Evidence for a contact address
An address on a prospect record carries its origin the way every other claim does — where it was published, and when it was read. That provenance is what separates a usable address from a plausible string, and it is the thing to check before approving a first message, because an address belonging to a third party is a real address that is still the wrong one.
Three tests an address has to pass#
- Found. It appeared in public material, rather than being derived from a name or a domain.
- Attributed. The place it appeared is stored with it, so a reader can see the origin without re-running research.
- Belongs to this organisation. Not to a directory operator, a web agency, a registrar, or a marketplace that lists the business.
The third test is the one that quietly removes the most addresses. A published contact on a listing page is often the listing company's, and the business you researched never sees mail sent there. It is a genuinely sourced address, and it is not a way to reach the prospect — which is why provenance is stored rather than just the string.
What the record holds#
| Kept | Used for |
|---|---|
| The address itself | Sending, and matching against existing identities |
| Where it was published | Judging whether it belongs to the business |
| When it was read | Freshness — an address read a year ago is a weaker claim |
| What kind of address it is | A named person's, a role address, or a general enquiry route |
| Whether a person supplied it | Distinguishing your own knowledge from research |
An address you supply yourself is stored the same way, with you as its origin. That is deliberate symmetry: a person's knowledge is a stronger source than a public page, and the record should say which one it had.
Matching against people you already know#
Before an address is treated as a cold contact it is checked against the identities already in the workspace. An Identity is one address on one channel that resolves to a Person, and a person may hold many. If the address resolves, this is not a prospect — it is somebody you already know, and the cold path ends there.
That check is cheap and the failure it prevents is expensive. Writing a cold introduction to an existing customer reads as evidence that nobody in your business is paying attention, and no amount of good research afterwards repairs it. Resolving a prospect to an existing relationship covers what happens on both sides of the match.
When provenance goes bad#
- The source page is gone
- The address stays with its history, marked as no longer supported. It is not silently deleted, because a message may already have been sent to it.
- Two sources give different addresses
- Both are kept. Choosing one silently would hide the fact that the business presents itself two ways, which is exactly the sort of thing a person should see before writing.
- The address bounces
- That is recorded against the address rather than against the business. The prospect survives; the route does not, and it becomes an uncontactable prospect with a next action.
- The address turns out to be a third party's
- Correcting it removes the route and records why. This is the failure the third test exists to catch, and catching it late is still catching it.
None of these produce a replacement address. A bounced or wrong contact does not trigger a search for a likely alternative, because there is no mechanism to produce one. The prospect moves to a different channel or waits for re-research.
Questions#
Is a role address worse than a named person's?
Different rather than worse. A published enquiry address is a legitimate route and often the one a business actually reads. A named person's address is better for a specific ask and worse if that person has left — which is why the record stores which kind it holds.
Why does the record show when an address was read?
Because addresses decay. A contact read this month is a stronger claim than the same string read a year ago, and freshness uses that age to decide what is worth re-reading before anything is sent.
Can I see the source without leaving the prospect?
Yes — origin sits with the address on the record, the same way every other claim carries its backing. Checking it is a glance rather than an investigation, which is the only reason anybody does it before approving a message.