Crucial Metrics for Direct Mail Marketing

Important direct mail marketing Metrics

When marketing with physical collateral such as mail, where CTR, views and likes are not easily measured, how can we determine the success of a campaign?
This blog covers our preferred metrics to keep an eye out for, from the Paperplanes Programmatic Mail experts. 

Response Rates

According to JicMail databases, traditional promotional mail in 2022 has an average of 4.4% response rate, whilst Paperplanes Programmatic mail has an average response of 12%.

These rates are far superior to those of social media marketing, paid search, and particularly e-mail which shockingly only has <1% response!

One of the most crucial KPIs for direct mail is response rate. You can learn how well-received mail was by its recipients. It is the result of dividing the size of the entire campaign by the number of responders. The effectiveness of your mailing list and the design of your mail piece are two variables that affect this rate.

Below, we describe four ways to keep track of responses. You have the option of using these or creating your own response tracking systems.

Discount Codes 

Who likes receiving coupons? Coupons provide specific reductions that entice customers to make purchases from you. Simply input the one-time use coupon code at checkout and that is all that's required.

Different codes can correspond to different mailing groups to even understand where the most interest is being generated.

Offer special discount codes for each promotion. Request that customers use your website to redeem these codes, increasing your sales, and traffic and giving you more data to optimise your next mailing campaign round. 

Mobile Number

Another clever and effective method of keeping track of responses is call tracking. Include a distinct phone number in every piece of mail you send.

This should be a unique line that is only used by one campaign. Therefore, any calls made to this toll-free number are considered answers.

The use of a toll-free number is advised for this technique to function with minimal customer frustration.

QR Code

pURLs and QR codes are frequently combined. QR codes provide a shortcut for those who might not want to manually type the entire link address, easing the access between physical and digital worlds.

Ask recipients to scan a QR code that they have printed on their mail pieces with any smartphone camera. The code will send users to their individual web pages. It is a terrific approach to increase response rates once more.

Many other applications for QR codes are excellent. To complete checkouts, you can send customers back to their shopping carts or to your online store.

With Paperplanes back end technology, tracking codes and triggers applied to any E-commerce website can allow for individualised/segmented offers and promotions to be automatically personalised and sent to users via a set of triggers that you decide (E.g. inactive customers, abandoned baskets, complimentary products for repeat purchases).

After A/B testing for benchmarks and completing a full mailing campaign, Paperplanes tech is able to pinpoint all data points to report on clear CPA, promotional optimisation, and actionable insights. 

By converting a generic promotional spam mail into a personalised letter with promotion spot-on each individual's interest,  and having a full 360  view of conversion rate - voucher and QR code tracking is captured along with all other interactions that have occurred on-site due to the presence of direct mail  

Cost per response 

Receiving more responses following a campaign is exciting. However, there are situations when getting those responses costs more than the actual Life Time Value of the consumer. Consequently, you could still feel lost even after acquiring new customers. High response rate advertising efforts are not always effective.

You can determine the worth of campaign spending by looking at the cost per response. This KPI can be determined by estimating the number of responses in advance.

You can proceed with your campaign budget if the cost per response is less than the income received. Otherwise, try to save costs wherever you can.

Calculate the cost per response to learning how much it costs to receive those responses.

Return on Investments

Finding the campaign ROI is overall the clearest top-down screenshot of a costs/results output measurement. The overall revenue generated by a marketing campaign in a set period of time. 

 Calculating the ROI of your campaign is really easy. Start by deducting the campaign expense from your overall revenue. Your profit is the solution.

Although marketers strive for a favourable ROI, they occasionally fall short. Some campaigns fail for a variety of reasons, including bad timing, irrelevant offerings, and other external consumer behavioural variants. 

Direct mail can yield strong returns when it comes to ROI. Some campaigns have a £29 ROI potential for every £1 spent. Paperplanes campaigns typically generate a  further 48% increase in ROI potential compared to standard direct mail.

