U.S. Direct Mail Is Up: Is Your Volume Growing, Too?

By Heidi Tolliver-Walker

So much has been said about the declines in the volume of direct mail. As the volume in the mailbox has decreased, however, much is also being made about the direct mail’s increase in effectiveness when it does arrive.

What do the latest statistics say? They say that direct mail’s effectiveness is fueling its comeback.

Let’s start with data from Statista. According to the research company, the global direct mail advertising market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 1.14 percent from 2024 to 2029, reaching a projected market volume of $61.59 billion by 2029. Statista projects a CAGR of 2.7 percent from 2024 to 2028, reaching a market size of $87.93 billion by 2028.

Direct Mail Investments Are Up

This data is consistent with that from Sequel, a direct response marketing agency. After surveying 350 U.S. B2B companies and B2C companies, it found that, 61 percent of marketers have increased their direct mail investments in the last 12 months, up 12 percent from 2023. Looking ahead to the next 12 months, Sequel found that 54 percent of marketers expect to continue to increase their mail budgets, the highest increase of any surveyed channel.

Sequel also found that direct mail volume is not only up, but engagement with direct mail is up, as well. Its survey revealed that the percent of people actively engaged with their mail is up between 2023–2024 to 72 percent.

Cost per Acquisition Is Dropping

This is good news, especially since direct mail isn’t known for having a low cost per acquisition. On average, its CPA has been $100–$250. But as people pay more attention to direct mail, and more companies are using targeted messaging, that CPA has started to come down. Sequel found the percentage of respondents with a direct mail CPA of less than $150 has doubled, from 29 percent in 2023 to 66 percent in 2024.

While only a single company, Postcard Mania recently shared its internal numbers, and they support both sets of research. Shared in its blog post, “166 Direct Mail Statistics You Should Know in 2024,” PostcardMania reported that its average weekly mail volume has increased 104 percent between 2010–2019. Between 2019–2022 alone, average weekly mail volume increased 39 percent.

Not only this, but PostcardMania analyzed 114,373 leads that converted to sales. It found that postcard leads generated 6x more revenue per lead than leads from digital sources.

We Attribute Growth To…

To what do we attribute this growth? Yes, there is less mail in the mailbox and we are seeing an increase in targeting that makes direct mail more effective. But according to Sequel, this growth also has to do with the advantages of direct mail, specifically. Here are the top three:

1. Quality audience targeting data
2. Ease of tracking attribution and performance.
3. Ability to integrate with digital campaigns.

In fact, with a nod to the latter, Sequel found that 76 percent of marketers are combining/plan to combine the two most valuable direct response tactics: email and direct mail.

So is direct mail surging? You bet—and it’s growing for all the reasons we’ve been talking about for years. So these numbers shouldn’t be any surprise to any of us in the printing industry. It’s just really fun to see them “out there” for customers to see.

Heidi Tolliver-Walker is former print industry magazine editor and long-time industry analyst, content developer, author, and blogger. She has written for the industry’s top publications, research companies, and private companies for the past three decades — so long that she still has an AOL address, which she signed up for back when AOL was still cool. You can reach her at htollvr@aol.com.