Tracking when your mail hits the mailbox gives you the insight to align your outreach—a follow-up email, social media ads, or other touchpoints—at just the right time. Tracking also helps you monitor delivery times and the status of packages, ensuring you know exactly when your mailing reaches its destination. Let’s explore why tracking direct mail matters, how it supports your ability to deliver targeted messages, manage mailing schedules, and how it can enhance your marketing efforts when combined with digital channels.
When it comes to direct mail, timing is everything. Knowing when a piece reaches a prospect’s mailbox can help you:
Align Marketing Channels: Coordinating mail drops with digital advertising campaigns ensures that your messaging is consistent and reinforces each other. For example, sending a personalized postcard and targeting that person with Facebook® ads on the same day enhances brand recall and increases conversion chances.
Increase Response Rates: If you know exactly when your mail is delivered, you can schedule follow-up communications, such as emails or phone calls, within the optimal window. This can boost response rates and ROI for your campaign.
Measure Campaign Effectiveness: Tracking gives you hard data on delivery, allowing a more accurate measurement of campaign performance. It enables you to assess whether delivery issues impacted results and how well your timing aligned with peak engagement periods. Tracking also allows you to measure response rate and compare the performance of your direct mail campaign to digital campaigns and other marketing efforts.
With this information, you can adjust your strategy and timing to maximize results, enabling you to effectively optimize your direct mail campaign.
There are several ways to track direct mail, including using tracking numbers and extra services offered by the postal service. These methods help ensure that packages, mails, and letters are tracked accurately throughout the mailing process, providing valuable status updates for both senders and recipients.
Intelligent Mail® Barcode (IMb®): One of the most common ways to track direct mail is using the Intelligent Mail® Barcode (IMb®). Each mail piece is assigned a unique tracking number, allowing packages and letters to be tracked from the sender to the recipient. This USPS® service allows marketers to follow the journey of their mail piece from the time it enters the postal stream until it’s delivered. With real-time visibility, you can estimate delivery dates and adjust your integrated marketing efforts accordingly.
Informed Visibility®: Another USPS® tool, Informed Visibility®, gives even more detailed information. It provides real time data and can be accessed through the USPS website. It allows you to see which geographic areas have received your mail, making it easier to align with location-based advertising or adjust the timing for local campaigns.
QR Codes and Personalized URLs (PURLs): Adding QR codes or personalized URLs to direct mail pieces enables real-time tracking of customer engagement. QR codes can be used to collect data and direct recipients to a custom landing page, helping assess campaign effectiveness. When recipients scan a QR code or visit a PURL, you can instantly track who is interacting with your mail and take action, such as sending a follow-up email or showing targeted online ads.
Shipping Label: The shipping label contains the tracking number and other delivery information. Proper printing and print quality of the shipping label is important for accurate tracking and delivery of your package.
Services like Priority Mail, Priority Mail Service, Priority Mail Express Service, First Class Mail, and Certified Mail offer different tracking and delivery options. Features such as signature confirmation and Informed Delivery are available as extra services to enhance security and provide proof of delivery.
The sender and senders can request delivery updates, redelivery, or hold mail at their local post office or post office location. Packages and mails are processed at the post office and local post office, and delivery times and costs may vary depending on the service selected.
Businesses can use these services to manage their mailing and marketing campaigns more effectively, optimizing costs and improving delivery reliability. PO Boxes are available for secure deliveries, and the ability to track packages en route is a key feature for both businesses and individuals.
Targeted campaigns and special offers can be tracked using these tools, allowing marketing campaigns to benefit from integrated tracking and real-time analytics. While the ability to determine the exact arrival time may be limited, tracking provides valuable status updates throughout the delivery process.
The number of deliveries and delivery times can vary depending on the destination and service, making it important to choose the right mailing option for your needs.
Technology has revolutionized the way marketers approach direct mail campaigns, making it easier than ever to track, analyze, and optimize results. With the integration of trackable URLs, QR codes, and personalized URLs (PURLs) into direct mail pieces, marketers can monitor response rates and conversion rates in real time. Automated direct mail platforms streamline the process by providing instant access to campaign analytics, allowing for quick adjustments and improved ROI. These platforms also enable the creation of custom landing pages tailored to each campaign, making it possible to track the performance of individual mail pieces and gather valuable data on recipient engagement. By leveraging these technological tools, marketers can ensure their direct mail campaigns are both efficient and highly effective.
Retail Promotion: A clothing retailer sends catalogs to a segmented audience and uses IMb® tracking to determine delivery timing. Once the catalog is delivered, they activate Google Display® ads and social media retargeting ads that showcase featured products, driving customers to shop online or visit their local store. Businesses can use targeted campaigns and special offers to drive customer engagement and manage campaign costs, ensuring their marketing efforts are both effective and budget-friendly.
By utilizing tools like IMb®, Informed Visibility®, and QR codes, you can ensure your mail hits at the perfect time, synchronize other marketing channels for maximum impact, and measure the true success of your campaign. When direct mail is part of a well-coordinated, multi-channel strategy, it becomes much more than a standalone tactic—it amplifies your overall marketing success.
You can learn more about Streamworks Mail Tracking service by downloading our information sheet and sample reporting or visiting our resource center.