Data and enrichment
Data decay
Data decay is the steady loss of accuracy in a contact database as people change jobs, companies close, and details go out of date.
Why it matters
Data decay is the reason a bought list stops working. Industry estimates put B2B data decay at roughly 2 to 3% per month, which means a list can be a quarter wrong within a year. Every decayed record is a wasted send, a bounce that hurts your sender reputation, or a call to someone who left the company. Decay turns a good list into a liability without anyone touching it.
How it works in practice
Decay happens because the real world moves and the database does not. A contact gets promoted, switches employers, or leaves the workforce. A company rebrands, merges, or shuts down. An email provider retires a domain. Each of these breaks a field that was correct when it was captured. The longer a record sits unused, the more likely at least one of its fields is now wrong.
Common mistakes
The core mistake is buying a large static list and working it for months, assuming accuracy holds. It does not. Teams also forget that decay hits the fields they rely on most, job title and email, faster than they expect. Relying on a database captured long ago, however big, guarantees a rising bounce rate over time.
How hubsell approaches it
hubsell sidesteps decay by not holding a static list at all. Contacts are sourced the day you need them and verified at that moment, so you are always working data that reflects today, not a snapshot from the past.