Add Another Killer Acquisition Channel with Direct Mail Lookalike Audiences

Picture your brand’s dream customers having long‑lost twins out there.

Folks who shop for similar products, have similar incomes, hobbies, and purchasing habits. In digital advertising, these “ookalike segments are common, but PostPilot has transplanted the concept into direct mail. 

Instead of blasting postcards to random ZIP codes, lookalike audiences let you mail only those prospects who share essential traits with your most loyal buyers.

So, those twins might not actually exist, but we'll find the next best thing with our proprietary lookalike builder, AcquisitionAI.

AcquisitionAI uses proprietary machine learning trained on 200+ million U.S. customers and thousands of their behavioral and demographic attributes.

TLDR: Meta. For. Mail.

How PostPilot builds a lookalike audience

1. We seed your best buyers. The starting point is a “seed segment.” Your most loyal, high‑value customers.

2. We tag in AcquisitionAI. AcquisitionAI analyzes that seed list against thousands of proprietary attributes (shopping frequency at particular retailers, pet ownership, favorite TV genres, etc.) across our dataset.

By finding correlations, it determines what makes your best customers unique. Our dataset contains billions of data points, making it the most powerful dataset built for direct mail.

By far.

3. Test and iterate. Different creative packages and data sources are tested to refine performance. Our real‑time KPI dashboard matches conversions back to the campaign so you can see what’s working. In real time.

4. Scale. When we (quickly) find a winner, we’ll scale up the send volume. Because we’re vertically integrated, brands can build lookalike audiences in minutes and send mailers within days. 

There’s no need to buy lists, hire a printer, or wait months for results. A very, very, very welcome change from old‑school direct‑mail logistics.

Why bother? The actual benefits of direct mail lookalikes

High response rates and strong ROIs

We've seen lookalike campaigns consistently drive strong ROIs, frequently in line with results from digital advertising.

• Cozy Earth used AcquisitionAI to build catalog mailings targeting lookalike audiences, they hit "7x+ incremental ROAS". 
• Caden Lane, a baby apparel brand, showed a 3.8x ROAS using AI‑driven targeting.

These results are possible because we're reaching people who behave like your existing top customers.

Diversification from expensive digital ads

It’s the same old song: digital channels have become crowded and costly. But it’s true: CACs are rising and will continue to rise. 

We built our lookalike direct‑mail campaigns as a predictably priced acquisition channel, allowing brands to launch “Meta for Mail”—if Meta ads could reach customers’ IRL mailboxes.

Hyper‑local and retail targeting 

Our lookalike audiences aren't limited to national mailings. 

Our AcquisitionAI-powered feature, ShopDrops, uses your first‑party data to build "hyper‑local lookalike audiences" based on your best customers. 

For example, we helped Four Sigmatic, a functional foods company, create a lookalike segment of people living within a few miles of a specific Whole Foods store. 

The store that received these postcards experienced a 101% lift in coffee sales (!), 57% higher than a comparable location that didn't receive the mailing.

Speed, control and real‑time measurement 

Because we control the entire process, we can launch campaigns in days rather than months, and brands can scale up or down without large minimums. 

Our real‑time dashboards match sales back to the mailings, offering transparency that traditional mail lacks. You can also run split tests and mail different creative to different audiences.

What are you waiting for?

PostPilot’s AcquisitionAI automates everything from audience creation to postcard printing, letting brands get campaigns out the door in days and track results just like digital ads. 

The combination of better targeting, higher ROAS and freedom from volatile digital advertising costs is why many ecommerce brands are embracing this “Meta for mail” approach.

Cloning isn’t just for sci‑fi anymore. 

Well, it's still not a thing for people, hopefully. But we'll find your best lookalikes with AcquisitionAI.

Launch your first campaign today.

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