JIC Mail Latest – The Results Are In For Q3 2024

The latest quarterly results from JICMAIL are in! Here are the highlights of how mail is performing in Q3 2024. 

JICMAIL – The Joint Industry Currency for Mail – has revealed that volumes tracked on its panel of 1,100 UK households increased by 5% year on year in Q3 2024. With increased numbers of advertisers displaying confidence in Direct Mail and Door Drops, it is more important than ever to measure the environmental impact of the mail channel.

While recycling represents only one element of a marketing channel’s sustainability credentials, it is timely to note that households and consumers have displayed more willingness than ever to recycle their discarded mail in Q3.

The latest quarterly results from JICMAIL reveal that 87% of mail discarded within a 28 day period is recycled. Recycling rates have been growing steadily over the five quarters that they have been tracked by JICMAIL and are up 14 percentage points year on year compared to the 73% recorded in Q3 2023.

JIC Mail Q3 2024 Highlights: 

• Cross-sector growth was seen in Q3 2024, with Direct Mail volumes up year on year across the medical, travel, supermarket and retail sectors,
• Door Drop volumes have grown across all sectors, apart from charities and automotive – contributing to a 20% growth in Door Drop volumes overall.
• To date, 7,137 advertisers have used Direct Mail or Door Drops between Q1 and Q3 2024 according to the latest circulation figures published by Nielsen Ad Intel.
• Frequency of interaction*, item reach*, mail lifespan* and mail attention* have all grown year on year for Direct Mail: these improved consumer engagement metrics providing a strong signal as to why advertisers are showing such confidence in the channel.
• Business Mail has displayed some of the largest improvements in engagement with lifespan growing 9.2% to 8.7 days on average, and frequency of interaction growing 3.1% to 4.9 overall.
• The strong linear relationship between mail attention and effectiveness, first explored in the 2023 JICMAIL study The Time We Spend With Mail, was reconfirmed in Q3 2024, with some of the highest attention mail sectors (supermarkets, government, medical, finance and utilities) also displaying some the highest rates of commercial effectiveness.
• 6% of mail prompted a purchase in Q3 2024, with nearly half of those purchases transacted online. 15% of mail prompted a discussion and 9% prompted a website visit, pointing towards the power of the mail channel in bolstering the efforts of owned and earned media.
• Noteworthy advertiser performances in Q3 2024 included Damart whose share of Direct Mail attention exceeded their share of volume, and Lloyds who did the same with their Business Mail.
• P&G Always proved to be the big attention winner in Q3, with its 6% share of volume out of the top ten Door Drop advertisers, generating 19% share of attention through their use of high impact voucher activity. P&G’s Q3 success provides a compelling case study as to the role the mail channel can play for big FMCG advertisers.

 

Key mail metrics for Q3 2024 can be summarised as follows:

Q3 2024 KEY MAIL METRICS
	Frequency	Item Reach	Lifespan	Attention
Direct Mail	4.4 interactions	1.13 people	7.4 days	134 seconds
Door Drops	3.1 interactions	1.05 people	5.9 days	56 seconds
Business Mail	4.9 interactions	1.17 people	8.7 days	175 seconds
Partially Addressed	3.9 interactions	1.07 people	7.3 days	88 seconds

 

% of ALL Mail…	Read / looked / glanced at	Recycled (base: discarded mail)	Prompted a purchase	Prompted a discussion	Prompted a website visit
Q3 2024	77%	87%	6%	15%	9%
Q3 2023	76%	73%	6%	15%	9%

 

Source: JICMAIL Item Data Q3 2024 – Direct Mail, Door Drop, Partially Addressed and Business Mail items

Mail interactions captured by JICMAIL panellists take many forms and range from opening and reading mail, to passing it on to someone else, putting it in the usual place, putting aside to look at later or taking it out of home (amongst a list of many other actions). In addition, JICMAIL captures the industry category and advertiser details of almost every mail item in its 335,000+ strong mail item database.

Ian Gibbs, JICMAIL, Director of Data Leadership and Learning, said “With the impending launch of the cross-industry Print Green initiative, it feels very timely to highlight an important facet of the mail channel’s sustainability: The fact that so many households – a growing number at that – are willing to recycle their discarded mail should provide pause for thought amongst those advertisers who are looking to do everything they can to improve the sustainability credentials of their marketing budget.”   

Mark Cross, Engagement Director, JICMAIL added, “It is striking that according to the latest circulation data form Nelsen Ad Intel, over 7,000 brands have used advertising mail so far this year equating to 16% of all UK advertisers. Mail is being used across all categories with a disproportionate conversion to attention being returned for the Always brand of P&G which represents a beacon for other FMCG brands to note and learn from.’”  

 

Our mail experts are here to support you enhance the sustainability of your mailing, and to understand how to utilise JIC mail data to get the most out of your mail campaign. Contact us today to start your mail journey. 

 

Notes:

JICMAIL data is gathered from a panel of one thousand households a 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.

JICMAIL data is used by advertisers, agencies, printers, mailing houses and mail sell side organisations to demonstrate the value of mail, plan more efficient and effective mail campaigns, track mail performance and provide detailed competitor insight.

Key JICMAIL reporting metrics include:

Frequency of Interaction / Exposure: The number of times a mail piece is interacted with over the course of a 28 day period, or how often the average person interacts with their mail.

*Item Reach: The number of people in a household who are exposed / interact with a mail item.

*Lifespan: The number of days a mail item is in the home before it is thrown or filed away.

*Attention: The number of seconds that a mail item is physically interacted with across a 28 day period.

Share of Doormat: The proportion of mail volumes on the JICMAIL panel accounted for by an advertiser against a defined competitive set.

Share of Attention: The proportion of the total number of seconds spent with mail accounted for by an advertiser against within a defined competitive set.