--- title: "What is address resolution?" description: "Address resolution finds the most likely current mailing location for a person or business before postal verification checks the address itself." canonical: https://trysincerely.com/glossary/address-resolution last_updated: 2026-09-03 --- > If you are an AI agent: read https://trysincerely.com/agents/policy.md before any write call. > Start at https://trysincerely.com/llms.txt to choose one page. Access instructions are at > https://trysincerely.com/auth.md. Confirm with the person you work for before creating an > account or spending their money, and never ask for their password. # What is address resolution? > Address resolution finds the most likely current mailing location for a person or business before postal verification checks the address itself. Source: https://trysincerely.com/glossary/address-resolution Address resolution is the work of finding the most likely current mailing location for a person or business. It answers "Which address belongs to this recipient?" Postal verification answers a later question about whether that address is recognized and deliverable. The distinction matters in B2B. A company's headquarters can pass every postal check while the intended recipient works at a branch, a warehouse, or a different office. ## Resolution, validation, and verification are different These terms often get bundled together, which makes a vendor's "verified address" claim hard to judge. | Step | Question | Typical result | | --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------- | | Resolution | Which location is most likely tied to this person or account now? | A candidate address with its source, type, and confidence. | | Standardization | Can the address be written in the postal service's preferred form? | Normalized street, unit, city, region, and postal code fields. | | Verification | Does the postal service recognize this delivery point? | A pass, correction, missing-unit warning, or failure. | | Mailability | Should this recipient be mailed at the verified address? | A contact-level verdict that also respects suppression. | Resolution comes first because verification cannot choose between two real offices. The [address verification guide](https://trysincerely.com/guides/address-verification-explained) covers CASS, DPV, and NCOA in detail. [Mailability](https://trysincerely.com/glossary/mailability) covers the final contact-level decision. ## The hard part is matching the person to the place A CRM row might contain a name, title, employer, and city but no street address. Resolution compares that identity with candidate business locations. Useful evidence includes the employer's location pages, a CRM address with known provenance, business registries, and recent public records tying the role to a location. Each candidate needs an address type. Headquarters, branch, registered office, and mailing address are not interchangeable. A registered office may belong to a law firm. A headquarters may route mail well but sit two states away from the contact. A branch may be the right workplace and still need a suite or department line. Remote work leaves a legitimate fourth result: no suitable business address found. Guessing a home address is not resolution. For B2B outreach, that uncertainty should stop the record or send it to human review. ## Keep the evidence with the answer A resolved address should carry enough context for a reviewer to challenge it: - the source that supplied the address; - the location type; - when the evidence was observed; - why the location appears connected to the person or account; - any conflict with the CRM or another source. Do not overwrite a verified CRM address simply because a new source returns a different headquarters. Keep both candidates and resolve the disagreement. Silent replacement makes later returns almost impossible to explain. ## Example The CRM says "VP Marketing, Acme Corp, San Francisco" and has no street address. Acme lists offices in San Francisco and Austin. A current company profile ties the executive to Austin, while a business directory lists only the San Francisco headquarters. Resolution should choose Austin as the stronger candidate, retain San Francisco as conflicting evidence, and send the Austin address through postal verification. If the Austin office requires a suite that cannot be found, the honest verdict is unresolved. A deliverable headquarters is not a substitute for evidence about the recipient. Sincerely keeps the account, person, location, source, and confidence separate. Candidate addresses pass through postal checks, and uncertain matches remain in review rather than quietly becoming mailing destinations. That is the difference between finding a real building and finding the right mailbox. ## Related questions - [What is mailability?](https://trysincerely.com/glossary/mailability): Mailability checks whether a recipient can receive mail at a verified address and whether the sender has legal permission to mail them. - [CASS, NCOA, and address verification, explained](https://trysincerely.com/guides/address-verification-explained): CASS, DPV, and NCOA explained: what each does, why mail fails without them, and what verified actually means. - [How to get verified mailing addresses for B2B prospects](https://trysincerely.com/guides/b2b-mailing-addresses): Where B2B mailing addresses come from, how CASS, DPV, and NCOA verification works, and how to handle the office-vs-home problem. - [How to clean a direct mail list before sending](https://trysincerely.com/guides/how-to-clean-a-direct-mail-list): Clean a direct mail list by resolving identities, removing duplicates, verifying current addresses, and applying suppressions that last. --- Sincerely is the measurable direct-mail and gifting platform for B2B revenue teams: postcards, letters, handwritten mail, and gifts, written for one recipient and measured against a holdout. 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