Your CRM data can make or break your real estate business. Outdated contact details and incomplete property records waste time and money, while verified data helps close deals faster and boosts revenue. BatchData‘s Skip Tracing API simplifies the process by cleaning and verifying your CRM data at scale. It updates phone numbers, emails, and property ownership details, ensuring your team only works with accurate, actionable leads.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
- How skip tracing works to verify contact and property data.
- Steps to prepare your CRM data for integration.
- How to use the API for bulk processing and DNC compliance.
- Benefits of verified data for real estate operations.
BatchData’s API is a powerful tool for turning messy CRM data into a reliable resource, saving time and improving efficiency. Let’s explore how you can use it to streamline your workflows and focus on closing deals.
Complete Workflow for Cleaning CRM Data with BatchData Skip Tracing API
What is BatchData‘s Skip Tracing API?
BatchData’s Skip Tracing API is a tool designed to verify property-related data and provide accurate contact information. By inputting a property address (including street, city, state, and ZIP code), users receive verified details like phone numbers and email addresses. The system identifies the current property owner by analyzing property records and cross-referencing multiple databases, ensuring the contact information is accurate and organized.
The API taps into a massive database of over 155 million properties, pulling data from more than 3,200 independent sources. Using proprietary algorithms, it can even uncover individual owners hidden behind LLCs or trusts, offering direct contact details. This feature is especially useful for real estate professionals who need to connect with decision-makers instead of just reaching generic business addresses.
BatchData boasts impressive performance, achieving a 76% right-party contact (RPC) rate – almost three times the industry average. This accuracy is continually refined through feedback from over 20,000 active users. As Chris Finck, Director of Product Management, noted:
"What used to take 30 minutes now takes 30 seconds. BatchData makes our platform superhuman."
The API also supports bulk processing, allowing users to verify up to 100 properties in a single request. Each response includes confidence scores to help prioritize leads based on data reliability. This efficiency and precision set the stage for the advanced features highlighted below.
Main Features of the Skip Tracing API
The API addresses common CRM data issues by delivering verified, multi-channel contact information. For each property address submitted, users receive validated phone numbers (mobile and landline), email addresses, and mailing addresses linked to the current owner. The system eliminates duplicates and invalid entries, flagging disconnected phone numbers to ensure clean results.
Built-in geocoding and property intelligence add further value. Each property record includes validated geocodes and over 300 data points, such as property age, lot size, construction details, tax records, sales history, and equity positions. This information helps users identify key indicators like pre-foreclosure, tax delinquency, vacancies, and absentee ownership – ideal for spotting motivated sellers.
Efficiency is a key focus. Tasks that once took 30 minutes are now completed in just 30 seconds, with daily updates keeping the data current. Pricing is credit-based, allowing users to pay per record without committing to long-term contracts.
Integration is straightforward, with options for direct API calls, automation tools like Zapier, Make.com, and N8N, or AI-native MCP servers. This flexibility allows users to automate skip tracing as soon as new leads enter their CRM, ensuring immediate access to verified contact details without manual effort.
Regulatory Compliance and Data Protection
BatchData’s API prioritizes compliance alongside data accuracy. It screens against the Federal Do Not Call (DNC) registry and TCPA litigator databases, helping users avoid legal risks. Numbers are checked against the National DNC list, and known TCPA litigators are flagged, allowing businesses to remove high-risk contacts before outreach. This process integrates directly into the data verification workflow, ensuring CRM data is both accurate and legally actionable.
The system is designed to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), respecting opt-out requests and data deletion requirements. It also distinguishes between mobile and landline numbers, helping users adhere to stricter TCPA rules for automated calls and texts to mobile devices. This is especially important for real estate professionals using SMS or robocall campaigns.
Data privacy and security are integral to the API. All requests are processed over encrypted connections, and the contact data is sourced from enterprise-grade providers that meet legal standards. Dedicated endpoints for DNC and TCPA screening can be integrated directly into the data enrichment process, ensuring compliance is automated and seamless.
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Getting Your CRM Data Ready for API Integration
Before you can send data to BatchData’s Skip Tracing API, you’ll need to format your CRM records into a standardized CSV file. The API processes data in bulk using CSV files, so start by exporting your contacts, leads, or property records from your CRM platform and preparing them for submission. Clean, well-organized data is critical because even the most advanced API won’t deliver good results without it. Simply put, better data means better outcomes.
Your CSV file should include key details like property addresses, owner names, and location information as the bare minimum. These fields allow the API to enrich your records with additional contact details – such as up to 8 phone numbers (categorized as mobile, landline, or VoIP), 5 email addresses, and verified mailing addresses. To ensure everything works smoothly, start with a small test batch of known contacts. This lets you check for formatting issues and confirm the API provides accurate, high-quality results before scaling up to larger datasets. BatchData boasts a 76% right-party contact (RPC) rate – around three times higher than the industry average – but achieving this depends heavily on submitting clean, properly formatted data.
