What is Informed Delivery and how can marketers use it?

‍What is Informed Delivery and how can marketers use it?

Most direct mail campaigns end at the mailbox. Informed Delivery gives marketers a way to extend that campaign from the mailbox to the inbox, creating a digital touchpoint that rides alongside a physical mail piece before it even arrives.

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What is Informed Delivery?

Informed Delivery is a USPS service that sends subscribers a daily email digest showing grayscale images of the letter-sized mail scheduled to arrive that day. Roughly 78.7 million active users have signed up for it, and they open these digests at unusually high rates – above 62%.

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For marketers, Informed Delivery creates a digital touchpoint that rides alongside a physical mail piece, without any additional postage. That’s right. This service allows brands to amplify

their hardcopy mail campaigns at no additional cost. 

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How it works for marketers

When a mailer participates in an Informed Delivery campaign, USPS includes a color ride-along image alongside the grayscale scan of the mailpiece in the subscriber's daily digest. That image can include a clickable link, driving recipients to a landing page, an offer, or any digital destination.

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The result is two impressions from one piece of mail. The subscriber sees the campaign in their email digest before the physical piece arrives, then encounters it again at the mailbox. That repetition reinforces the message and gives recipients a way to act before they even pick up the mail.

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Why it matters

Direct mail already earns strong recall. Adding a digital preview compounds that effect.

It also gives marketers something direct mail has historically lacked: a digital engagement signal. When a subscriber clicks the ride-along image, that click is trackable. 

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For teams trying to connect mail to digital behavior, Informed Delivery creates a measurable bridge.

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Who sees it

Not every recipient subscribes to Informed Delivery, and the service only covers letter-sized mailpieces that run through USPS automated processing. Flat mail and packages follow different rules. But with more than 78.7 million subscribers and growing, the reach is meaningful – especially for campaigns targeting digitally engaged audiences.

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How to participate

Marketers register Informed Delivery campaigns through the USPS Business Customer Gateway. Each campaign requires a start date, an end date, a ride-along image, and a target URL. Registration needs to happen in advance, so building it into your production timeline matters.

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The USPS promotion calendar also offers a postage discount for mailers who run Informed Delivery campaigns as part of eligible promotions – making participation even more worthwhile for teams already thinking about stacking promotions.

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The bottom line

Informed Delivery turns a single mail send into a multichannel moment. Marketers who treat it as a standard part of their direct mail workflow get more impressions, more trackable engagement, and more ways to connect physical mail to digital outcomes.

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