Every database is a snapshot of a world that keeps moving. People change jobs, companies relocate, entities dissolve — and a list that was 95% accurate in January is materially wrong by summer.
Decay is not uniform
Contact-level data decays fastest: role changes alone put annual decay in the double digits. Registered addresses and legal names move slowly. Status — active, dissolved, in liquidation — changes rarely but matters enormously when it does.
Treating all fields with one refresh policy therefore either wastes money or leaves the risky fields stale.
A workable cadence
Status monthly, registered address monthly, directors quarterly, sector and size on filing, contacts continuously. Keep a last-verified timestamp per field so you can filter on freshness at query time.
Suppress rather than delete: a dissolved entity is valuable history for reporting, but it should never enter an outbound campaign.
Prove the cost internally
Bounce rate, wrong-number rate and 'no longer at this company' replies convert directly into wasted rep hours. Multiply by loaded cost per hour and the refresh budget argues for itself.
The second cost is reputational: high bounce rates damage sending domains, which quietly reduces deliverability for every future campaign.
Frequently asked questions
How often should B2B data be refreshed?
Company status and address monthly, directors quarterly, contacts continuously. Anything older than twelve months should be treated as unverified.
Is it better to refresh or rebuild a list?
Refresh. Rebuilding loses your engagement history and suppression lists, which are usually more valuable than the records themselves.