Cost per Acquisition

Another crucial KPI for gauging the effectiveness of direct marketing is the cost per acquisition.

It is critical to understand whether the price you paid for each acquisition was greater or lower than the profit realised. If it is higher, your campaign may not succeed.

But it can succeed if there is any profit margin. Consider spending $1,000 on a client who only purchased items worth $100.

You may find out from this metric how much it costs the business to acquire a customer. It might have been a returning consumer or a brand-new client.

Whilst Email seems to be a cost-effective method and a modern staple to B2C marketing, we need to consider the subscription/overhead costs, frequency of comms to customers to drive action and resource strain required to drive value. It can add up to a whole lot of emails & costs and little results.

Email tends to cost a whooping £42.55 average CPA to businesses in the UK, whilst direct mail is comparably superior at a £24 CPA average, and Paperplanes Programmatic Direct Mail leads the way with a solid average of £10 CPA.

How many customers chose to purchase from you after receiving your mail is what matters.

You can use this indicator to assess how your direct mail campaigns stack up against those of other channels. On this basis, you can decide which channel is the most cost-effective.

All the aforementioned metrics are vital to make or break a successful direct mail marketing campaign, but more importantly to understand what can be improved and what needs to be focused on for the following mailing campaign.  After all, all marketing channels need nurturing and refinement for real growth and stability.

At Paperplanes our experts have over 50 years of combined experience in digital, mailing, and programmatic marketing, fully taking care of all the process automation and campaign review with data translation and step-by-step consultations on how to optimise and improve your marketing campaign.

Get in touch for a free consultation!

by Dan

8 Reasons direct mail is effective marketing channel

8 Reasons direct mail is effective marketing channel
(And how Programmatic goes beyond)

direct mail is effective The business world has evolved into a digitally-led communications ecosystem, where most marketing, regardless of a B2B or B2C target, is mostly conducted online. Direct, indirect or re-targeted,  full interactions from initial discovery to feedback are processed through computers and phones.
Though most companies have adapted to modern fashion, responses and results are no longer hitting objectives due to digital fatigue and saturation in the marketplace.

Standing out now requires personalisation via data and empowerment of the customer via strengthening the relationship & retention. So how can we do this?

This article covers  8 reasons why Direct mail is making a big return as a viable channel, and how Programmatic Direct  Mail compares on top of that. 

1. High Response rates 

According to figures from the direct mail sector, response rates have been rising over the past 10 years. The figures are 5% for prospect lists and 9% for housing lists. Compared to other marketing channels, that is far superior. The following closest rivals are sponsored search (0.6%), followed by social media (0.4%). How would you rate email marketing? Unsurprisingly, email has a response rate of only 0.1%. Therefore, the greatest option for obtaining the feedback you want for your marketing initiatives is direct mail. Results of direct mail marketing are available in The Wall Street Journal. A channel with 37% more responses is this one. Direct mail is a smart investment if you want to get the most bang for your marketing buck.
Going one step further, in 2022 we can optimise our direct mail by having data from E-commerce websites personalise and programmatically deliver targeted mail to the right people, Paperplanes attains a 10% more response rate compared to classic promotional mail marketing. 

2. Physical Appeal of direct mail  

Consumers have become weary of getting emails, as we discovered. Because people are accustomed to receiving numerous messages on their electronic devices, they are experiencing email fatigue. Over 120 emails are sent and received daily by the typical office worker. They almost never bother to learn where they come from or what they stand for. As a brand, you'd best have your headlines and personalisations on point because consumers will scroll quickly. Direct Mail however is different. It has a marketing benefit because it is tactile. Because consumers enjoy engaging the sense of touch, direct mail helps to establish a relationship between a company and its target market.

Email fatigue, on the other hand, is much more common among consumers. According to studies, almost 75% of people experience inbox overflow due to the volume of messages they receive. To even stand a chance of having their message opened, let alone read, marketers must rely on attention-grabbing subject lines and customisation.

