Database marketing

Under address trading refers to the buying and selling of postal addresses of potential customers who are according to the respective requirements pre-filtered and refined by advertising companies. Address trade is a part of the work processes in direct marketing. Goal of direct marketing is to identify a recipient as a potential customer and personally to speak, that this expresses its interest in the company and the advertising message responding ( response). For this, the postal addresses of potential buyers are required. These addresses can be purchased through dealers address (address broker list brokers too).

According to an analysis by the Bundeskartellamt in 2005, the estimated market volume was approximately 770 million euros.

Market participants

Non - public bodies

The market in Germany is dominated by the following companies ( in alphabetical order):

• ABIS GmbH (owned by German Post Adress GmbH & Co. KG )
• Acxiom Germany GmbH
• AZ Direct GmbH ( part of Arvato / Bertelsmann AG)
• German Post Direkt GmbH
• EOS Group ( part of the Otto Group)
• Schober Information Group Germany GmbH
• Other providers such as Address - Base

A special case are relocation addresses, ie addresses of consumers and companies that have moved. About eight million people in Germany are moving annually. Market leader in the update of relocation addresses is the German Post Adress GmbH & Co. KG, which markets the data from the redirection of Deutsche Post AG.

Public bodies

See: Municipal Register

Modes of address trade and address finishing

Companies can acquire addresses for advertising purposes or for one-time unrestricted use and integration into their own databases. There are models in which the addresses are not given directly to the advertising company, but a " trustee", for example, the letter shop, brings together the addresses and advertising information, without the advertising company is the address list itself known. Only when the addressed customer responds, the advertising company learns the address in question. Address dealers offer on the market to both self- acquired addresses and foreign addresses. The foreign addresses come from the customer databases of, for example, mail-order companies that can give out their customer addresses within the list privilege for advertising purposes subject to the provisions of the Federal Data Protection Act to a third party. A consent of the person concerned is not required to § 28 BDSG.

The quality of the addresses can be adjusted using filter criteria to the requirements of advertisers. The filter criteria are, for example, hobbies, geographic limitations, age, previous purchase history ( customer behavior ), the payment behavior and the social classification of the area of ​​the home address into consideration.

Context of trade address, credit checks, scoring

The address areas such as trade with the aim of direct marketing, credit checks and scoring are closely linked. The following example shows fictional practice on the correlations, this coffee can be replaced by more sensitive products such as insurance companies and the companies involved by banks, insurance companies and health insurance companies.

Fictitious example

Person A buys online regularly quality coffee. The provider B analyzes its address lists and sells mailing lists of buyers quality coffees to the neighboring department store C. This sends Person A then advertising about quality coffee machines. A finally decides to buy a coffee maker and they arrange an installment payment.

This in turn is reported to credit bureaus such as Schufa. Depending on how well A serves the rates, which affects their credit score. If person A makes further purchases elsewhere, indicating their address and consents to, for example, credit bureau queries, which takes place as a rule, or otherwise terminates contracts, is a positive scoring value condition for the conclusion of the contract or the terms of payment.

After some time A makes to. The department store C A would offer the successor to the coffee machine, but has no current address more. First, the department store C asks now at Deutsche Post after the relocation address. A, however, has not been reported there, so he gets the department store C there is no new information. C now turns to another service provider D, which then the address databases of other mail order companies investigated permanently as to whether a new address of person A is known or.

After a while A ordered a book from an online book trade e via the Internet at the new address. The address search system D by proposing and the department store C is replaced by the new address of A.

Since person A but has since moved into a neighborhood with high unemployment and low purchasing power ( Geoscoring ), gets A for the new coffee maker only an offer for the purchase after payment. The installment payment is not granted, as the credit risk is too high A.

If the new address of A would not have known about their book purchase, and the residents' registration office ( Registration Act ) would have helped any.

Information on the development of the market

Arvato / Bertelsmann sold in March 2012 customer addresses for the world, in July 2012 for the mail- bell. In August 2012, German post office gave direct the company Schober access to 37 million consumer addresses for sale under the address trade "deal for the future: German direct mail and Schober Information Group cooperate on consumer addresses ".