Social media app increases its automatic address verification rate and streamlines international customer onboarding

Company Profile

Hyperlocal social media app founded in 2011 with 30M monthly active users and a presence in 11 countries with plan for rapid expansion.

The challenge

This leading social media app requires every new user to verify their address before opening an account. With its existing address validation solutions, the app was able to verify approximately 70% of users, with lower performance in international markets. The Trust & Safety team needed a solution that could increase the app’s real-time address verification rate globally, in both established and expansion markets.

Background

In order to validate the addresses of new users at account opening, the company had structured an identity verification waterfall comprised of three steps:

• Reverse phone number lookup

• Reverse email address lookup

• Postcard with one-time passcode (OTP) mailed to address

This process resulted in a 70% verification rate on average globally. However, depending on the country, the verification rate could be as low as 40%. To support international expansion, the company needed a more effective and scalable address verification solution that could streamline global onboarding. 

The solution

For these reasons, the company chose to test Incognia's innovative Address Verification solution. Rather than relying on 3rd party data, Incognia's SDK uses the sensors on a mobile device to determine a user's real-time location with a precision of up to 10 feet. It then compares that location to the address the individual provides during account creation to provide a real-time address verification signal. Using this approach, Incognia delivers a 95% verification rate on average.

How Incognia works

Incognia’s API delivers a LOW, HIGH, or UNKNOWN risk assessment to the app, enabling it to make an immediate approval or rejection decision. A LOW risk assessment means that the user is onboarding from the address provided or very nearby, a HIGH risk assessment indicates that the user is onboarding from a location that is far from the address provided.

After the Incognia SDK was integrated into the app, Incognia analyzed 30 days of location data from 2.5 million new users across 11 countries. Incognia was able to verify 94.9% of new users. Additionally, Incognia delivered a LOW risk assessment for 63% of previously unverifiable new users. Incognia also determined that 35% of these previously unverified new users had no location events near the address provided at onboarding, warranting a HIGH risk assessment. Incognia enabled the social networking app company to increase its real-time approval rate by over 24%.

Address Verification Rate

The significant improvement in user verification rates enabled more good users to create an account, positively impacting the app's growth rate. Given its verification rate, the company decided to position Incognia as the first API call in its identity waterfall, allowing it to reduce verification costs. Incognia was then launched into two international test markets before wider release to all 11 markets where the app is available.