Understanding Hit Rates
Skip trace "hit rate" is the percentage of records that return at least one phone number. Industry benchmarks suggest 60-80% is typical for residential property owners. But hit rate does not equal accuracy - a returned number may be disconnected, wrong, or answered by someone other than the target.
The meaningful metric is contact rate: what percentage of returned numbers actually reach the property owner? A provider boasting 85% hit rates may deliver lower contact rates than one with 70% hits and better data sources.
Accuracy by Property Type
Owner-occupied single-family properties typically have the highest skip trace accuracy. Absentee owners, inherited properties, and properties held in trusts or LLCs are harder to trace accurately.
Properties with deceased owners are particularly challenging. The skip trace may return the deceased person is information rather than the current decision-maker.
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Do not trust marketing claims. Run the same batch of 100-200 records through multiple providers and measure actual contact rates. The provider with the highest hit rate may not have the highest contact rate.
Some providers excel in certain geographies or property types. Test with records similar to your actual calling targets.
Data Freshness Impact
Skip trace accuracy degrades over time. Phone numbers change, people move, ownership transfers. Fresh skip traces on fresh property data outperform stale skip traces on stale property data.
Consider re-skip-tracing records after 90-120 days if you are calling them again. The cost is low relative to wasted dials on stale numbers.
Multi-Line Skip Traces
Many providers offer multi-line skip traces that return multiple phone numbers per record. This increases the probability of reaching the target but also increases per-record cost and dial volume.
Evaluate whether multi-line makes sense for your operation. If your dialer can efficiently work multiple numbers, multi-line may improve results. If you are calling manually, the complexity may not be worth it. Three-line skip traces typically cost 40-60% more than single-line but can improve contact rates by 25-35% when worked properly. The ROI depends on your dialer efficiency and call workflow. Test before committing to higher-cost options. Data drives the decision. Measure results before scaling spend.
Sources
The external data in this article draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.