Direct mail spend by charities down by a third in one year

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Data from Nielsen says spending fell from £190.1m in the year to the end of February 2018 to £128.7m a year later


Spending by charities on direct mail has fallen by almost a third over the past year, new figures show.

Data from the market research company Nielsen shows that spending by charities on direct mail fell from £190.1m in the year to the end of February 2018 to £128.7m a year later.

The figure has fallen dramatically from the £265.3m spent by charities on direct mail in the year to June 2016.

The drop-off in direct mail spending was the main reason behind an overall fall in charity advertising spend year-on-year.

According to Nielsen, total advertising spend by charities went down from £387.9m to £356.9m during the same 12-month period.

But of the seven areas surveyed, direct mail and press were the only ones to experience year-on-year falls in spending.

TV advertising grew from £124.4m to £145.6m, overtaking direct mail.

Spending on outdoor advertising also went up considerably, from £8.5m to £14m.

No figures for online advertising were provided.

Tim Bond, head of insight at the DMA, said he was surprised by the extent of the fall in advertising spend on direct mail but suspected it was due to the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation in May last year.

Bond said uncertainty about GDPR compliance had led to a "significant dip in activity" in the summer, which he expected would be smoothed out over time.

"Direct mail is still an incredibly powerful tool," he said.

Bond said the increase in spending on door drops, which do not need to be addressed to individuals and are therefore not subject to the same GDPR requirements as direct mail, reinforced his view that the decline in direct mail spending was a short-term issue.