Direct Mail in Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM)

Introduction

Direct mail is printed advertising sent to recipients by post, such as catalogs, letters and postcards. There is no platform to connect to, so Sellforte models direct mail as its own media channel based on the mailing data you provide. This article describes what the dataset covers, which fields Sellforte needs and how to deliver them.

What this dataset covers

The dataset covers mailings sent by post, with the cost of print and postage and the number of pieces mailed. Email and other owned CRM messages belong in their own dataset.

Grain and sample

Each row represents one mailing drop: one campaign on one date, and one zip code when the mailing differs by area. Zip code level drops are useful because they show real geographic variation in the activity. Spend is booked to the in-home date or the drop date. Use the same one for the whole history.

date	campaign name	country	zip code	currency code	media investment	media investment gross	circulation
2025-03-03	Spring Catalog	DE	10115	EUR	420.00	520.00	5 200
2025-03-03	Spring Catalog	DE	20095	EUR	310.00	385.00	3 800
2025-03-17	Spring Catalog	DE	10115	EUR	415.00	515.00	5 100

Dimensions

Field	Importance	Rationale
Date	Must-have	In-home date or drop date of the mailing. All data needs to be on a daily level.
Campaign type	Important	Maps modeled results to campaign types such as brand, seasonal, sale or product launch.
Media type	Important	Maps modeled results to media types.
Media group	Important	Maps modeled results to media groups.
Media channel	Important	Maps modeled results to media channels.
Zip code	Optional	Gives geographic variation when drops differ by area.
Offer code	Optional	Identifies the offer printed on the piece, which helps separate mailings that ran at the same time.
Account name	Optional	Confirms that the right accounts are included in the data.
Country	Optional	Required if each country is modeled separately.
Campaign ID	Optional	Used to map campaigns.
Campaign name	Optional	Shows campaign details in the Sellforte interface.
Ad platform	Optional	The partner that produced or delivered the mailing. Shows media details in the interface.
Advertising channel	Optional	The medium used. Shows media details in the interface.
Advertised product	Optional	Needed to create strong links between marketing activity and sales of a product.
Currency code	Optional	Validates investments. Needed for ROI calculation if several currencies are used.

Metrics

Field	Importance	Rationale
Media investment	Must-have	Total cost of the mailing, including print and postage. Modeling metric, and needed for ROI calculation.
Media investment gross	Important	Gross cost before discounts. The preferred modeling metric, because gross investment reflects the market price of the media.
Circulation	Optional	Number of pieces mailed. An alternative modeling metric.
Number of pages	Optional	Number of pages per piece. Needed to analyze the impact of different formats.

How Sellforte receives the data

Direct Mail data is delivered through customer-managed delivery. See Sellforte supported data delivery methods for the available routes.

Customer-managed delivery

Direct mail data is usually assembled from the mailing plan and the invoices of the print and mail partners. Deliver one row per drop at the grain shown in the sample, with the fields in the Dimensions and Metrics tables. When drops differ by area, deliver one row per zip code with the pieces mailed to that zip code. Add currency code, account name and the media channel value used for direct mail as constant columns. Sellforte's offline data template contains these fields as ready-made columns.

Keep the definition of cost the same through the whole history, so that print and postage are either always included or always left out.