When it comes to going to market, businesses have a variety of channels to choose from. Among these, direct mail, email, and programmatic marketing stand out for their unique strengths and capabilities. Today I’m going to explore the effectiveness of each channel within the UK market, focusing on coverage, accuracy of targeting, cost, measurability, engagement, and overall performance.

Other marketing channels such as SMS and outbound telemarketing are available, however these are tightly regulated, requiring unambiguous consent to be in place, which all but rules them out for prospecting.  They also are more intrusive than other marketing channels and for the purpose of this article we have excluded them from the comparison.

Direct Mail: Direct mail has a broad reach across the UK, effectively targeting specific geographic areas and demographics. It is particularly effective in reaching older demographics who may not be as active online.

Email Marketing: Email marketing offers extensive coverage, with a high penetration rate in the UK. It allows businesses to reach a wide audience instantly, making it a powerful tool for both B2B and B2C marketing.

Programmatic Marketing: Programmatic marketing leverages automated technology to purchase ad space in real-time across various digital platforms. This ensures wide coverage, reaching users across websites, social media, and mobile apps.

The cost of direct mail, email and programmatic channels are very different, but so is the ROI. 

Using a marketing channel just because it is cheap(er) doesn’t mean it delivers a better ROI and can be a false economy.  It is important to consider and understand what the cost of each channel is and how targeted your campaign will be as both of these directly affect ROI.  Using a higher cost channel to achieve a greater ROI sometimes makes better sense than spending a lower amount on a poorly performing campaign. 

You should also consider whether a combination of marketing channels works better than relying solely on one option (as explained below). 

Direct Mail: Direct mail is more costly due to printing, postage, and distribution expenses. However, it very often yields a high return on investment (ROI), especially when targeting specific demographics.  Collaboration mailing packs such as our Moooove home mover pack (where costs are shared between two or more brands) bring down the price of a mailing to a fraction of the cost of a postage stamp, making this a very cost-effective option for companies. 

Email Marketing: Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective channels. The cost is primarily associated with email marketing software and list management. 

Programmatic Marketing: Programmatic marketing can be cost-effective due to its real-time bidding system, which ensures that ad spend is optimised. However, costs can vary based on the competitiveness of the target audience and ad placements. 

Direct Mail: Measuring the effectiveness of direct mail can sometimes be a challenge, however, tracking mechanisms like QR codes, personalised URLs, and unique discount codes can help gauge response rates.   Additionally, businesses can match mailing files to recent customer orders / sign-ups and precisely calculate conversion to sale and ROI.

Email Marketing: Email marketing offers robust measurability. Metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates provide clear insights into campaign performance.

Programmatic Marketing: Programmatic marketing excels in measurability. Real-time data and analytics allow marketers to track impressions, clicks, conversions, and ROI, enabling continuous optimisation.

Direct Mail: Studies show that direct mail helps companies to get a 95% engagement rate on average, due to its tangible nature. Recipients are more likely to remember and act on physical mail, especially when it includes personalised content.  When it comes to privacy, millennials fear digital methods more and find direct mail safer and more secure, with 33% of customers considering it trustworthy compared to only 16% for email.  Direct mail also helps drive online activity, with 70% of customers motivated to complete a task online after receiving offline mail. 

Email Marketing: Email marketing can sometimes achieve high engagement rates, particularly when emails are personalised and relevant, but it rarely performs as well as direct mail, being considered less personal and less trustworthy. It can also suffer from issues like spam filters and email fatigue.   

Programmatic Marketing: Programmatic marketing can drive significant engagement by delivering relevant ads to users. The use of dynamic creative optimisation ensures that ads are tailored to individual preferences and behaviours, although this does depend on the underlying data used, which needs to be both accurate and comprehensive.  Where data isn’t available ads can be targeted at entirely the wrong audience, creating confusion and potentially impacting brand reputation. 

Direct Mail: Direct mail remains effective for reaching specific demographics and creating a lasting impression. Its high engagement rates and tangible nature make it a valuable channel.  74% of marketers report getting the best ROI through direct mail compared to the other channels.  It is an eye-opening percentage since many companies think direct mail still is dead. It also means it is easier to convince people to purchase from your brand using an offline, personalised channel instead of sending thousands of bulk emails.  

Email Marketing: Email marketing is a versatile channel with extensive reach and robust measurability. It is particularly effective for nurturing customer relationships and driving conversions, particularly when used in combination with a direct mail campaign. 

Programmatic Marketing: Programmatic marketing stands out for its targeting, cost-effectiveness, and real-time optimisation. It is highly effective for reaching a broad audience with personalised ads, making it a key component of modern digital marketing strategies, but again it should be considered alongside other marketing channels, particularly for certain age groups, where direct mail is the preferred marketing channel. 

On the face of it Programmatic and email channels represent the most cost-effective way to communicate with customers and prospects however, very often a combination of marketing channels works far better than relying on one channel in isolation.

For example, our broadband clients have achieved conversion to sale of 10% using direct mail to target home movers.  The addition of targeted emails to the same households increased conversion to over 18%, demonstrating that a multi-channel approach dramatically increases awareness, conversion and ROI, for a very modest increase in the marketing spend.

Additionally, the age of the target audience and their engagement with direct mail, email and programmatic channels should be considered.  For example, if the majority of your customers are 65 or older a direct mail campaign is highly likely to produce a better ROI than an email or programmatic communication will. 

The type of the product or service being communicated can be also an important factor, where some channels lend themselves better to certain products and services. 

For all these reasons an open-mind and test and learn approach to multi-channel marketing will produce the best results and highest ROI.

Each marketing channel—direct mail, email, and programmatic—has its unique strengths and can be highly effective when used strategically. Direct mail excels in engagement and creating a lasting impression, across all age groups but particularly the 65 plus audience.  Email marketing offers extensive reach, and programmatic marketing provides precision targeting and real-time optimisation. By understanding the strengths of each channel, UK businesses can craft integrated marketing strategies that maximise their impact and drive success. 

by Martin Jaggard – Director at The Ark