Typically direct mail marketing is made in the form of one-size-fits-all cookie-cutter generic content or offers. And though the physical appeal of mail connects the consumer to the brand more, and keeps the mail at home for several days - Imagine the impact of receiving a personalised mail piece displaying the very product or complimentary product that they needed and were interested in. 

3. High ROI 

Now for the evidence: return on investment. According to statistics, marketers can expect to generate $2,095 in sales for every $167 they spend on direct mail. Thus, their ROI is a staggering 1,300%. There's no questioning the outcomes, even if your numbers will undoubtedly vary depending on a lot of variables (like how much you spend to make your advertising fantastic). In order to determine direct mail's efficacy, it also helps to compare it to other marketing methods, much like response rates. Email provides a good return on investment but imagines how many wasted messages have to be sent to generate a few returns. Even though the channel is low-cost to use it doesn’t mean you are not annoying or frustrating customers.

If we look at CPA (Cost per  Acquisition) average E-mail marketing has proven to be roughly £42. Paperplanes programmatic mail campaigns have a mere £10 CPA, only 1/4th of the cost!

4. Direct Mailing has a more appropriate volume and timing

Finding information by "surfing" the web has changed over time. Our attempts to recover information are frequently hampered by a variety of distractions. Pop-ups instruct us to do one thing or another depending on our behaviour. As we navigate through a website, it is challenging to piece together a story because of embedded adverts. We're merely looking for solutions to our issues when we don't need any more issues. Because of this, 26% of internet users have ad blockers installed. They are fed up with the hassle. Additionally, it explains why paper marketing does not suffer from the  "irritating" factor that internet marketing does. We discussed how Royal Mail affirms that people appreciate receiving mail. are frequently appreciated by customers.

5. Direct mail is checked more often and sooner than other mediums

According to studies, customers don't waste time perusing their daily print mail. People go for their stack of letters and packages with an interest in knowing what is inside. Nearly 80% of individuals dig through their mail right away, according to statistics on direct mail marketing. Additionally, the likelihood that mail will be opened increases if there is a package or sizable envelope inside. This kind of direct-to-consumer strategy is not offered by any other marketing channel to brands. Your marketing plan will be successful when you "do" direct mail properly, much like the most effective direct mail campaigns.

*Paperplanes Programmatic Mail has a staggering 79% of users taking immediate action by at least skimming through the personalised letter. *

6. Direct Mail Marketing can be digitally integrated 

As we have outlined Direct Mail is less intrusive than internet marketing. However, that does not imply that you should completely abandon digital marketing. In actuality, a comprehensive marketing plan combines print and digital marketing meaning there shouldn't even be a direct mail vs. digital marketing discussion. As the ultimate multichannel marketing mix, using both simultaneously is the optimal course of action. Customers will spend three times as much if you send them direct mail and add a digital call to action, such as a URL or QR code to complete the CTA. That alone ought to be motivation enough to use a multichannel strategy when choosing your marketing platforms. Your marketing strategies will be more successful if you combine direct mail with digital elements.

7. Direct Mail marketing works great with non-profit organisations

Direct mailers should raise donations to charitable organisations if they can motivate people to take action. Consider the mail you've gotten from charities. It can come from a children's charity or a local shelter for the destitute. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you pull out your wallet and get over a distressing message (assuming they employed a competent copywriter)? You want to know if you can put your trust in them to spend the funds as promised. Does this charity really exist? What is their standing?

Here is where direct mail really excels. Consumers trust direct mail more than any other marketing channel, by about 56%. Additionally, it is incredibly cost-effective, trackable, and targeted. Nonprofits upped their donations by as much as 40% as a result. Are NGOs able to effectively use direct mailers? They certainly are. Simply, including them in your overall marketing plan is a no-brainer.

