What is Data Decay?
Data Decay is The rate at which contact and company data in your CRM becomes inaccurate over time due to job changes, company moves, and market shifts.
Definition
Data decay is the natural degradation of CRM and database accuracy over time. People change jobs (average tenure is 2-3 years), companies get acquired, phone numbers change, and email addresses stop working. Industry research suggests 25-30% of B2B contact data decays annually, meaning a CRM with no enrichment process loses a quarter of its accuracy every year. The decay rate is higher for certain fields (direct dials decay faster than work emails) and certain industries (tech has higher turnover than healthcare).
Why It Matters
Decayed data doesn't just sit there quietly. It actively costs money: bounced emails hurt your sender reputation, wrong phone numbers waste SDR time, outdated titles lead to irrelevant pitches, and bad data in your CRM corrupts lead scoring and reporting. The compounding effect means that without regular data maintenance, your CRM becomes progressively less useful.
Example
A company with 100,000 contacts in Salesforce and no enrichment process loses roughly 25,000 accurate records per year. After two years, nearly half their database is unreliable. Running a quarterly enrichment cycle through ZoomInfo or Clearbit catches most changes before they compound.
Tools for Data Decay
Find the Right Data Decay Tool
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