Postal Intelligence Hub
Practical resources for direct mail teams managing postal programs.
Guides, explainers, and program overviews for direct mail professionals. We cover what we know well: tracking, USPS visibility data, postal optimization, and promotions, with links to authoritative USPS sources for the rest.
Guides & Explainers
Deep-dive how-to content
Postal Programs
USPS promotions & optimization
Intelligence & Analysis
Campaign performance context
Featured Guides
Start here: practical guides for direct mail teams.
USPS Informed Visibility: What It Is and How to Use It
What USPS Informed Visibility actually is, how it works, and how direct mail teams can put the data to use.
Direct Mail Tracking: A Practical Field Guide for Marketing Teams
Everything a direct mail team needs to know about piece-level tracking: IMb barcodes, scan events, what the data means, and how to use it in campaign management.
USPS Postal Promotions: The Annual Incentive Calendar Explained
A practical overview of USPS promotional programs, what discounts they offer, typical eligibility requirements, and how to plan them into your campaign calendar.
Postal Programs
Understanding USPS postage programs and optimization opportunities.
USPS Promotional Discounts
USPS offers a calendar of promotional programs each year, providing postage discounts for mail that qualifies under specific creative, technology, or engagement criteria. Many mailers leave these savings uncaptured.
- Tactile & Sensory Promotion (2–4% discount)
- Informed Delivery Integration (3–4% discount)
- Mobile Shopping & Technology Promotion
- Personalization Promotion (3% discount)
Commingling & Presort Optimization
Commingling combines mail volumes from multiple mailers to qualify for deeper USPS presort discounts, reducing postage costs while often improving delivery timing by entering the postal stream deeper.
Amsive manages commingling programs for direct mail clients at scale, handling the logistics, postal entry strategy, and documentation that most mailers can’t manage on their own.
Why This Hub Exists
Most direct mail teams are underserved by available postal education.
The postal system is complex. USPS Informed Visibility, IMb encoding, presort levels, promotional eligibility, commingling logistics: these are not topics that come with easy explanations. Most mailers hand this off to their mail house and never look closely at it.
We built the Postal Intelligence Hub because better-informed direct mail teams make better decisions about timing, program structure, postal optimization, and performance analysis, whether or not you use MultiTrac®.
Topics covered in this hub
- USPS Informed Visibility — how it works, what it captures
- IMb barcode encoding and tracking setup
- Direct mail tracking — a practical explainer
- In-home timing and delivery prediction methods
- USPS promotional programs and eligibility
- Commingling, presort, and postage optimization
From the Amsive Team
Thought leadership on direct mail performance and strategy.
MultiTrac® is built by Amsive, and Amsive’s team publishes ongoing research, analysis, and strategy content on direct mail. These resources go beyond tracking and into how direct mail performs as a channel.
Mail the Moment: Reframing Direct Mail as an Always-On Performance Engine
Amsive’s latest white paper on how high-value brands are rebuilding their approach to direct mail, moving from batch campaigns to always-on performance programs.
From Batch to Trigger: How High-Performing Brands Are Rebuilding Direct Mail
How leading brands are shifting from episodic direct mail sends to trigger-based, data-driven programs, and what that means for campaign timing and visibility.
MTAC Takeaways: What’s Changing in Direct Mail and Why It Matters
Key takeaways from the Mailers’ Technical Advisory Committee: what’s shifting in the postal landscape and what direct mail teams should be paying attention to.
Have questions about your postal program? Amsive can help.
The Postal Intelligence Hub is a resource for everyone. If your program needs expert support, whether that’s strategy, optimization, execution, or analytics, Amsive’s direct mail team is available to engage.