Why automated direct mail is the next big thing in marketing automation

The article at a glance:

- Print is now a native part of the marketing tech stack—automated, integrated and real-time.
- Triggered direct mail outperforms digital in conversion, engagement and ROI.
- Printers must lead with tech, data and marketing fluency to seize this opportunity.

A quiet revolution is underway. Thanks to automation and API-based integration, print has re-entered the realm of real-time marketing. What used to take weeks of planning, quoting, design, approvals and production can now be set in motion with a few clicks—directly from the same marketing platforms used to trigger emails, SMS or push notifications. For marketing professionals, this is more than convenience; it’s a reawakening of what targeted print can do in customer journeys.

Once known as programmatic mail or triggered mail, automated direct mail has re-emerged as a highly effective, hyper-personalised channel. Campaigns can now be triggered on the fly—abandoned baskets, reactivation flows, welcome sequences, loyalty campaigns—with print landing on the doormat as soon as the next day. The results: significantly higher response and conversion rates, increased average order value, and a tangible, brand-rich interaction that stands out in an over-saturated digital landscape.

“Print is now just one line in the marketing automation platform,” says Ayelet Szabo-Melamed VP Marketing of XMPie, in an interview. “It used to be a whole separate journey—talking to production, figuring out if you still had someone in-house who could handle it. Now, it’s as simple as any other channel.”

That ease of access marks a real turning point. Print can now be embedded directly into platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot, Bloomreach, and Klaviyo. CRM and marketing managers no longer view it as a cumbersome offline add-on. Instead, it becomes a seamless part of omnichannel journeys—supporting everything from welcome packs and onboarding to retention and win-back campaigns.

As Martin Twellmeyer Managing Director of optilyz explains: “Many of our cases are focused on customer relationship marketing, particularly loyalty campaigns. Companies already have customer addresses through e-commerce or loyalty programmes, so it’s a natural fit. We support use cases like points reminders, loyalty anniversaries, and other personalised touchpoints that strengthen long-term engagement.”

One of the early adopters of this approach was Bonprix.
“We started with catalogues in 1986 and opened our webshop for Germany in 1997,” said Susan Fulczynski, who formerly led the programmatic print project at Bonprix. “Programmatic printing and CRM automation enabled us to expand our print touchpoints with trigger postcards and self-mailers, allowing us to make more targeted offers and respond more effectively to specific audience segments.

“It was a sequence-based approach. We ran our first postcard tests in 2015—we called them ‘retargeting postcards’ back then. We conducted postcard versus email tests using an incentive. The postcard was sent one day after a customer action in the shop—for example, a ‘shopping basket cancellation’. We saw 23% more demand from the print postcards compared to emails. And that was 10 years ago. My conclusion at the time was: print must be fast and relevant".

“At our peak, working together with Canon, we were sending out bursts of 300,000 mailings. We still use postcards, though with a lower level of personalisation than before. The main barriers now are increased postage costs and slower delivery times—particularly in Germany—which make the business case for hyper-personalised print more challenging.”

Seamless integration

The development of direct mail automation software began in earnest over a decade ago in the United States. As an example, Deutsche Post launched its first product in 2017, marking one of the early European entries into the field.

Today, the global market is expected to grow significantly, with projected compound annual growth rates ranging from 12.5% to 33.5%.

That growth is being driven by multiple factors:

- Low response and conversion rates from digital campaigns

- Increasing ad saturation and brand safety concerns

- The need for greater personalisation in customer engagement

- The proven emotional and sensory value of print

But perhaps the most important driver is seamless integration. Modern software now connects creative templates, CRM systems, customer data and analytics into a single automated process. CRM teams and digital marketers can track direct mail performance alongside their digital campaigns, creating a comprehensive view of multi-channel engagement.

Providers like ZAP～POST, eesii, optilyz and Paperplanes have made this possible by embedding print directly into the marketing workflow.

 ZAP～POST integrates natively with leading CRM platforms. Their system supports four key formats—postcards, letters, one-piece mailers and poster cards—and allows brands to run campaigns flexibly, with built-in budget control.

eesii, part of Bertelsmann Marketing Services, embeds directly into Salesforce, DYMATRIX and others. “Print should behave like a digital channel,” says Katharina Thomas, Teamleader at eesii. “It should be as easy to set up as a newsletter.” In our interview, she explained how for one client they created a letter using 64 different data variables—proving just how far personalisation can go.

XMPie, meanwhile, builds on live, real-time data and Adobe InDesign to deliver premium personalised creative. Their tools generate print-ready campaigns using the same data used for digital—no pre-processing or creative compromises required.

Importantly, XMPie takes a creative-led approach rather than a purely programmatic one. This means brands can now ensure pixel-perfect, on-brand creative flows from design through to production—without sacrificing efficiency.
XMPie’s integration with Adobe InDesign ensures that what the designer creates is exactly what gets printed, with personalisation and customisation embedded at every stage. As the company puts it, “The bridge between the creative, the data, and the production has been at the heart of XMPie’s ethos for over two decades.”
The rise of high-speed digital print technologies—particularly inkjet—has completed that bridge: enabling design, data logic, and production to operate in sync, without compromising one for the other.

And geography is no barrier. Chris Molloy of Precision Proco told me: “We produce in the UK and mail directly into Europe. With the right opportunity, we could automate and mail across the continent. Everything is in place.”

