As a Platinum JICMAIL member, we follow their research closely. And the latest Q1 2026 results provide further evidence of what many of us have been seeing in campaign results for some time: direct mail isn’t an alternative to digital marketing. It’s one of the best ways to improve digital performance.
The data shows continued growth in direct mail’s ability to drive digital engagement, with website visits and online actions generated by mail reaching some of the highest levels seen in recent years.
In Q1 2026, 9.4% of mail items prompted a website visit, a record for the first quarter of the year. Account look-ups, web searches and app downloads prompted by mail all increased year-on-year. And 56% of all purchases driven by mail were fulfilled online, also a new record since tracking began.
This challenges the outdated view that direct mail is a purely offline channel. Today’s consumers don’t think in channels. They receive a piece of mail, scan a QR code, visit a website, search for a brand, engage on social media or complete a purchase online. The journey is increasingly connected.
Campaign-level proof, not just panel data
Alongside the quarterly results, JICMAIL has released its full year 2025 Response Rate Tracker dataset, now covering nearly 5,000 campaigns submitted anonymously by fifteen industry organisations, with PDV among those contributors.
The tracker provides benchmarks for response rates, ROI, cost per acquisition and average order value across cold and warm direct mail, door drops and, for the first time, partially addressed mail.
Early findings from the 2025 dataset are striking: warm direct mail response rates are up 26% year-on-year, cold direct mail up 21% and ROI for warm mail reaches up to £11.50 for every pound spent.
This kind of campaign-level evidence matters. It moves the conversation beyond panel engagement metrics and into the language of acquisition, retention and commercial return that clients and planners need.
The real question for marketers
The question isn’t whether to choose direct mail or digital. It’s how to use them together. When direct mail is targeted properly, supported by good data and integrated with digital activity, it can cut through the noise of crowded inboxes and overloaded social feeds, while generating measurable online engagement.
The most effective campaigns we see are rarely single channel. They’re joined-up campaigns where every touchpoint strengthens the next. If you’re still measuring direct mail purely on response rates, you may be missing the digital impact it’s creating further down the customer journey.
Your direct mail strategy
At PDV, we plan and deliver direct mail campaigns that work in step with digital activity, using data to target the right audiences and measure the full impact across every channel.
Whether you’re looking to acquire new customers, improve retention or get more from your marketing budget, we’d love to talk!
