Direct mail statistics, from the panel data

The direct mail statistics that can be traced to their source measure attention and actions rather than one response rate. JICMAIL, the UK’s mail audience measurement panel, found that in the first quarter of 2024 6% of mail prompted a purchase, up from 4.2% a year earlier, and business mail held 175 seconds of attention per item. Published response rates for letterbox drops are mostly behind paywalls.

Where the figures come from

JICMAIL runs a panel of UK households who record every piece of mail they receive and what they do with it: how long they spend on it, how often they go back to it, whether they keep it, and whether it led to a website visit, a call or a purchase. That makes it the most detailed public measure of what mail does, though it measures the UK and its headline releases are usually reported by mail companies and trade press. The figures here are from British Print’s report of JICMAIL’s first quarter 2024 results, published 14 June 2024 and read on 21 October 2026.

What mail prompts

In the first quarter of 2024, according to that report:

• 6% of mail prompted a purchase, up from 4.2% in the first quarter of 2023, and purchases driven by mail grew 43% year on year.
• 38% of website visits prompted by mail ended in an online purchase.
• Of the purchases mail prompted, 46% were online and 32% in store.

These are shares of all mail items, addressed and unaddressed together. They are not the same as a response rate on one campaign, which counts replies to a specific offer.

Attention and lifespan

Business mail held 175 seconds of attention per item. Door drops, the UK term for unaddressed letterbox mail, held 55 seconds of attention and stayed in the home for 5.8 days. 20.2% of mail was filed away, up from 20.0% a year earlier. On cost, JICMAIL put direct mail at £0.11 per minute of attention among ABC1 adults, and the report says that compares well with social and digital display, without giving their figures.

The report gives changes rather than absolute figures for door drop frequency and days in the home, so those are not quoted here.

How letterbox delivery works in Australia

Australia Post’s letterbox advertising guide describes its unaddressed mail service, and two rules decide where a drop lands. Delivery follows postal rounds, and an 80/20 rule decides which rounds a suburb booking includes: rounds with 80% or more of their delivery points inside the area are included automatically, rounds with 20% or less are left out, and rounds in between are the advertiser’s choice. Articles cannot be delivered to letterboxes with a No Advertising Material sign, except community notices permitted by law. Printing and bundling are the advertiser’s job, and articles are lodged in trays to Australia Post’s preparation guide.

What is not published

Single response rates for addressed mail and letterbox drops, often quoted as a few percent, come from industry reports such as the US Association of National Advertisers’ response rate report, which is available to members only. Australia Post’s guide gives delivery rules but no response figures. So this post does not quote a “typical” letterbox response rate; the honest answer is to measure your own.

Turning a drop into a number you can use

The arithmetic is simple once you have your own figures:

1. Flyers delivered times your response rate gives enquiries.
2. Enquiries times your conversion rate gives customers.
3. Print and delivery cost divided by customers gives your cost per customer.

To get the two rates, run a small tracked test first: a few hundred flyers in one area, with a code, a short web address or a phone number used nowhere else. The QR code on a flyer post covers tracking with a code, and how to distribute flyers covers letterbox, hand to hand and in store methods.

How the flyers on this site compare

The 124 flyer examples on this site, each with three designs, are built for exactly that kind of test: 109 of them print a price on at least one design, 81 a phone number and 116 a web address. The grand opening flyer and the accountant flyer show offer, price and contact in the first screen. What to put on a flyer lists the elements, and print against social flyers covers when a letterbox drop is the right channel.

What to print on a tracked flyer

A drop can only be measured if the flyer carries something unique to it. The simplest options are a short web address that only appears on this flyer, a code to quote when booking, or a QR code that opens a page with its own tracking. A phone number used nowhere else works too, if your phone plan supports a second number. Whatever you choose, print it large and near the offer, not in the footer.

Then keep the comparison fair. Drop the same design in two suburbs, or two designs in one suburb, and keep the dates and the quantities the same. Record how many flyers went out, how many enquiries arrived with the code, and how many became customers. After two or three drops you will have your own response rate and conversion rate, which are worth more than any published average because they are about your offer in your area.

Watch the timing too. JICMAIL’s panel shows mail staying in homes and being picked up more than once, so enquiries can trickle in for weeks after a drop. Count for a fixed period, such as four weeks, before judging a drop.

In the product

The flyer generator makes A4 portrait and landscape flyers and six social sizes, and exports PDF, PNG and JPG; image exports are twice the canvas, so A4 comes out at 2480 by 3508 pixels, which is A4 at 300 DPI. There is no bleed, crop mark or CMYK setting, so ask your printer how they want the file. Only some designs carry a QR slot. The A4 flyer maker page shows the print size, and the guide to creating a flyer for Instagram and print walks through both.