Half of these purchases were made online while just over a third were made in-store, said JICMail, which has made a number of reporting changes in Q3 to enable marketers and planners to unpick the role and impact of mail with greater granularity than before.
The new variables include the distinction between whether mail prompted a purchase in store, online, or by other means (i.e. telephone or by mail); the reporting of warm vs cold mail impact; a greater granularity in financial services sector reporting; the inclusion of QR codes as a content type tracked; and the addition of new digital commercial action related to whether mail prompted an app usage or download or the sending of an email.
The data found that 3% of mail prompted an online purchase in Q3, 2.2% an in store purchase, and 1.4% a purchase by other means. It also revealed that 76% of direct mail is targeted at existing customers (warm) and 24% at new prospects (cold).
JICMail said its panel sample sizes grew by 6% year-on-year in Q3, primarily boosted by an uptick in business mail volumes of 15%.
Frequency of interaction with mail has grown year-on-year for door drops and partially addressed mail; while item reach (i.e. sharing in the home) has grown for business mail, partially addressed mail, and door drops.
The average piece of business mail was interacted with 4.7 times over a 28-day period, direct mail 4.4 times, Partially Addressed Mail (PAM) 4.1 times, and door drops 3.1 times.
The average lifespan in the home was eight days for business mail, 6.6 days for direct mail, 6.6 days for PAM, and 6.2 days for door drops.
The average piece of direct mail was looked at for 129 seconds across 28 days, door drops 58 seconds, business mail 172 seconds, and PAM for 89 seconds.
For the first time, JICMail also revealed share of attention figures which indicated that some of the largest senders of mail, including Tesco, NHS, and FarmFoods, were generating a disproportionately large share of attention.
Ian Gibbs, JICMail director of data leadership and learning, said: “JICMail has been reporting on mail’s ability to drive digital traffic from day one – a vital insight considering that in the world of last click attribution, much of mail’s credit is being taken by other channels.
“However, for the first time, we can reveal that mail also drives online purchases. Mail should be part of a fully integrated customer journey, with its impact on product discovery, customer experience and now purchase fulfilment across all channels, clear to see.”
JICMail data is gathered from a panel of 1,000 households every month. The mail activity of every household member is tracked using a diary-based app. Every mail item they receive over the course of a week is captured and everything they do with that mail item over the course of a month is recorded.
