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Plan My Campaign

№ 04 The Results Archive

Eight years of mail. Eight thousand campaigns. The proof is here.

A working archive of campaigns shipped through KDO Mailing between 2017 and Q1 2025 — challenge, approach, and the audited numbers underneath. Filter by your vertical, read the receipts, and decide if the channel belongs in your next quarter's plan.

Plan My Campaign Read the spread ↓
Campaigns shipped
18,427
Brands served
2,400+
Pieces in the post
214M
Audited by
Schellman & Co.

Route by vertical

Five industries. Five working dossiers.

Every case study below is filed under one of the verticals KDO Mailing services most often. Pick the one that matches your channel and jump straight to the proof.

An editorial note on the numbers

"The 5.8% average client response rate and the $34.10 cost-per-acquisition cited across these case studies were measured against the Data & Marketing Association's 2024 Response Rate Report — which puts the house-list prospect baseline at 2.4% — and were audited annually by an independent third-party media auditor retained by KDO Mailing."

AuditorIndependent third-party media auditor, on retainer since 2022

Baseline2.4% — DMA 2024 Response Rate Report, house-list prospects

KDO client avg.5.8% response · $34.10 CPA · 2024 postcard cohort

Confidence2.4× the DMA baseline, audited annually

Read on knowing every percentage downstream is anchored to that auditor's methodology, not a marketing estimate.

Flagship dossiers

Two verticals where the channel compounds fastest.

The two spreads below are the longest KDO Mailing client relationships on the file — both started in 2018, both have shipped quarterly ever since. They are the easiest case studies to defend in a marketing-director's quarterly review because the methodology is repeatable and the MatchBack attribution is unbroken.

Stacks of warm-cream postcards wait on a fulfillment table under window light.

Cohort: 14 of the Inc. 5000 retail fastest-growers, 2018–2024

01 E-commerce & Retail

Allbirds — quarterly acquisition postcard, shipped for 26 consecutive drops.

Named client. Allbirds. Vertical: E-commerce footwear & apparel. Operator of record: KDO Mailing, Inc.

Challenge

Allbirds was paying blended CAC north of $80 on paid social by Q4 2018 and asked KDO Mailing to test direct mail as a retention-and-acquisition supplement to its WooCommerce remarketing stack. List hygiene was the friction: the in-house file mixed 220k buyers, 90k site abandoners, and 410k prospect lookalikes into one undifferentiated pool.

Approach

KDO segmented the file into seven cohorts, printed six-inch-by-nine-inch postcards on uncoated cream stock from the Heidelberg lines in Cincinnati, and wired MatchBack attribution to Shopify Audiences via a 90-second trigger. Twelve USPS Mailpiece Design Analysts reviewed artwork quarterly. Drops shipped every 8 weeks for 26 quarters.

Numbers (audited)

Response rate
6.4%
CPA
$28.70
Attributed to digital
91%
Drops shipped
26

vs. the 2.4% DMA 2024 house-list baseline and the client's own $80+ paid-social blended CAC. Audited annually by a third-party media auditor retained by KDO Mailing.

Plan a similar drop →
A muted two-color subscription welcome postcard rests on a doormat.

Misfits Market · weekly DTC subscription · 6.1M pieces in 2024

02 DTC Subscription

Misfits Market — winback series for lapsed subscribers, lifted reactivation 3.1×.

Named client. Misfits Market. Vertical: DTC grocery subscription. Operator of record: KDO Mailing, Inc.

Challenge

Misfits was losing 11.4% of paid subscribers every 30 days and asked KDO to design a four-touch winback series that would reach lapsed members at 30, 60, 90, and 120 days, with each piece tied back to a unique discount code and a unique Klaviyo flow.

Approach

Four postcard variants, four discount ladders, 14-day print-on-demand cycles, and a Klaviyo integration that fired the next touch only if the previous one did not convert. MatchBack matched 88% of mailed pieces to a digital action within 30 days — the highest single-client attribution rate on file.

Numbers (audited)

Reactivation lift
3.1×
MatchBack attribution
88%
CPA
$31.40
Pieces shipped in 2024
6.1M

Attribution measured via MatchBack across Klaviyo, Shopify, and a custom pixel deployed for the campaign. Audited annually.

Plan a similar drop →

Working dossiers · 2018–2024

Three more verticals in compact editorial rows.

The same challenge → approach → numbers template, tightened into row form so a scanning reader can compare the verticals side by side.

03

B2B ABM

Mid-market SaaS · $50M–$500M ACV

Targeted account lists of 250–1,500 companies, hand-addressed in a real cursive face, matched to a Salesforce opportunity stage within 21 days.

Challenge

A Series C HR-tech company with a 1,200-account target list and a sales team that would not follow up on cold email. The CMO wanted a tactile first touch that the AE could reference on the discovery call.

Approach

KDO printed 1,200 six-by-nine inch cards on cotton stock with a hand-cursive address panel from the HP Indigo lines, paired each card with a personalized landing page, and pushed scan events into Salesforce as a custom field on the Account object.

Numbers

Scan-through to LP
34%
Pipeline created
$4.2M
Time to op-stage
11 days

04

Nonprofit Fundraising

National environmental nonprofit

A four-piece acquisition series sent to 480,000 cold-prospect households in Q4, lifting year-end giving 41% above email-only.

Challenge

The nonprofit's email list was saturating at a 0.3% donation rate and the board asked whether offline mail could re-open acquisition among lapsed and cold donors without blowing the cost-per-dollar-raised budget.

Approach

KDO sourced a 480,000-household prospect file through a nonprofit data co-op, printed four self-mailers at the offset facility, and matched inbound replies to the donor database via MatchBack so every gift was attributed back to its specific piece.

Numbers

Donor response
2.9%
Avg gift
$47
Cost per $ raised
$0.31

05

Real Estate

Regional brokerage · 312-agent network

Just-listed and just-sold farming postcards, triggered by MLS events, in-home within 96 hours of the sale closing.

Challenge

The brokerage's agents needed a way to dominate their geographic farms without paying for digital ads in each zip code. The marketing director wanted a single platform the agents could self-serve from.

Approach

KDO built an MLS integration that pulled just-listed and just-sold events from the regional RETS feed, fired a print job within 90 seconds of the close, and routed the finished piece through the HP Indigo digital lines for 96-hour in-home delivery.

Numbers

Trigger-to-mailbox
96 hrs
Pieces / month
38k
Listing inquiries
+58%

By the audited numbers

The dossier, recapped.

The same four numbers that anchor every case study on this page, restated on a dark band so the archive ends with rhythm intact.

Average client response rate, prospect house lists · 2024

5.8%

2.4× the DMA's 2024 house-list baseline of 2.4%.

Average cost per acquisition · 2024 postcard cohort

$34.10

Audited annually by an independent third-party media auditor.

Campaigns shipped, 2017 → Q1 2025

18,427

Across 2,400+ named brands and 214 million pieces.

Brands served since 2017

2,400+

Including Allbirds, Misfits Market, Athletic Greens, and 14 of the Inc. 5000 retail fastest-growers.

Add your brand to the next entry.

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