8. Direct mail works across multiple industries

The best beauty of direct mail marketing is that it is suitable for almost any type of company or organisation. All you generally need is a strong message, a compelling offer or need, and a designatory address.
This can be great for generalised promotions or customer acquisition through partially addressed mail. But to truly reap the benefits of personalisation and data, attaining results above and beyond the mail channel capabilities via programmatic technology - you should ensure your direct mail prog is responsive to your store to your eCommerce platform.
Programmatic personalisation via website data tracking will enhance the customer's overall experience of your brand and the website offering across multiple sectors.
Retail, foods & drinks, FMCG, OTC pharma, hospitality, tourism & travel - you name it!


If you’d like to know how compatible or how well programmatic mail can be integrated into your marketing strategy, get in touch with us via the button below

by Dan

Key Role Physical Touch has In Modern Marketing

Key Role Physical Touch Plays In Direct Mail Marketing

Modern Marketing: Social media, digital communication, and mobile internet capability have made digital marketing unavoidable for targeted users and ensured that we are always connected to it. As a result, it's crucial to promote your company or product online. It is also a good moment to consider how physical marketing might help your company expand and uniquely stand out in the sea of digital marketing.

Before the popularisation of the internet and digital online marketing, there was physical marketing. With the invention of the printing press, pamphleteers could now freely spread and hand out information, giving rise to some of the earliest forms of marketing. The purpose of marketing materials was to test the waters, build an audience, and share fresh ideas.

In many respects, its applications are still relevant today, physical marketing especially in the form of personalised direct mail such as that of Paperplanes can help your marketing ROI grow by 300%.
Read our blog on direct mail personalisation to better understand its impact https://paperplanes.co.uk/a-guide-to-personalisation-and-direct-mail/

The Visual aspect

The direct visual effect is one of the long-standing advantages of physical marketing. Because physical marketing items are tangible, you can give your business or product an immediate presence in the home and start creating a brand image right away. 

The way this applies to direct mail is via the creative process. Personalisation is key in the creatives, giving a  unique experience and a real connection between your brand and the customer, so much so that they actually want to read it.
In fact, Paperplanes data shows that up to  79% of personalised programmatic mail recipients take immediate action after reading the mail piece upon reception compared to 45% of recipients of a personalised email with similar content.  

Display cases, brochure stands, and large-format posters are examples of visual marketing and merchandising assets that all command visual attention while assisting in the organisation and division of space into aesthetically beautiful sections.

With direct mail marketing such as that of Paperplanes, we are providing a canvas for a memorable piece of marketing that will stick with the customer. Customers will positively remember your branding and marketing by bursting with colour and structure in a logical and gripping way.

A long-lasting reminder

Consumer behaviour has shown that tangible artefacts' allure persists despite efforts to digitise and archive analogue processes. This is being seen right now with the rise in the popularity of vinyl records.

The fastest-growing segment of the music industry is the vinyl record "artefact" market, which is surprisingly not being driven by customers who are old enough to own their original collections still.

Vinyl is not simply playable and palpable in its physical form. Consumers place a high value on its sentimental worth, which is unmatched by a stream or an mp3. Consider your physical marketing to be distinctive in this way: It is a traditional, memorable, and engaging method of connecting with customers. Make your physical marketing materials appealing and relevant, and you'll see your audience expand and solidify their loyalty.

Direct mail marketing can be interpreted in much the same way. When a piece of mail hits your customer's doorstep it could stay in the home for weeks or months at a time. Unlike digital marketing which is much more likely to be sent straight to spam folders or not opened in the first place, a piece of physical mail can attract many and multiple glances, engraining your brand's image and identity into the customer's memory. 

Crossover marketing

When coordinating with digital marketing channels, creating distinctive physical marketing content is equally crucial. Think about Instagram's emphasis on visual content and what can be recorded and shared. Whether it's a poster or a t-shirt, your physical marketing product is simple to photograph and promote using a straightforward visual example. Crossover marketing has a lot of room for growth.

