Does Direct Mail Work for Ecommerce Brands? You bet.

Does direct mail actually work for ecommerce brands?

In short, absofrickin’lutely.

Across verticals. For acquisition, retargeting, and retention. For glory and honor.

If you need convincing on this one, let’s talk about it:

Here’s how 7 leading ecommerce brands are using direct mail and seeing incredible results. 

Let’s start at the top of the funnel, with acquisition.

Customer Acquisition, Powered by Direct Mail

Between high Meta CACs (or at the very least, unpredictable Meta CACs) and recent tariff impacts, brands need another reliable acquisition channel.

For thousands of brands, direct mail has become that reliable channel.

Take a look at how Kindred Bravely and Cozy Earth are doing it:

Kindred Bravely’s Killer Acquisition Results

Kindred Bravely—a beloved nursing and maternity wear brand—uses programmatic direct mail at every stage of the customer journey.

The KB team leveraged a direct mail lookalike audience builder to send mail to tens of thousands of new and expecting mothers.

And the results? Excellent.

The campaign drove a 3.1x ROAS on that cold outreach.

&Collar’s Prospecting Wins

&Collar, a men’s apparel brand known for cheeky messaging and incredible stain-resistant shirts, also crushes prospecting with direct mail. 

The team has sent a number of acquisition campaigns with a lookalike builder, sending postcards to hyper-targeted audiences, based on their most valuable customers. 

With a lookalike builder, &Collar sent postcards to custom targeted cold audiences, and although all of the prospecting efforts drove solid ROIs, two campaigns drove a 4.9x and 5.8x ROAS.

Retargeting, Powered by Direct Mail

You can keep your Meta ads and email reminders pumping, but when you add direct mail to the mix, you’re going to push your prospecting dollars further.

Just ask Gozney and HexClad.

Gozney Retargets Anonymous Visitors… at a 16x ROI.

Gozney sells beautiful pizza ovens. Everyone knows that.

They crush it with direct mail (in both the US and UK), too. Not as many people know that (but we think they should.)

One of many direct mail tactics that’s worked well for them? Converting anonymous site visitors.

Gozney uses an AI-enhanced retargeting system that dynamically sends mail to anonymous website visitors based on their likelihood to convert. It automatically identifies, pools, and scores visitors most likely to convert through direct mail (and it excludes their current customers).

The payoff: another affordable, automated retargeting tactic that turns more window shoppers into pizza oven owners.

And it’s crushed: converting anonymous visitors at a 16x ROAS.

Retention, Powered by Direct Mail

HexClad’s Multimillion Dollar Direct Mail Revenue Stream

HexClad is a direct mail power user, having scaled their direct mail program in several successive years. Although they have some major acquisition wins, too, check out what they’re doing to plug their retargeting funnel and drive net-new revenue.

Retargeting Non-Buying Email Subs (Warm leads): The team dynamically sent postcards to convert warm leads who had subscribed to their email list but had not purchased yet. (Yep, direct mail can do that. No address, no problem.) 

Although HexClad keeps these on year round, they triple up on email subscriber retargeting around BFCM and add three automated postcards. So, if someone receives the first one and doesn’t make a purchase within 10 days, they’ll receive another postcard. And one more after that. Although the ROI diminishes by the second and third postcard, all drive revenue that wouldn’t be possible without direct mail.

Retargeting Cart Abandoners (Hot Leads): To enhance their abandoned cart email flow, HexClad automatically fires off postcards after almost-buyers have passed through the flow without purchasing yet. This tactic alone drives hundreds of thousands in revenue.

Retargeting Checkout Abandoners (Raging Hot Leads): For those raging hot leads, HexClad uses automated postcards that are automatically fired off whenever someone ditches the purchase process at the last minute. 

In short, HexClad’s doing everything right. They’re plugging their retargeting funnel and ensuring that they’re adding several other (physical) touchpoints with potential customers.

Retention, Powered by Direct Mail

Direct mail drives great results for acquisition and retargeting, but it truly shines in retention. Whether it’s driving second purchases from one-time buyers or multiple purchases from your VIPs, the ROAS is almost universally strong.

Check out what Portland Leather Goods, Good American, and Taylor Stitch are doing to retain more customers with mail:

Portland Leather Goods’ Huge Direct Mail Retention Program

Portland Leather Goods pulls out all the stops with direct mail for retention, sending a wide variety of campaigns to keep customers coming back for more.

Here are 5 of our favorites:

1. Automated campaigns to drive second purchases
2. Automated winbacks for moderate spenders
3. Automated winbacks for VIPs
4. Holiday offers
5. (Truly) Unique offers and exclusive discounts to “Unicorn Whisperers,” PLG’s ultra-ultra VIPs who have spent thousands of dollars (see below:)

Portland Leather Goods is driving 8 figures in revenue every year with direct mail, and their direct mail retention efforts are a major component of it.

Good American’s 8x ROAS Winbacks

Khloé Kardashian and Emma Grede’s denim brand uses direct mail to solve their “one-time buyer problem.”

And they started solving it with win-back postcards: when one of their customers hasn’t repurchased in a set time frame, out goes a postcard to serve as a reminder to revisit the site.

The team A/B tested different postcard designs and offers based on RFM segments, and they automated the winner, which has consistently driven a 8x ROAS and $1.40 in extra revenue for every postcard sent. 

That’s repeat revenue. On autopilot.

Taylor Stitch’s 15x+ ROI on automated retention flows.

Super cool men’s apparel brand Taylor Stitch looks super cool on postcards.

And they’ve leaned hard into using automated retention to power hands-off repeat revenue.

Always-On Reengagement: The retention engine’s running 24/7 with automated win-back postcards. If a customer hasn’t shopped in a while, they get a personalized “come back” card in the mail—no manual work needed. Set it and forget it.

Inbox Backup Plan: The team’s tied direct mail (directly) into their email program. During BFCM, Taylor Stitch sent out a postcard promo to customers who weren’t opening emails (think bounced addresses or the unengaged who would’ve missed the sale entirely). In other words, they were making the most of their list over the most important holiday of the year.

And the direct mail investments paid off. On average, the postcards drove a 10x ROAS, but the automated flow drove over an incredible 15x ROAS.

It’s like they were printing money.

You, too, can print money with direct mail…

So, does direct mail work for ecommerce brands?

We’ll let you be the judge of that. 7 of the legitimately leading DTC brands have made it a pillar of their marketing, and the truth is, they’re a handful among thousands.

In short, it works.

Really well.

And we know it, because we’re PostPilot, an AI-powered, full-funnel direct mail platform exclusively dedicated to serving DTC brands in the Shopify space.

(Guess we buried the lede there a bit.)

Bottom line, if you want to get results like HexClad, Kindred Bravely, Taylor Stitch, and thousands of our other incredible customers, contact us.

Or learn more here.

Start printing money.