Paid media and measurement · Hierarchical empirical model plus randomized four-cell field experiment (control, email, direct mail, both).
Direct mail to prospects and email to current customers? Modeling and field-testing multichannel marketing
Albert Valenti, Shuba Srinivasan, Gokhan Yildirim, Koen Pauwels (2024). Direct mail to prospects and email to current customers? Modeling and field-testing multichannel marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-023-00962-2.
Plain-English take
Field experiment provided causal support for reallocating direct mail toward prospects/high-value segments and email toward current customers (as described by the paper). For your marketing: Use to shape a locally controlled channel or message test; account for audience, timing and attribution limits before reallocating budget.
How much weight to give this
4.5/5 Strong design for its specific question
The 1–5 evidence-check score is a practical reading aid, not a formal peer review or a probability that a conclusion is true. It combines design strength (2 points), sample reporting (1), comparison/control clarity (1), and how much of the paper could be checked (1). Access affects how confidently this directory can assess a study, not the study's underlying quality. Blinding is reported separately because it is not relevant to every design.
Hierarchical empirical model plus randomized four-cell field experiment (control, email, direct mail, both).
Beauty retailer and apparel retailer; two years of purchase history; beauty experiment stratified across six value segments and capped at 33,000 mail pieces.
Judged from the publisher-described design and comparison; inspect the paper for complete analysis.
Publisher page and abstract were retrieved directly; full text was not assumed open.
Double-blind? Blinding was not established from the retrieved publisher record.
Research question
What the authors investigated
How do email and direct mail differ by customer value and prospect/current-customer status?
Design
Hierarchical empirical model plus randomized four-cell field experiment (control, email, direct mail, both).
Sample and setting
Beauty retailer and apparel retailer; two years of purchase history; beauty experiment stratified across six value segments and capped at 33,000 mail pieces.
Reported result
What the study found
Field experiment provided causal support for reallocating direct mail toward prospects/high-value segments and email toward current customers (as described by the paper).
This is a paraphrase of the source. Check the original paper for definitions, estimates, statistical uncertainty and analysis details.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
The experiment was restricted to customers contactable by both channels and constrained direct-mail volume; thus self-selected non-contactable customers are outside the test.
Possible founder application
Use to shape a locally controlled channel or message test; account for audience, timing and attribution limits before reallocating budget.
Evidence access
Publisher record and abstract retrieved; consult the linked paper for full methods and tables.
Publisher full text explicitly describes four cells, two-year history, six segments, contactability restriction and causal goal. Direct publisher-page retrieval was recorded on 2026-10-09; this profile uses the publisher abstract/metadata and does not claim independent review of unavailable full text.
If only an abstract or metadata was available, the profile is limited to claims supported there. A paper's paywall does not change its evidentiary status, but it limits what we can substantiate from accessible text.