In order to maximise the possibility of a crossover, it may be a good idea to start small with a giveaway or contest. A tangible item, such as a T-shirt, branded with the name or logo of your company is a fantastic way to interact with your audience and thank them for their participation. Then, use creativity in your advertisements to encourage clicks from your audience.

Whatever you do through targeting customers with your digital marketing always remember direct mail can be the perfect accompaniment to an effective multi-channel strategy. As digital marketing has become as common as it is and as it is used in most industries by a vast majority of companies physical mail in comparison will continue to grow in value. Due to the increase in digital marketing, the percentage of physical marketing has decreased making every piece of tangible physical marketing more valuable, thus giving physical mail an edge. 

Get in touch to try out a programmatic direct mail campaign for yourself and see the true impact of physical marketing in a saturated digital environment.

by Dan

Guide to successful Direct mail marketing

A Guide to Programmatic Direct Mail Marketing

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Direct mail, also known as direct marketing or direct response marketing, is a type of advertising that involves sending out pre-addressed mail, postcards or brochures to a select group of consumers or a specific segment of customers. 

This may seem like an outdated form of advertising and not one that you would want to invest in. However, programmatic direct mail marketing is more relevant than ever before. In the digital age where most businesses have some form of social media presence and digital marketing plan, it’s important to stand out from the crowd and give your customers an out-of-the-box marketing experience. 

A well-designed and well-executed direct mail campaign can do just that. It’s not only efficient but also cost-effective too, which makes it ideal for any size business trying to maximize its marketing budget. If you’re looking for ways how you can use programmatic direct mail marketing to attract new customers and drive sales up, this guide will get you started right away!

What is Programmatic Direct Mail Marketing?

Programmatic direct mail marketing is the use of technology to generate and deliver personalized marketing materials through traditional postal channels. Although direct mail may sound like an old-school marketing tactic, programmatic direct mail marketing makes use of the latest technology to improve the ROI of your direct mail campaign.

 It’s important to note that programmatic direct mail marketing is often used interchangeably with automated direct mail. While they are both forms of direct mail marketing, automated direct mail sends out bulk mailings to random people. It requires less customer data and sends very similar mail across all the customers being mailed. Programmatic direct mail teens to separate consumers into smaller cohorts catering to individual needs and specifications more thoroughly.

There are many ways that you can use programmatic direct mail marketing to grow your business. You can send potential customers a welcome kit, postcards, or brochures to introduce them to your brand. You can also send out samples of your products or services to people who have shown interest in them. You can even use programmatic direct mail marketing to re-engage existing customers with personalized offers.

 You can target your campaign based on a person’s interests, demographic, or location. Using this technology makes it easier for companies to target their customers and is likely to increase the response rate of your campaign.

Why Should You Use Programmatic Direct Mail Marketing?

Direct mail is an effective marketing channel because it’s one that people likely won’t ignore. When someone receives an item in the mail, they tend to deal with it eventually, whether they want to or not. Because of this, you can expect your campaign to get noticed and drive significant brand awareness. 

It’s not something that people will quickly forget about. If you want to stand out from other brands, you need to have a consistent marketing strategy. You can’t expect people to notice you if you’re only present on social media or if you’re only getting your name out there at events and conferences. 

Using programmatic direct mail marketing will ensure that your brand is seen by people all over the country. You can easily tailor your campaign to specific regions or demographics, making sure that you are reaching the right people.

How Does Programmatic Direct Mail Marketing Work?

There are a few different options for how you can use programmatic direct mail marketing, but the most common way is to send a postcard or letter to someone’s home. This can be either an automated or a programmatic mailing. An automated mailing is when you send out the same mailing to a large number of people. There is no personalization and they don’t know who the mailing is coming from. This is the most cost-effective way to send a mailing but you won’t get a high response rate.

