Lob

Vorteile

The trigger-based actions are a game-changer. Prospects / customers now get direct mail just 7 days after they take an action, like download a pricing sheet. They get direct mail faster, and it reduces my workload by a LOT. I'm no longer pulling lists and scheduling out direct mail to hit 2 months from now. I also like the dynamic personalization, but because the designs have to be in Figma > Lob, I don't use this as much.

Nachteile

It's weird that you can't dynamically insert text into the letter format...without a letter being added into a Figma design file? This seems like a basic functionality and I'm perplexed that they don't have it. Also, Customer Service has been up and down. Due to changes in the Lob team, we fell through the cracks and didn't really get onboarded. To be fair, however, we also onboarded ourselves really quickly, so we didn't leave them much time. I've had great meetings with the Lob team where I felt they understood my needs, but there have also been instances where we have to schedule a support meeting several days to a week out...which doesn't help me when something is immediately broken. I think Lob should probably hire a few more Customer Support people so their existing people have more time.

Vorteile

The API is so simple to work with, it makes developing fun! We use their postcards API to send thank you postcards to first-time customers, and the address verification API to check addresses before shipping orders. The Address Verification has saved us so much time speaking to UPS to update incorrect addresses and lots of customers that are no longer blaming us for wrong address.

Nachteile

None. We haven't had any problems with Lob!

Vorteile

Lob has great developer documentation. The developer docs are easy to read.

Nachteile

1. Set-up time is extremely intensive. Since lob is an API we needed to hire developers to setup the direct mail functionality. We also had to keep them on staff to maintain it. $$$$

2. Product skews are extremely limited. Very few options to choose from.

3. Quality was lack luster. We noticed that the same size postcards were being printed in two different states. Each print facility was using different paper weights. Extremely sketchy quality.

Vorteile

A good tool for offline mail automation, simplifies and accelerates this process a lot.

Nachteile

I think it should be much cheaper, quite expensive for now.

Vorteile

Really easy to get started sending letters, and HTML template support ensured the letters we sent look great

Nachteile

The printing and delivery speed ultimately wasn't what we were looking for - we'd submit a request and it would take 4 days to get mailed out, and another 2-3 days for recipient (US) to receive.

Vorteile

Clear and simple API documentation made it easy to use. Experienced no issues after initial implementation, meaning we could just set it up and forget about it.

Nachteile

Price per mailing is a little high at low volumes, but worth saving the hassle of mailing yourself.

Vorteile

Lob tremendously helped with mail. We were able to track coordinate and tailor mailings like never before.

Nachteile

It did what it said with no problems. It was a great asset to our company . Direct mail projects are a breeze.

Vorteile

Good documentation, easy to get started designing a template for a postcard and programmatically mailing it.

Nachteile

I would have appreciated seeing some best practice guides, maybe a few examples of working through a project start to finish (instead of just the API documentation). It's possible they may actually have this on the website but I wasn't able to find it at the time.

Vorteile

Lob is the best solution on the market for quickly and easily sending postcards and letters to customers. Their API is fairly straightforward and has all the functionality that we've needed.

Nachteile

It's on the expensive side for small projects. I wish the pricing scaled more favorably for running small experiments.