Email’s response rate has fallen to 0.12 percent, a number low enough that most campaigns are effectively talking to no one. Direct mail averages 4.4 percent across all list types over the same period, nearly 37 times higher, according to the ANA/DMA Response Rate Report as tabulated by direct-mail benchmarking site directmail.io. That gap alone would suggest marketers should be abandoning email for paper. Almost none of them are, and the data on who is actually increasing mail spend explains why the comparison is less clean than the headline number makes it look.
Marketers are not pulling back from mail, whatever the postage bill says. Franklin Madison Direct’s 2026 Direct Mail Marketing Benchmark Report, built from a national study of 500 U.S. marketers and 600 U.S. consumers and conducted by research firm Circlebox, found that more than half of marketers reported improved direct mail outcomes over the prior 12 months, and 95 percent plan to maintain or increase their direct mail investment. On the consumer side, 79 percent said they actively engage with the mail they receive, and 21 percent made a purchase in the past year because of it. Marketers are reading that as proof the channel still works.
The 4.4 percent average is doing a lot of work it should not be allowed to do. Split by list type, the same ANA/DMA data shows house lists, people who already bought from you, averaging 5 to 9 percent, while prospect lists, people who have not, run closer to 2.0 to 4.4 percent. Postcards average 5.7 percent and letter-sized envelopes 4.3 percent, a difference tied to format rather than targeting. So the 37-times framing mostly describes mailing people who already know your brand. For cold acquisition, direct mail’s edge over email shrinks to single digits of a percentage point in the worst case, not the headline multiple everyone quotes.
None of this is getting cheaper to run. The U.S. Postal Service’s rate change, pending Postal Regulatory Commission approval expected by May 28, 2026, would raise postage an average of 4.8 percent starting July 12, pushing the First-Class Forever stamp from 78 cents to 82 cents and Marketing Mail rates up about 5.4 percent, according to industry coverage from Postalytics and Campaigns & Elections. Paying more per piece only makes sense where the response rate actually clears that bar, which the list-type split says is mostly existing customers, not new ones.
Put the three data points together and the real story is not mail versus email, it is which list. A channel that returns 5 to 9 percent on people who already bought from you and 2 to 4 percent on strangers is not one number, it is two different businesses wearing the same budget line. The marketers reporting improved results are most likely the ones mailing their own customers more, not the ones using mail to find new ones, and rising postage costs will keep pushing the second use case out of the budget first.
Sources referenced in reporting: directmail.io, Direct Mail Response Rate Benchmarks (citing the ANA/DMA Response Rate Report), Chief Marketer, 2026 Direct Mail Marketing Benchmark Report (Franklin Madison Direct / Circlebox), Postalytics, USPS Postage Rates Rise July 12, Campaigns & Elections, Direct Mail Consultants Brace for Postage Rate Hike.