Case Study: Making Brands More Human

According to the Joint Industry Committee for Mail (JICMail), during Q2 the average piece of direct mail was interacted with 4.58 times, an 11% increase year-on-year and a record high since JICMail began tracking mail activity in Q2 2017. Door drops also garnered record levels of consumer engagement, with the average item interacted with 3.19 times, which represents 15% growth year-on-year. Business mail, essentially addressed mail that contains some form of bill or statement, also reported higher interaction figures, up 7% to 4.87 times. The various channels all recorded significant increases in the amount of time they live in the home with all three effectively extending their life-span by a day year-on-year: DM 8.5 days; door drops 6.9 days and business mail 9.6 days.

Google has built an ad-measurement tool that connects with marketers’ first-party data and is designed to work without browser cookies and other data tools that measure performance based on old methods. Google Ads Data Manager -- the measurement tool announced Wednesday -- will become available in Google Ads early next year. The product roadmap includes rolling it into other Google platforms as the company continues to streamline the management and use of first-party data. Advertisers will learn about connecting data sources and ensuring consumer data privacy as the advertising industry heads into the new year, and Google deprecates third-party cookies for 1% of Chrome users globally in the first quarter of 2024.

Many catalog mailers are seeing large increases in revenue and growth in their new-to-file buyers because of the surge in pandemic-driven online purchases. However, with the growth in the number of buyers comes lots of uncertainty. Are these new buyers different than buyers pre-pandemic? The business issue with the significant influx of pandemic buyers is whether they will convert into loyal customers and respond profitably to future catalog mailings. Response rates for pandemic buyers can be quickly tested to know if they are the same or different from the existing base of buyers. The new-to-file buyers can be broken out with precision. Segmenting should be straightforward.