Stampede x NPF Recap
Here we go:
Measurement has finally arrived
Sort of. When I spoke at NPF in 2015 about the intersection of digital and direct mail, nobody on the floor knew what I meant by "incrementality." This year, lift and incrementality were everywhere, framed as the way to measure direct mail success. The technical leap is real: a traditional matchback just joins your mail file against your sales file and credits every matched conversion to the campaign, which overcounts badly because it ignores what would have happened anyway. A lift study holds out a randomized control group, measures conversion rates in the mailed group versus the holdout, and reports the delta as true incremental lift. Progress, but I got the sense plenty of folks were parroting the words without really knowing what they meant.
The USPS Help Zone is the best 15 minutes you can spend at NPF
Rob and I sat down with two teams, NCOA and address correction, and the Postal Promotions API. We learned more in a quarter hour than weeks of research would have produced. Direct access to the actual subject matter experts is one of the top reasons I keep coming back. Companies are waking up to their data. Encouraging to see more companies recognize they're sitting on valuable data assets, and the smart ones are looking to partner with companies like Stampede to put that data to work.
The Tech Meetup was a highlight
Ray Van Iterson at USPS does a great job curating the MailTech crowd and getting the right people in the room. Surreal and fulfilling moment for Rob and me to be introduced as the founders of PebblePost while shaking hands with people who now work at PebblePost's competitors.
Rapid Fire
- Surprised and happy our stickers were such a hit.
- Surprised that downtown Phoenix was so quiet.
- Cool that Phoenix has Waymo.
- Bummed we never made it to the basketball court or golf simulator buried somewhere in our megaplex of a hotel.
Stampede is the Direct Mail Operating System for mail service providers and agencies. Start free at stampedetracks.com.