Say Goodbye to Returned Mail with FranklinForward ACS
Eliminate returned mail fees and download your returned mail data electronically so you can update your database automatically.
Returned Mail by the Numbers
- 6.4% of Standard Class (Marketing) mail and 3.4% of First Class mail is UAA (Undeliverable As Addressed)
- The annual cost of undeliverable mail for mailers is $6 billion, while USPS incurs an additional $1.5 billion
- 43 million people in the U.S move each year, and more than 15% of movers do not file a change of address form.
Returned Mail "The Old-Fashioned Way"
When using an ancillary endorsement on your Standard Class mail (Returned Service Requested, etc.), you receive the physical mail piece back with a "yellow sticker" - and get charged a hefty fee for each returned piece. For Standard Class, without an endorsement, UAA (Undeliverable As Addressed) mail is discarded by the post office - but not always. A few pieces may still come back physically, giving you a false sense of security about how clean (or not clean!) your mailing list is.
Returned Mail with FranklinForward ACS
Instead of mailing the old-fashioned way, we send your mailings with an ACS indicator in the IMb (Intelligent Mail barcode). The ACS indicator tells the USPS to send your returned mail data back to Franklin electronically. The details (including name, address, and unique identifier when provided) are readily available on our Client Portal for you to download and use to correct or inquire about undeliverable addresses.
The FranklinForward ACS service is FREE, and you’ll have eliminated returned mail fees altogether!
For ACS to work, two key elements must be included – an Electronic Service Requested endorsement and a change to the IMb (Intelligent Mail barcode).
The endorsement must be in one of these four positions:
- Directly below the return address.
- Directly above the delivery address area - this includes the delivery address block and any related non-address elements such as a barcode, keyline, or optional endorsement line.
- Directly to the left of the postage area.
- Directly below the postage area.
Once you sign up for the FranklinForward ACS service , we will automatically add the new IMb change to all your mail...at no additional cost to you!
Your ACS data is filtered by date or by job, and you can download the data in a CSV or Excel format.
Our detailed ACS Report displays all of the ACS data, including the Reason and Action fields. The Reason field is why the post office determined the piece was not deliverable, and the Action field indicates what action the post office took with that particular mailer.
Ready to mail smarter with FranklinForward ACS? Enter your contact information below and click ‘Contact Me’, and we’ll be in touch very soon to get the ball rolling!