 A programmatic mailing is when you send the mailing to a specific person. There are different ways to do this. You can purchase a mailing list and send it to the people on the list, you can do a bait piece where you put a code on an item and people have to visit your website to claim the item, or you can do a triggered mailing where you send a mailing to someone after they do a certain action.

3 Best Practices for Successful Programmatic Direct Mail Marketing

1. Target your campaign - If you want your campaign to be effective and drive real results, you have to make sure that you are targeting the right people. Targeting your campaign based on a person’s interests, demographic, and location will allow you to narrow down your campaign and reach the people who are most likely to respond.
2. Keep your message short and sweet - You don’t want to overwhelm your customers with information, so keep your message short and sweet. Limit your message to one call-to-action and one main value proposition. Choose the message that best represents your brand and goals, and try not to deviate from it.
3. Make it personal - While you want to keep your message short and sweet, you also want to make it personal. Personalize your message to include the person’s name and use their first name if possible. - Keep in mind that while programmatic direct mail marketing is more effective than most other forms of marketing, it still takes time to see results.

Conclusion

Direct mail may seem like an outdated form of advertising, but it’s still an effective way to reach customers. Programmatic direct mail marketing uses the latest technology to improve the ROI of your campaign. When used correctly, it’s a highly effective marketing channel that can help you grow your business.

by Dan

Tips To Improve Your Direct Mail Marketing Campaigns

Tips for Improving Your Direct Mail Marketing Campaigns

Segment Your Prospects & Clients Before Scaling

It's important that you segment your prospects and clients before scaling your direct mail marketing efforts. By taking the time to segment your list, you'll be able to target your marketing messages to specific groups of people. This will help you get better results from your marketing campaigns.

Some things you may want to consider when segmenting your list include:

-Demographics: Age, gender, income, etc.

-Location: Where they live, work, or go to school.

-Interests: What kinds of things they are interested in?

-Purchase history: What kinds of things they have purchased in the past?

By taking the time to segment your list, you'll be able to create more targeted and effective marketing campaigns. This will ultimately lead to better results for your business.

Prioritize Data Hygiene

By using the host of data available to you, you can ensure you send relevant information in your direct mail. By leveraging first-party data made available through website traffic, in-store data, transaction history and email lists, customers can be segmented.

When creating your digital profile, there are many attributes to keep in mind, including age, gender, hobbies and location. Your customer data files will provide you with this information. Always have your CRM up to date for this.
Once you establish your Always On approach, you can design and customize a direct mail campaign to follow recent activity or intent. Doing this ensures that you are using the freshest data to connect with consumers who have recently expressed interest in your brand 

Do Measure Performance (with Incrementality Tests)

1. Measure performance - One of the most important aspects of any marketing campaign is measuring its performance. This can be done in a number of ways, but incrementality tests are one of the most effective. Incrementality tests compare the results of a campaign against a control group to see how much impact it had. This is an essential step in understanding whether or not your direct mail campaign was successful.

2. Personalization - Personalization can be a powerful tool in direct mail marketing. Adding a personalized message or offer can help to increase response rates and conversions.

3. Target your audience - Direct mail campaigns should be targeted to a specific audience. This ensures that your message is relevant and more likely to be noticed by recipients.

4. Test different strategies - There is no one-size-fits-all approach to direct mail marketing. Different strategies will work for different businesses and it’s important to test different approaches to find what works best for you.

5. Don’t forget the call to action - A call to action is essential in any direct mail campaign. Without a clear call to action, recipients may not know what you want them to do next.

Don’t Forget About the Customer Experience

1. Don't forget about the customer experience - One of the most important aspects of direct mail marketing is the customer experience. Make sure that your mailings are easy to understand and provide a positive experience for the recipient.

2. Do your research - Before you send out any mailings, be sure to do your research. Know who your target audience is and what they're interested in. This will help you create mailings that are more likely to be opened and read.