How to Export and Format Your CRM Data
Most CRM platforms include a built-in option to export contact lists as CSV files, usually found under a “Settings” or “Export” menu. For instance, in ONLYOFFICE, navigate to CRM > Settings > Common settings, and export your data as a CSV ZIP archive. If you’re using Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, go to the Data > Exports menu to set up a new export connection. This can send your data to destinations like Azure Data Lake Gen2 for further processing.
When working with large datasets, split them into smaller files and stagger the export process by 30 minutes to an hour to avoid overloading your system. Filtering your data before exporting is also a smart move. Create segments based on criteria like location, engagement dates, or spending thresholds. This not only reduces the file size but ensures you’re only processing records that actually need verification.
Before submitting your data, take time to clean it thoroughly. Remove duplicates, standardize address formats, and ensure ZIP codes have at least five digits. Focus on essential fields like lead source, campaign, phone number, and property address, while cutting out unnecessary columns to keep your CSV file streamlined. Consistency is key – fields like phone numbers, ZIP codes, and country names should follow a uniform format. For example, avoid mixing “USA” with “United States” as this can create processing errors. CSV files are ideal because they’re plain-text and compatible with most APIs and spreadsheet tools.
Once your CSV is clean and ready, the next step is setting up your API key for secure integration.
Setting Up Your API Key and Authentication
After signing up, generate your Bearer token directly from the user dashboard. This token must be included in the Authorization header of all requests to securely authenticate your access.
BatchData’s API infrastructure offers 99.8% uptime, ensuring enterprise-grade reliability. You can also configure webhook URLs to receive POST notifications for skip tracing and DNC scrubs. This feature automates workflows, so you don’t need to manually check the status of large jobs – especially helpful when processing thousands of records.
Pricing is straightforward, starting at $0.02 per record on a credit-based, pay-as-you-go model. There are no monthly minimums or hidden fees. Once authentication is complete, you can use the POST /trace/ endpoint to initiate skip tracing jobs, the GET /queue/:id endpoint to retrieve detailed results, and the POST /dnc/scrub/ endpoint to check phone numbers against DNC and litigator lists.
With your data formatted and authentication set up, you’re ready to start cleaning your CRM records using BatchData’s Skip Tracing API.
How to Clean CRM Data Using the Skip Tracing API
Once your CRM data is properly formatted and your API key is ready, you can start submitting records for verification. The cleaning process unfolds in three main steps: submitting batch requests, receiving enriched contact data, and analyzing the results to handle any inconsistencies. Let’s break down each step.
Sending Batch Requests to the API
To begin, send your data to https://api.batchdata.com/v1/skiptrace using a POST request. For batch processing, the data should be structured as a JSON array, like this:
{ "properties": [ {"address": "123 Main St, Anytown, CA 90210"}, {"address": "456 Oak Ave, Springfield, IL 62701"} ] } Make sure to include your Bearer token in the Authorization header and set the Content-Type to application/json. The API is designed to handle large batches efficiently, making it well-suited for cleaning extensive CRM databases.
For better match accuracy, include additional details like the parcel number or owner name alongside the property address. The API cross-references your input with multiple high-quality data sources and incorporates real-time feedback from over 20,000 users to maintain precision. It’s also equipped to identify the actual individuals behind LLCs or trusts, bypassing generic registered agents.
Receiving Verified and Updated Contact Data
The API provides a detailed contact profile for each property. This includes phone numbers, email addresses, and verified mailing addresses. Each phone number is accompanied by a Confidence Score and metadata like carrier information and line type, helping you decide between SMS or voice calls for outreach.
In many cases, the mailing address differs from the property address. This difference can signal an absentee owner – an important insight for real estate professionals targeting off-market opportunities. Verified email addresses reduce the risk of bounced messages, streamlining your outreach efforts.
The API also flags phone numbers listed on the National Do Not Call registry and identifies known TCPA litigators through its built-in Litigator Scrub. This feature helps safeguard your business from potential legal issues and ensures compliance with relevant regulations.
Understanding API Responses and Fixing Errors
Results can be retrieved using GET /queue/:id. Each response includes success indicators and detailed data fields for every record, making it easy to interpret the results. Confidence Scores highlight records that may require manual review. Common issues include incomplete or incorrectly formatted addresses, which can lead to empty responses, as well as rate limit warnings if you exceed the API’s throughput.
Double-check your JSON formatting and compare the returned mailing address with the property address in your CRM. Any mismatch could indicate an absentee owner and should prompt a database update. For operations handling large volumes of data, consider setting up webhook URLs to receive automatic POST notifications when jobs are completed. This eliminates the need for manual polling and keeps your workflow efficient.
Importing Cleaned Data Back into Your CRM
Now that your CRM data has been verified and enriched, it’s time to integrate it back into your system. Start by retrieving the verified data from the API using the relevant queue ID (e.g., through GET /queue/:id). Next, align the enriched fields – such as multiple phone numbers, email addresses, and mailing addresses – with your CRM’s custom fields to ensure everything matches up properly.
