Advertisers frequently refine direct mail practices into targeted mailing, when mail is sent out following database analysis to choose recipients considered most likely to reply positively. For instance a person who has demonstrated an interest in golf may receive direct mail for golf connected products or sometimes for goods and services that are suitable for golfers. This use of database analysis is a type of database marketing. The United States Postal Service calls such a  form of mail “advertising mail” ( or admail for short).

In number of developed countries, direct mail represents such a important amount of the total volume of mail that particular rate classes have been established. In the United States and UK, for instance, there are bulk mail rates that enable marketers to send mail at rates that are considerably lower than regular first-class rates. In order to meet the requirements for these rates, marketers must format and sort the mail in special ways - which reduces the handling (and consequently costs) required by the postal service.

Sometimes direct marketers use media such as door hangers, package inserts, radio, television, magazines, newspapers, E-mail, web banner ads, pay-per click ads, billboards or transit ads. And along with Ad Age, “In 2005, U.S. agencies generated more income from marketing services (that include direct marketing)rather than from traditional advertising and media.

Under the law, it is prohibited for telemarketers to call people who had registered themselves on the list. After the list had operated for the period of one year, over 62 million people had signed up.

Couponing is traditionally used in print media to elicit a reaction from the reader. A typical example is a coupon that the reader cuts out and presents to a super-store check-out counter in order to avail of a discount. Coupons in newspapers as well as in magazines cannot be considered direct marketing, for the reason that the marketer incurs the cost of supporting a third-party medium (the newspaper or magazine); direct marketing intends to circumvent that balance, paring the costs down to exclusively delivering their unsolicited sales message to the client, without supporting the newspaper that the consumer looks for and welcomes.