3. Keep it personal - In today's digital world, it's easy to forget the personal touch. But when it comes to direct mail marketing, personalization is key. Add a personal note or message to your mailings to make them stand out and show that you care about your recipients.

4. Make it visually appealing - Another important aspect of direct mail marketing is making sure your mailings are visually appealing. Use colour, images, and other design elements to make your mailings eye-catching and memorable.

5. Get creative - Be creative with your direct mail marketing campaigns and think outside the box. Use unique formats, such as postcards or letters, and add special touches, like stamps or stickers, to make

Don’t Confuse Immediacy with Effectiveness

When it comes to direct mail marketing, one of the most important things to keep in mind is that immediacy does not equal effectiveness. Just because you send out a Direct Mail piece does not mean that it will automatically result in sales or leads. In fact, many times direct mail can take weeks or even months to produce results. While digital can see an initial spike in performance, more often than not, interest wanes as quickly as 24–48 hours.

With a direct mail campaign, you can speed up decisions by communicating with a potential customers where they spend the most time. Direct mail has time invested in the process, which means that it can have a longer shelf life than email or social media.

by Dan

Performance of Direct mail marketing

Understanding Performance of Programmatic Direct Mail

With ever-increasing marketing budgets, like any other corporate department, investments and success need to be measured using appropriate criteria.  Benchmarked metrics from current marketing channels wouldn’t be appropriate for comparison to new forms of marketing. These comparisons would have no value due to the intrinsic difference between these channels.

This is particularly accurate when looking at Programmatic Direct Mail. By nature, this channel is neither purely digital nor traditional (offline direct mail). A combination of data and analytical capability is used to measure the success of a programmatic direct mail campaign.

This blog will review four key criteria which define the true performance of a successful programmatic direct mail marketing campaign. With four factors being:

• The window of opportunity to Captivate consumer

• The long-term lasting impact of a programmatic mail

• The process of creation and personalization

• Stable pricing of a direct mail marketing

Attribution Window

Search, Social Media, and now even E-Mail popular digital channels have a limited window of opportunity to captivate a user viewing your Ad. In these few seconds, the viewer needs to be engaged enough to want to take action. The success window is a small one and if you haven’t effectively grabbed the consumer's attention in the immediate period after showing them ad effectiveness can not be achieved.

Programmatic direct mail however operates differently. Whilst Programmatic Direct Mail" impression" has many of the same features and capabilities as other digital advertising channels, its end output is a physical piece of media, such as an A4 letter in a C5 envelope which gets noticed.

It can remain on the recipient's table or stuck on a fridge for days, weeks, or even months if they find it relevant, which nine times out of ten is the case with Programmatic Direct Mail. This tangible creative acts as a persistent reminder of their intention to buy and influences longer sales cycles. Because of this, you should always analyze your Programmatic Direct Mail program in a wider attribution window (often between 60 and 90 days) versus what should be offered for other digital platforms.

How long that impression window will last for your specific campaign can be determined with the assistance of a qualified Programmatic Direct Mail partner.

Outcomes over Output

The next factor to take into account when attempting to comprehend performance for the Programmatic Direct Mail channel is even though the final product (a physical marketing piece of mail) may resemble Traditional Direct Mail, everything leading up to that point is entirely different.

Traditional print houses are accustomed to sending a lot of marketing mail at the lowest cost per piece (CPP) in order to achieve performance targets. Furthermore, even though very sophisticated data models can be used to guide these campaigns, they are manually created and depend on a number of suppliers as part of the process to pull together offline data.

As a result, these initiatives typically have very significant lead times, which prevents marketers from being as adaptable or quick as they might be when using digital platforms.

