WINTERBERRY GROUP RESEARCH EXAMINES DIRECT MAIL AD SPEND, DEMAND DRIVERS GIVEN HEIGHTENED BRAND INTEREST IN ‘OMNICHANNEL’ MARKETING INTEGRATION

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

While postage costs rise, new research documents how targeted mail advertising continues to deliver performance ROI through various data-based innovations

NEW YORK – A new white paper released today by Winterberry Group, a strategic growth consultancy, shows that U.S. brands will grow their spending on direct mail advertising by an estimated 2.6 percent in 2024, reaching $37.3 billion – reversing last year’s double-digit
percentage spending decline. And eight in ten U.S. brands say they plan to grow their direct mail investment in 2025, based on Winterberry’s survey of U.S. media decision makers.

While postage costs now account for roughly half the cost of a direct mail ad, brands are shifting from volume-based use of the medium to more strategic, value-based use – driven by significant data-driven technology innovations and deeper orchestration of direct mail efforts with other marketing channels, according to the report titled “Delivering Performance 2024: Direct, Digital and the Dynamics Shaping the Future of Omnichannel Marketing.”

“While it’s true that postage rate increases have had a clear impact on direct mail activity, volume trends tell only a small part of the story of how brands are investing in this pioneering data-driven media channel,” said Jonathan Margulies, managing partner, Winterberry Group, and lead author of the report. “Brands have increasingly been working to deploy direct mail in concert with their omnichannel marketing programs – not just in digital media, but also in offline media and CTV [connected television] The ‘mail moment’ is being driven today by a number of these marketing investments, among other marketplace drivers.”

U.S. Direct Mail Expenditures, 2020-24. Source: Winterberry Group, Delivering Performance 2024: Charting the Future of Direct Mail in an Omnichannel World, December 2024.

According to Margulies, the key drivers behind the reinvigoration of direct mail spending include:

• Growing investment in marketing spend overall (supported by macroeconomic growth)
• Growing cost and challenges in addressability of competitive digital media, as cookie deprecation and privacy regulation diminish the efficiency of search, social and programmatic display advertising (which are often seen as competitive performance-oriented channels); and
• Improved data quality and accessibility linking postal addresses with commercially available personal and household digital identifiers – enabling “trigger-driven” direct mail programs.

“While silos among media channels are diminishing, there remains for many marketers an ‘attribution gap’ when direct mail is deployed in the media mix,” Margulies said, noting that brands will continue to invest in the analytics necessary to close this gap. “In addition, while machine learning and AI [artificial intelligence] may have long-term disruptive potential, most of today’s most significant gains are being generated through innovative tactics that have been in the works for some time – leveraging techniques such as retargeting based on digital media, third-party marketing tech integration, direct mail triggers and QR codes.”

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