Proving performance

For years, print suffered from a perception problem: that it couldn’t be measured. But today’s data tells a different story.

“We take the best practices of digital targeting to trigger content over time that can be continually optimised. And we can now offer the comfort automated mail will generate incremental returns compared to a digital form of re-targeting which we provide through our advanced approach to analytics and providing clients access to data through our dashboards" Daniel Dunn, Co-Founder of Paperplanes explains.

Martin Twellmeyer stresses the importance of focusing on ROI rather than cost when evaluating advertising. While offline channels like direct mail tend to be more expensive than digital options, they often deliver higher conversion rates. The key is finding the right balance between both approaches for optimal results.

Precision Proco reports a fashion brand earning £14 for every £1 spent on postcards, with an average ROAS of 14X and conversion rates exceeding 9%. As Molloy from Precision Proco puts it, "We’ve been running automated direct mail for 12 months now. It’s easy to use, easy to integrate, and it performs. That’s the bottom line."

Wolfgang Eckert from Deutsche Post adds that their mail campaigns for eCommerce business generate a ROAS of 900%, meaning €9 in revenue for every euro spent. However, he points out that the effectiveness of direct mail depends on the product—cheaper items like €1 T-shirts might not justify the investment, but for all other brands and industries, it works well.

Steven Johnson of ZAP～POST adds: “Email, no reply, print piece, then SMS—it’s all in sync, and it works. Print isn’t a fallback; it’s a core touchpoint.”

Removing complexity

Behind the scenes, automation platforms do the heavy lifting: templates, data cleansing, address validation, postal optimisation and print fulfilment. CRM professionals can focus on strategy—not file formats or delivery logistics.

eesii provides this via a single API that collects data, triggers campaigns and routes production to its global print network. Their in-house know-how, of over 20 years experience,  guarantees quality, while offering low-barrier entry for new users.

eesii provides this via a single API that collects data, triggers campaigns and routes production to its global print network. Their in-house know-how guarantees quality, while offering low-barrier entry for new users.

“Many of our clients are using print for the first time,” says Thomas. “We help them test, learn and scale.

Catalogue-based brands on the other hand, come with print expertise and benefit from sending personalised mini-catalogues or postcards as pre-announcements. It’s a fast and effective way to accompany the catalogue with personalised print mailings and thereby increase the success of the catalogue.”

A call to printers: step forward

Deutsche Post plays a crucial role as a distributor, consultant, and printer in the evolving landscape of automated mail. Wolfgang Eckert from Deutsche Post offers the distributor’s perspective on the integration of automation in dialogue marketing. While automation plays a key role, he emphasizes that many customers prioritize a full-service approach to manage the complexity of print mailings. Deutsche Post provides both online and personal services, ensuring transparency in costs, timelines, and processes, with personal support available throughout.

This comprehensive service is helping attract a growing number of first-time users who see the potential of automated mail but need guidance throughout the process. For Deutsche Post, the key is managing the production and delivery of mailings, while competitors like optilyz and eesii contribute to expanding the market, creating a win-win situation for all involved.

As Ayelet Szabo-Melamed from XMPie explains: “Whatever the future holds for print, it will be one that is deeply connected—connected to backend systems and data workflows. The challenge, in my view, is perception. Print is often left out of modern marketing conversations because it’s seen as ‘old media’—a legacy channel that’s been around forever. But that view completely overlooks how much print has evolved. Digital may be the newcomer, but print has never stopped adapting. Today, print is more connected than ever—ready to integrate, respond, and personalise in ways many marketers haven’t even imagined yet. It really is the dog that’s learned new tricks.”

This evolution creates an urgent opportunity—but also a challenge—for printers. While many have invested heavily in automation and production technology, too few are engaging with the world of CRM, marketing automation, and customer data. That’s where the disconnect happens: between what’s technically possible and what marketers actually hear.

In the gap, tech-led players are moving fast. Fluent in APIs, integrations, and campaign metrics, they understand how to use customer data—and how to speak the language of marketing. That fluency gives them easier access to major clients and positions them to offer value-added services that resonate with today’s data-driven decision makers.

Dunn urges printers to reposition themselves as strategic partners: “The technology is ready. But don't assume you can built a programmatic analytic capability that is going to be easily understood and will sell internally. Seek the right experts in that area as it is harder than you think to combine digital marketing with traditional print".

Although the market is growing he urges for thought leadership to further introduce the concept.

Molloy agrees: “We took a leap of faith. We believed in automated mail before it was profitable. Now we’re seeing real returns.”

But it requires a new mindset—not just new equipment. “Marketers aren’t going to Google ‘automated direct mail’,” Molloy says. “They need someone to show them.”

If print is to reclaim its place in the media mix, printers must lead the way. That means sharing data, building demos, and speaking to CRM and digital professionals in their own terms.

In a world oversaturated with digital ads, print has a rare chance to differentiate—and deliver results. But that won’t happen passively. It will happen when printers step forward.

With automation, print is now visible in performance dashboards for marketers, CRM leads, and digital media teams. Quite literally, print is back on the radar. And with campaign KPIs aligned across online and offline channels, its effectiveness will no longer go unnoticed. For those willing to embrace the opportunity, automated print is more than a revival. It’s a redefinition.