Direct mail marketing response rate

In direct mail marketing, the response rate is the percentage of recipients who respond to the mailing. Response rates can vary widely by industry, though the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) in a study of 1,122 industry-specific campaigns determined that the average response rate for direct mail is 2.61%.

The response rate is often used as a measure of the success of a direct mail marketing campaign. Before beginning any direct mail marketing campaign, it is a good practice to determine the break even response rate – the number of respondents to the campaign that must buy to yield enough profit to cover the cost of the direct mail campaign. If the break even response rate is very high, then the campaign can be restructured to lower the cost and therefore lower the break even response rate to a more achievable level.

In general, the overall response rate is higher when a smaller target audience is contacted multiple times
versus a larger target audience contacted once.