Checking a mailing list

Before a mail job, check your list in Mailing lists. It takes seconds and catches problems that would otherwise hold up your mailing.

1. Save your list as CSV (in Excel: File, Save As, CSV) or tab-separated text, with a header row.
2. Upload it and confirm it has no health information. For lists that do, ask us for a secure transfer.
3. We match the columns (name, company, address, city, state, ZIP) automatically. If one is wrong, open Columns, fix it and check again.
4. Read what we found, download the checked list or the rows to fix, and upload a corrected list if you need to.
5. When it looks right, choose Send to Drummond with your job number, mail class and mail date.

What we check

• Can't mail as is: no street address, no ZIP and no city and state, a ZIP that isn't a US ZIP, and addresses outside the US.
• Worth checking: no name or company, a missing ZIP or city, a state that isn't a US state, or a ZIP that belongs to another state.
• Fixed or noted for you: ZIP codes that lost their leading zero in Excel (we put it back), exact duplicates (left out of the checked list), several people at one address, PO Boxes and military addresses.

Counts and postage

You'll see how many pieces are ready to mail and whether the list meets the USPS minimums (200 pieces for Marketing Mail, 500 for presorted First-Class). These are a guide: our mail team runs your list through USPS-certified address correction (CASS), change of address (NCOA) and presort software, which set the final counts and postage.

Change of address (NCOA)

USPS asks the owner of a list to sign a short form, the NCOALink Processing Acknowledgement Form, once a year before we can update addresses for people who have moved. If we don't have yours, we'll send it. Where it's switched on, you can sign it online at NCOALink form, and we remind you 30 days before it runs out.

After you send it

Depending on your job, these show on the list's page as they happen:

• Counts to approve: our mail software's counts (addresses matched, people who moved, duplicates removed, pieces to mail) and the postage estimate. We email you; check them and choose Approve counts.
• Paying postage: USPS needs the postage before the mail goes out. If a payment link shows after you approve, pay it on our secure payment page. The final postage statement is on the same page once the job has mailed.
• Tracking your mail: once it's mailed, how many pieces USPS has scanned each day, so you can see when it's landing.
• Informed Delivery: people signed up to USPS Informed Delivery get an email picture of their mail the morning it arrives. Add your own image and a link under it with Add an Informed Delivery campaign.

How long we keep lists

Lists are deleted 90 days after you upload them.