Profiled, verified and GDPR compliant B2B lists
A B2B contact list is personal data in every sense, and it has to be treated as such. Compliance is not a formality to tuck away at the end of the contract. It is the condition that lets you use that list without risk.
What a profiled list contains
Companies selected by industry and size, and within each company a reference to the role that decides on what you sell.
Delivery comes shortly after the criteria are defined, with contacts verified one by one.
Why the GDPR matters in B2B too
There is a widespread belief that the GDPR does not apply to business to business. It does. The data of a natural person who works in a company, starting with their name and their named work email address, is still personal data.
This has two practical consequences. The first is that a badly collected list exposes you, not just whoever sold it to you. The second is that the recipient has the right to know where their data came from and to ask for it to be erased, and you must be able to answer.
How we build them
The profiling criteria come from the market diagnosis, which is the work of understanding which problem your company solves better than the competition and therefore who it pays to talk to.
From there we define industry, size and role, build the list, verify it and deliver it. If the list also feeds a call campaign, it is corrected every week based on what comes up on the calls. It is the quickest way to find out whether the initial criteria were right.
The questions to ask anyone selling you a list
There are four, and the answers tell you almost everything about the quality of what you are buying.
Where the data comes from, meaning which sources the list was built on. Which criteria it was profiled with, because industry alone is not enough. When it was last verified, given that a list from two years ago contains roles that no longer exist. And finally, who responds if a recipient asks for their data to be erased.
If the supplier is vague on any one of these four, the risk falls on you the moment you use that list.
What we deliver, in practice
A file with the companies selected according to the agreed criteria, the details needed to reach the decision-making role and a note of the criteria used to make the selection.
We deliver shortly after the criteria are defined, with contacts verified one by one. The criteria stay on record, so if the campaign does not produce the expected results you can tell whether the problem was the selection or the message.
Your obligations when you use the list
Receiving a compliant list does not end your duties, because the moment you use it you become the controller of that processing.
In practice that means three things: telling the person who you are and why you are contacting them, keeping track of anyone who asks not to be contacted again and respecting it, and keeping the data only for as long as you need it. These obligations are light if they are set up at the start, and they only become heavy when a request arrives and nobody knows where to look.
What you can do with it
You can work it with your own sales team, or hand the calls over to us and receive qualified appointments with decision makers directly.
In the second case the list stops being a file and becomes the first step of a measured process, where we count calls, duration, appointments and confirmations.
Frequently asked questions
Are the lists GDPR compliant?
Yes. The lists are profiled by industry, size and decision-making role, with contacts verified before delivery, and they comply with EU Regulation 2016/679.
How soon do I receive the list?
Shortly after the profiling criteria are defined. We agree the date together when we set the criteria.
Does the GDPR really apply to B2B as well?
Yes. Data relating to a natural person who works in a company is still personal data, so it has to be collected and processed in line with the Regulation even in a business to business context.
Let’s talk
If you want to find out whether this makes sense for your company, the quickest way is to send us a couple of lines on what you sell and who you sell it to. We reply with an honest assessment, even when the answer is that we are not the right choice.
Write to clienti@alis.srl or call +39 347 830 5930, every day from 8:30 to 18:00.