How To Validate A Phone Number In Your PHP Web App Using An API?

Phone number validation is all about quality over quantity. For instance, if you have hundreds of non-functional or one-time phone numbers on your list, there is a chance that the leads in your sales can get lower. So, valid phone numbers in your customer list can generate significant leads. Here in this article, you will learn how to validate a phone number.

Validating phone numbers is like validating email addresses. Email collecting is the most common in the eCommerce industry. However, the question is, how do you validate phone numbers? The solution will be revealed in this article.

Why Do I Need Number Validation At All?

The answer is simple – let’s imagine you have 100 customer phone numbers and you would like to send news about an upcoming giveaway, and you insert those 100 numbers for the SMS campaign platform where you pay for each phone number to send an SMS. Apparently, 25 percent of the phone numbers are not valid. 

So, by validating phone numbers, you can avoid sending messages to invalid phone numbers, and it saves you money!

Another significant benefit of integrating a phone number validation service into your system can prevent fraudulent entries from:

• Spammers and Fraudsters.

This can happen during the signup process. It’s similar to adding an extra layer of security to your app to keep things clean and create a safe user base.

Which Phone Number Validation Service Is the Best?

There are various phone number validation services available. They utilize advanced validation techniques using the latest international numbering plans, carrier, and line type detection, and location. However, not all of them charge a reasonable fee for their services. Nevertheless, there is the APILayer that provides its API marketplace. APILayer has dozens of different automation services that you can easily integrate into any application.

NumVerify is part of the APILayer. As the name suggests, it helps to validate phone numbers with high accuracy and a friendly subscription price. 

What Is NumVerify?

NumVerify delivers a full-featured yet straightforward RESTful JSON API for national and multinational phone number confirmation and information lookup for 232 countries worldwide.

Requested numbers are processed in real-time, cross-checked against the latest international numbering plan databases, and supplied in JSON format, replete with the operating carrier, geographical location, and line type information.

By incorporating the NumVerifty API into your application, you will be able to validate phone numbers at the point of entry, protecting you from fraud and increasing profitable leads.

Where To Start With NumVerify API?

The initial step is to obtain your API access key. With the free subscription plan, you can play with the service with limited functionality. You can sign up for a free subscription plan by visiting this official page!

How To Integrate NumVerify API?

After you get your Free API access key, you can start utilizing the basic functionalities of the NumVerify API.

To authenticate with the NumVerify API, attach your access_key parameter to the base endpoint URL:

The most basic API request

Take a look at the API request URL below:

As you can see, there is only one needed parameter, “number,” to begin validating phone numbers, in addition to the access_key parameter.

What Are The NumVerify API Features?

It is simple to send a phone number validation request to the NumVerify API. To the API’s validate endpoint, append the number parameter followed by the phone number you want to validate.

The number of input formats and techniques for correction:

While it is most efficient to supply phone numbers in rigorously numeric format (e.g., 441179287870), the NumVerify API can also process numbers with special characters (e.g., +44 (0) 117 928 7870).

Country & Location Data

Every valid phone number request includes three geographical identifiers: a 2-digit country code, the whole country name, and an individual location object containing the city, state, or county in which the requested phone number is registered.

National (Local) Numbers

Suppose you intend to specify a phone number in its national (local) format. In that case, append your preferred 2-digit country code to the API’s country code parameter and include it in your API request URL to provide additional country information.

Carrier Detection

While phone numbers assist businesses in identifying and legitimizing customers, some numbers are easily obtained from specific carriers. For example, anyone can quickly register multiple phone numbers from a free online provider, making it easy to create fake profiles.

The NumVerify API will yield an individual carrier object, including the carrier’s name. The requested phone number is registered to address this risk. Businesses can require further identity authentication for pages associated with higher fraud instances.

Line Type Detection

Certain number types, such as VoIP and landline numbers, do not accept all communications; many VoIP and landline numbers do not receive SMS messages. As a result, the NumVerify API will detect a number’s line type and return a line type JSON object containing the information you need to determine which types of communications a number can accept.

Knowing the line type of a phone number makes it simple to decide whether to send voice or text communications while remaining fully compliant with the FCC Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

How To Utilize NumVerify API In Your PHP Web App?

Integrating NumVerify API is simple. Here is a sample code to showcase how to incorporate NumVerify API with PHP

Head over to the NumVerify official webpage, where you can get your Free API Access Key!