Two years, my most affluent zones, LTV tracked the whole way. Here's what happened.

Somebody asked me about Valpak this week, so let me answer it properly — because I used to run these back in the day.

How it actually works

You buy zones of roughly 10,000 homes. Price depends on your market, but figure a few hundred dollars per zone. They should also only include one — maybe two — companies from the same industry, depending on the population of the area. So you're not sitting next to four other haulers in the same envelope.

Did it work for me?

No.

I stopped a long time ago because it never quite panned out. And I gave it a real shot — I ran it in my most affluent zones for about two years, tracking LTV the whole time, waiting for it to make sense.

It never did.

But here's the part people skip

What didn't work then, for me, in my market does not mean the same is true now, in yours.

So don't take my word for it. Run a pilot.

How to test it so the data actually means something

• Unique phone number on the piece. That's your lead metric.
• Unique coupon code on the piece. That's your conversion metric.
• Standalone landing page if you want to catch web conversions — yourbusiness.com/valpak, different URL, tracked separately.
• Run it long enough to mean something. Three months minimum. Collect the data. Actually analyze it.

Then you have three choices, and only three:

Stop. Edit. Keep going.

That's it. What you don't do is run it for six weeks, feel weird about it, and quietly let it ride for another year because canceling feels like admitting something.

If you really want to test the mailbox, there's a better way

It's called EDDM — Every Door Direct Mail.

The post office already does what Valpak does. And they'll cut you a crazy deal to drop your own postcard into every mailbox on routes you choose.

That's a far better way to test direct mail. Your piece, your design, your offer, your routes — instead of getting stuffed into a fire-starter packet of insane coupon deals that goes straight from the mailbox to the trash.

If the mailbox is the channel you want to test, test the mailbox. Don't test somebody else's envelope.

That's it for this week. Ttyl ✌️

— Justin