Relational Mapping

What it means

A standard skip trace returns contact info for one person. A relational map returns the people around that person. This matters because the most valuable real-estate leads — inherited property, distressed owners, off-market sellers — are also the people most likely to have changed numbers, moved, or stopped answering unknown calls.

A good relational map identifies each connection's relationship type (spouse, sibling, parent, adult child, business associate) so you know which family member to call first when the primary line goes dead.

How Ava Data handles relational mapping

Ava Data's Deep Search returns the relational graph alongside the primary subject's contact info in a single call. Each related person includes their relationship type, last shared address, and — when available — their own current phone and email so you can dial through the network without running a second lookup.

In the dashboard, a Deep Search result shows the subject at the top and their family/associate cards underneath, each with a one-click dial. Through the API, the same data comes back as a structured relatedPeople array.

Deep Search costs 10 credits per match and is intentionally a single-search tool, not a bulk endpoint, because relational fan-out at scale produces diminishing returns — and a high cost — on records that just need a primary phone.

For developers: example API call

If you'd rather click than code, the Ava Data dashboard returns the same data without a single line of JSON. The snippet below is for teams wiring Ava Data into a CRM, dialer, or AI pipeline.

{
  "firstName": "John",
  "lastName": "Smith",
  "address": "123 Main St",
  "city": "Austin",
  "state": "TX"
}

{
  "matchFound": true,
  "creditsCharged": 10,
  "subject": {
    "phones": [{ "number": "5125551234", "type": "mobile" }],
    "emails": [{ "address": "john@example.com" }]
  },
  "relatedPeople": [
    {
      "firstName": "Jane",
      "lastName": "Smith",
      "relationship": "Spouse",
      "phones": [{ "number": "5125559876", "type": "mobile" }]
    },
    {
      "firstName": "Mark",
      "lastName": "Smith",
      "relationship": "Sibling",
      "lastSharedAddress": "456 Oak Ave, Austin, TX"
    }
  ]
}

Related terms

• Skip Tracing — Skip tracing is the process of locating a person's current contact information — phone numbers, email addresses, and known associates — by stitching together public records, utility data, and proprietary identity graphs.
• People Search API — A people search API programmatically returns identity and contact information for an individual given a name and a few disambiguating fields — address, city, state, age, or DOB.
• Absentee Owner — An absentee owner is the legal owner of a property whose mailing address differs from the property address — typically a landlord, an inherited-property holder, or an out-of-state investor — and a top target for off-market acquisitions.