Strengthening Advertising Mail by Building a Digital Information Market

Advertising mail provides a big chunk of revenue to the U.S. Postal Service every year — almost $17 billion in fiscal year 2013. It has also been surprisingly resilient despite the digital revolution, holding a constant share of the advertising market. The Postal Service, however, cannot afford to be complacent. Although advertising mail has important strengths, particularly tangibility, the ability to enable a two-way communications link between recipients and mailers is not as robust as current digital advertising.