Direct Mail Marketing Guide (2026): 5 Steps and Tips

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1. What is direct-mail marketing? “Direct-mail marketing is the practice of sending physical promotional materials to existing or prospective customers.” Is direct mail an effective form of marketing?

   In Direct mail

2. Your product is highly visual “You want to add an offline touchpoint to your marketing mix” You want to close sales with a discount

   In Direct mail

3. 5. Track your campaign “Measure the effectiveness of your campaign by tracking conversions and cost per acquisition (CPA).” Ergatta tracks conversions at checkout. “When people buy, they need to enter a shipping address. Then we match the shipping address to the mailing address,” says Tom.

   In Direct-mail costs and unit economics

4. Tom says that one way to measure it is with a holdout group—a group of customers who are intentionally excluded from receiving the campaign. Some direct-mail vendors, like Pebble Post, measure incremental lift from the targeted group relative to this holdout group. “You might also include QR codes, custom shortened links, or a unique email address for customers to reach out to with questions about your product. These let you directly track the engagement of your marketing campaign.” Drive your business forward with Shopify’s Analytics

   In Direct-mail response tracking

5. The cost of direct-mail campaigns varies according to several factors: “Mailing list. This is the cost of acquiring the physical addresses of your target audience.” Physical media. This is the cost of materials like paper, ink, stamps, and envelopes.

   In Direct-mail targeting

6. Tom says that one way to measure it is with a holdout group—a group of customers who are intentionally excluded from receiving the campaign. Some direct-mail vendors, like Pebble Post, measure incremental lift from the targeted group relative to this holdout group. “You might also include QR codes, custom shortened links, or a unique email address for customers to reach out to with questions about your product. These let you directly track the engagement of your marketing campaign.” Drive your business forward with Shopify’s Analytics

   In Outbound source and campaign tracking

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