On the other hand, programmatic direct mail employs machine learning algorithms informed by online intent signals (website activity & navigation) to guarantee that only the customers with the greatest potential for conversion will be sent a piece of marketing mail. Therefore, you only send to that smaller percentage of consumers rather than a larger group in the hopes that a particular number will convert. Even if the average CPP may be greater, the performance should far outperform the initial investment and will only become more effective as it continues to scale and learn. What does that mean over time? Declining CPA rates and greater efficiency. In an economic crises such as global recession, we should all be striving to do more by sending less.

With less significant huge price swings, PDM performs more like your Search or Social performance ads than Traditional Direct Mail. Brands may optimize their marketing expenses with the help of this laser-focused strategy, which boosts performance and ROAS.

Therefore, you should concentrate on the timing of your return on investment (ROI) while considering the upfront investment costs—and the volume that is sent out. As always, you're on the correct track if your campaign is generating more revenue than it is using.

Programmatic Mail Professionals

It's crucial to remember that the people managing Programmatic Direct Mail campaigns are your finest source of knowledge when it comes to assessing performance. The teams in charge of these platforms are your best resource for learning about, performance, tests to run and cadence since there aren't many well-established industry benchmarks and standards for the PDM channel at the moment.

The performance of your campaigns can be understood better if you put them in the context of your overall omnichannel marketing activities. Another thing you might want to do is to get your internal analytics or data science team and your Programmatic Direct Mail platform partner into a room together and start a conversation. Together, these two teams can learn how to give you useful information that will help you understand how everything is operating and produce outcomes that will actually help you expand your company.

Want to talk to the Experts?

Wondering what performance via programmatic mail might look like for your brand? Contact us through the form below!

by Dan

Programmatic Direct mail - Environmentally positive marketing

Why Programmatic Direct Mail can benefit the environment

Programmatic direct mail can reduce the impact on the environment in many ways. It can also be cheaper and more efficient for companies than traditional methods of using print.

There are 5 main reasons for this:

• Programmatic direct mail applied targeting to refine audience selection

• Programmatic can benefit from a cheaper cost of production

• Environmentally conscious decision-making process

• Less junk and wasted paper waste

•  More recent stakeholders working with print such as programmatic mail operators can ensure transparency in the supply chain and strong environmental principles

How much paper do we use?

In the UK, average paper use for postal marketing equals about 4 million trees! A lot of this paper comes from direct mail. In fact, the average person receives about 41 pieces of junk mail each year. This junk mail often goes straight into the trash, which means it ends up in landfill sites.

Programmatic direct mail is a new way of sending direct mail that is much more efficient and environmentally friendly. With programmatic direct mail, you only receive mail that you actually want to receive. This means there is no unwanted junk mail that ends up in the trash. In addition, programmatic direct mail is usually sent electronically, which means it doesn’t require any paper at all!

Overall, programmatic direct mail is a much more environmentally friendly way to send mail. It reduces the amount of paper used and helps to reduce landfill waste.

Is it more environmentally friendly?

Programmatic direct mail yields stronger results than what traditional postal marketing can bring, with up to 78% less send volume!
By nature of what programmatic direct mail is, the targeted elements make customers far more likely to keep and use the personalised piece of mail too.

How does it work?

Paperplanes tracking technology seamlessly integrates with your web platform, email service provider or directly onto the website to target specific individuals with personalised messages, based on their interactions with the website store pages. 

Programmatic direct mail can be used to target specific individuals based on important (specific repeated) goals or triggers. This means that you can send people messages and promotions that are relevant to them, which is more likely to result in a response. In addition, programmatic direct mail is more efficient because you don’t have to print large quantities of material. This makes it better for the environment because it reduces the amount of paper and other materials that are used.

Insights lead to optimisation

Paperplanes approach to programmatic mail not only drives stronger conversion with fewer mailpieces sent but also allows continuous optimisation through a detailed test and learn plan. Ongoing improvements are made possible through an ongoing focus on performance and granular access to campaign data to continually improve 

Get in touch to see how we can help your company reduce waste & costs, whilst improving your overall performance

by Dan