Audience targeting is direct mail’s top advantage

Marketing research consistently shows that accurate audience targeting and relevant lookalike modeling leads to higher audience engagement and, ultimately, greater conversions. The challenge, however, lies in obtaining permissioned data sources that offer insights into an audience’s habits, preferences and behavior.

Enter direct mail.

The 2024 Direct Mail Marketing Benchmark Report found that quality audience targeting is the primary advantage of mail, according to B2B and B2C marketers. This is a substantial rise from fourth place in the 2023 survey. Experts suspect the jump reflects marketers’ increasing appreciation for mail and offline data as a reliable prospecting and reach tool − a strong alternative to digital targeting methods where data privacy concerns continue to gain prominence.

Targeting precision = profitable growth

Direct mail excels at audience targeting. The high-quality and permissioned data sources used when building audience models enable marketers to identify and reach prospects that look like their best customers. Detailed, individual-level transactional and intent data allow for highly accurate predictive modeling. Marketers can continue to scale campaigns and discover high-potential audiences as new data sources are introduced and variables are transformed.

These hyper-targeted campaigns push mail’s return on investment above today’s most popular digital channels.

Here’s a not-so-secret, secret: direct mail’s audiences can be onboarded to digital environments.

Expand digital reach and campaign effectiveness with offline data

Third-party cookies are a key ingredient in effective digital campaigns. Although Google recently announced a less than cookieless future, ad experts suspect the industry will continue to search for alternative solutions. Identity resolution and conversion tracking have already been weakened, prompting lower conversion rates and increased customer acquisition costs in digital efforts.

Over the past few years, digital marketers tested various solutions to the audience targeting and performance reporting dilemma, including direct mail’s offline data. Through a deterministic identity graph, offline audiences can be linked to online identities, without the use of third-party cookies. This allows marketers to deliver relevant ads across digital platforms to an explicit audience.

Accurately measure campaign performance

Another notable shift in the marketer data from 2023 to 2024 was the rise of “easy to track attribution and performance metrics,” which jumped from the fifth position to the second-highest advantage of mail.

Just like in the direct mail channel, the rare benefit of onboarding audience lists into digital environments is that you can accurately attribute specific actions or purchases back to a targeted individual. This prospecting strategy also eliminates wasted impressions and programmatic ad fraud concerns.

Future trends in direct mail and digital campaign integration

Nine out of 10 marketers agree integrating direct mail and digital marketing strategies positively impacts campaign performance. Consider how you can leverage direct mail’s proven offline models in the new era of digital marketing for stronger audience targeting and improved campaign performance across all direct response channels. For more findings on direct mail usage, industry trends, and consumer sentiment, download the full report here.