Before importing, establish rules for updating your data. For instance, decide whether you want to overwrite existing phone numbers with the verified ones or only fill in gaps where information is missing. If a property has separate mailing and property addresses, make sure both fields are updated in your CRM to avoid any issues with direct mail delivery. These steps help ensure a smooth import process and improve the accuracy of your CRM data across all contact points.
Take advantage of your CRM’s deduplication tools to match unique identifiers like parcel numbers or property addresses instead of relying on owner names, which can vary in format. Automating updates based on these identifiers will help keep your database up-to-date and consistent.
As you map the fields, include compliance-related data for better oversight. For example, import the Do Not Call (DNC) status and Litigator Scrub flags as custom fields or tags. This makes compliance markers easily accessible for your sales team and ensures they’re integrated into automated dialer rules. Additionally, map the Phone Number Confidence Scores to prioritize high-quality leads for quick follow-up, while flagging lower-confidence records for manual review.
For ongoing data accuracy, consider integrating the API with your CRM using middleware platforms like Zapier, Make.com, or n8n. This setup allows you to verify every new lead in real time, keeping your contact information accurate even as phone numbers and addresses change. To maintain reliability, schedule regular re-verification cycles – monthly or quarterly – to refresh older records and ensure your database stays dependable over time.
How Verified CRM Data Improves Real Estate Operations
Clean, verified CRM data can completely change the way real estate professionals connect with property owners and close deals. Instead of wasting time chasing outdated or incorrect contacts, your team can focus on reaching decision-makers directly. This not only saves valuable time but also opens doors to off-market opportunities that might otherwise be missed.
The API’s ability to identify the actual property owners – whether they’re behind LLCs or trusts – gives you a clear advantage when targeting off-market properties. You can bypass intermediaries like registered agents and go straight to the people who can make decisions. This is especially critical in fast-paced situations where timing can make or break a deal.
Accurate contact data also makes your marketing efforts more effective. Features like the Phone Number Confidence Score help you prioritize outreach by identifying leads that are most likely to connect. Mobile versus landline flags ensure that SMS campaigns reach numbers capable of receiving text messages. Plus, with BatchData’s automated daily refresh, your team always works with the most current information, avoiding the pitfalls of outdated data. Combined with automated workflows, these tools make your daily operations much smoother.
Real-time data processing takes it a step further by enabling immediate follow-up on new leads. With verified contact information integrated into automated CRM workflows, your team can engage motivated sellers within minutes of spotting an opportunity. This level of accuracy and speed turns data into a powerful advantage for your operations.
Conclusion
Having clean CRM data is essential for running a successful real estate operation. Outdated phone numbers, incorrect addresses, and generic agent contacts can waste both time and money, leading to outreach efforts that fall flat. BatchData’s Skip Tracing API solves this problem by providing accurate skip tracing data with an impressive 76% right-party contact rate.
This API handles the heavy lifting of data verification by cross-checking details from over a dozen sources, identifying the actual decision-makers behind LLCs and trusts, and ensuring your lists are scrubbed against the National Do Not Call registry and known TCPA litigators. With daily updates, your team works with fresh, accurate information, enabling faster and smarter decisions in real estate. This level of verification ensures a smooth start-up process.
Getting started is simple: sign up for a free account, select a credit-based or subscription plan, and integrate the API into your CRM. The clear documentation makes integration straightforward, and BatchData’s support team is available to assist with onboarding. Once set up, you’ll have immediate access to precise, actionable data.
Say goodbye to bad data and hello to better deals. When you can connect with property owners within minutes of spotting an opportunity, you gain a decisive advantage. In real estate, reaching a motivated seller first often means the difference between securing an off-market property or losing it to someone else.
Take the first step toward cleaning your CRM data today. Spend less time chasing dead ends and more time closing deals.
FAQs
What CRM fields do I need before skip tracing?
The key CRM fields for skip tracing include owner name, address, phone number, and email address. Having these details ensures you can locate property owners accurately and efficiently. To get the best results, make sure this data is both complete and consistently formatted within your CRM.
How do I handle low-confidence matches and missing results?
To handle low-confidence matches, establish confidence thresholds in your verification process. Any results falling below this threshold should be flagged for manual review to ensure accuracy. For missing results, consider fallback strategies such as re-trying with alternative data, broadening search parameters, or supplementing with additional data sources. Regular audits, combined with automated processes, can help keep your CRM data accurate, supporting more informed decision-making in real estate operations.
How often should I re-verify my CRM data?
Regular re-verification is key to maintaining accurate CRM data. Many real estate professionals choose to update their information on a monthly or quarterly basis, particularly for details that can change often, like contact information or property records. This routine not only helps cut down on errors but also minimizes legal risks and boosts the success rate of outreach efforts.
To keep your CRM effective and up to date, establish a schedule that works best for your operations and the data sources you rely on. Consistency in updates ensures your system stays reliable and ready to support your goals.
