UPS volume and revenue decline in Q2

Over the last several years, we’ve seen catalogs come and go. And we’ve seen many retailers jump into the game, spend a LOT of money (we’re talking tens of millions of dollars) and then abandon the model after a couple of seasons. This literally breaks my heart and makes me want to scream! Why does this happen? Here is my very quick opinion. These brands have a combination of the following: 1. A flawed merchandise concept that is not unique, delivered with out-of-date benefits or sent to an audience the brand knows nothing about. 2. Bad math that doesn’t take into account mail efficiencies, an understanding of their own database, mailing to bad names at the wrong time or how the catalog model fits into a cross-channel world. 3. A lack of understanding of how to create a landscape of words and imagery that truly sell off the page and drive activity to either a website or store.

Invalid traffic (IVT) in open programmatic advertising averaged 17% globally across the desktop web, mobile web and mobile apps in this year’s second quarter, according to the latest report from fraud prevention/analytics firm Pixalate. The desktop web had the highest average IVT rate, at 21%, followed by the mobile web at 16% and mobile apps at 13%. Overall, 57% of invalid clicks were generated by click farms and datacenter IVT. On mobile apps, 20% of all invalid clicks were generated by click farms.

There are many times when customers reach out to us to help them increase their response rates. When that happens, the first question is “What was the response rate on your last mailing?” Now you would think after 32 years in the business that the standard response to this question would no longer shock me, however that is not the case. When I hear “I am not sure”, I cringe. In 2024, how can they not know what the response rate was? They need to know this information. So, let’s take a look at what the 2024 Lob State of Direct Mail found: > 84% of marketers agree direct mail provides the highest ROI of any channel they use. > 82% of respondents are increasing direct mail spend in 2024. > Personalized URLs are the most popular way to measure conversions from direct mail campaigns. > Letters and postcards are the most popular direct mail format sent by respondents followed closely by brochures, catalogs, and self-mailers. One key takeaway is that direct mail response rates are higher than all digital media in the study. Direct mail can benefit the marketing mix, but you need to know their numbers so that you can keep doing what works and fix what is not working.