when vendors brag about monthly refreshes, they're getting rate-limited to hell by ISPs and LinkedIn throttling API calls, so in reality that fresh data is already 30 to 90 days stale before it even lands in your inbox. And it gets worse in February because these guys know which info decays fastest like current company and phone numbers, yet they're basically profiting off that decay - a stale list means you come back next quarter begging for the new data they're selling. If you actually want to hold them accountable, push back hard -- demand in writing that they show you exactly how fresh each field is, hit them with bounce-rate penalties, and threaten to bail if they flake. If a vendor won't sign off on that, they're basically admitting they're just running automated scrapers, not legit data feeds. And even if someone figured out true real-time re-verification, big if, given the costs and ISP headaches, it probably doesn't make financial sense at scale anyway, which means your best bet is probably a mixed approach like nail the real-time updates on active deals, refresh the cold prospects quarterly, and stop waiting for vendors to magically get honest