Informed Delivery® – Its Current State and What to Expect in the Future
Exciting statistics around the growth and success of Informed Delivery® were announced by the USPS® at the Mailers’ Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) Fall 2019 meeting. According to the USPS®, as of late October 2019 Informed Delivery now has 20.8 million registered users, approximately 75% of which receive the daily email. They also shared that Informed Delivery has been used for 25,698 marketing campaigns involving 4,635 distinct brands. Overall, almost half of customers are aware of Informed Delivery, and half of those who are aware claim they’ve signed up for notifications – the USPS website and email being the most commonly utilized methods of access.
In terms of saturation statistics, as of October the saturation was at 12.6% for eligible addresses and continues to climb steadily. This is important because the higher the Informed Delivery rate becomes, the more valuable the Informed Delivery tool is considered for mass marketing purposes. In addition to increasing saturation stats, Informed Delivery has a high conversion rate of interactive advertisements that often result in a purchase or planned purchase. An impressive 68% of people reported to have purchased form a website after clicking through on an interactive ad.
As far as the future of Informed Delivery is concerned, it is likely it will continue to see growth. Overall, the data shared by the USPS show positive signs that Informed Delivery is an effective platform. It is important to note though that Informed Delivery for flats still needs improvement, and USPS officials have stated they are working with Informed Delivery to use flats data more efficiently to determine delivery. However, until greater efficiency is achieved, Informed Delivery remains a better platform for letters than flats.
Informed Delivery continues to be an important tool for marketing mailers, and it is more important than ever to utilize it. The USPS understands this importance and has decided to extend their Informed Delivery promotion into 2020. Pending the Postal Regulatory Committee’s approval, registration will begin on July 15th and the promotion period will take place from Sept. 1st – Nov. 30th.
At BCC Software, we make it easy for you to participate in Informed Delivery. BCC Mail Manager™ users with the Mail.dat® option, BCC Mail Manager Full Service™ users, and Bulk Mailer® Business and Professional users can populate Informed Delivery campaign info directly into the Mail.dat file via the wizard. This makes it easy to upload the data in PostalOne!®.
For more information regarding Informed Delivery, visit https://informeddelivery.usps.com.
