Mike Gunderson, Gundir founder and president: “We are not trying to get attention through volume or frequency alone. The goal is to send the right piece to the right person at the right time, with an offer and message that earns a response.”

Founded in 2003 by Mike Gunderson, Gundir has established itself as a leading direct mail agency dedicated to helping brands acquire, reactivate, and retain customers through data-driven marketing strategies. Headquartered in Pleasanton, California, the company was born from Gunderson’s unique blend of expertise in art direction, design, and financial services marketing. Early in his career, he became fascinated by direct mail’s ability to create a measurable connection between creative decisions and business outcomes. After leaving a corporate marketing role, Gunderson began providing direct mail support to former colleagues who had moved into leadership positions at financial institutions. What started as freelance consulting gradually evolved into a full-service agency. In its early years, Gundir offered a variety of creative services, including website development, branding, and direct mail campaigns. However, as the company grew, it became clear that direct mail represented both its greatest area of expertise and its strongest market opportunity. By narrowing its focus exclusively to direct mail, Gundir developed a highly specialized model centered on performance marketing, rigorous testing, and measurable customer acquisition results. Over the years, this approach has earned the trust of leading organizations such as Square, SoFi, Redfin, Adobe, AAA, Brex, Figure, ZipRecruiter, ezCater, Coinbase, Mutual of Omaha, and OneMain Financial.

Today, Gundir serves growth-focused B2C and B2B organizations with more than 50 employees, annual revenue exceeding $20 million, and established direct mail budgets that support scalable acquisition and retention programs. The agency specializes in address-based customer acquisition, managing every stage of a campaign, from audience targeting and strategic planning to creative development, production, mailing, digital integration, and analytics. Gundir’s methodology is built around continuous testing and optimization, allowing clients to evaluate performance across audience segments, messaging, offers, formats, and creative approaches. This disciplined process enables brands to refine campaigns based on measurable response data and maximize

return on investment. The company works extensively with performance-driven industries such as fintech, financial services, insurance, healthcare, home services, retail, and real estate, where customer lifetime value supports sophisticated acquisition strategies. Beyond traditional direct mail execution, Gundir integrates offline and online channels to create cohesive customer acquisition systems. Postal data can be extended into display advertising, email marketing, retargeting campaigns, and Informed Delivery programs, ensuring that direct mail functions as part of a broader omnichannel marketing strategy. By combining creative excellence, analytical rigor, and a relentless focus on performance, Gundir continues to help ambitious brands transform direct mail into a powerful, measurable growth engine.

In conversation with Mike Gunderson, founder and president of Gundir

Your tagline is “We direct response,” and you highlight that direct mail is trusted by 82% of consumers over digital channels. What is it about physical mail that builds this level of trust, and how does Gundir leverage that trust for its clients?

Physical mail creates a different kind of attention than a digital ad or an email. It arrives in a space that is less crowded, requires a physical action to engage with, and stays in the home or office longer than most digital messages. That persistence matters, especially when the offer is complex or the buying decision takes time.

Consumers are increasingly skeptical of what they see online. A well-executed mail piece from a brand consumers recognize, with a clear offer and a legitimate response mechanism, has credibility that is harder to replicate digitally.

At Gundir, we leverage that trust through the quality of the creative, the strength of the targeting, and the clarity of the message. We are not trying to get attention through volume or frequency alone. The goal is to send the right piece to the right person at the right time, with an offer and a message that earns a response.

Your GundirSolutions include GundirLaunch, GundirLift, and GundirLead. Can you explain what each solution does and what stage of direct mail maturity it serves?

GundirLaunch is built for brands that are new to direct mail or returning to the channel after time away. The focus is on structured testing. We help clients define a strong test framework, build an audience strategy, develop the creative, and establish a performance baseline. The goal is to learn and validate what works before scaling.

GundirLift is for brands with existing direct mail programs that want to improve results. These clients are already in the channel but are not seeing the performance they need, or they know the program can be more efficient. We evaluate audience strategy, creative, offers, cadence, and measurement, and then build a path to better outcomes.

GundirLead is focused on lead generation. It is designed for brands whose programs are built around driving a qualified action—a form fill, a call, an appointment, or a scan—rather than a direct purchase. The targeting, creative, and tracking plan are all structured around cost per lead and downstream conversion.

Each solution runs on the same fundamentals: strong targeting, direct-response creative, disciplined testing, and clear measurement.

You emphasize rigorous project management, creative thought leadership, responsive address-based data, production and mailing, and insightful analytics as your core service pillars. How do these five capabilities work together as an integrated system?

The five pillars are not separate services. They are a single workflow that runs from planning through measurement.

Project management provides the structure. Every program has a timeline, a quality process, and clear accountability at each stage. That keeps campaigns on schedule and prevents coordination errors that delay mailings or compromise quality.

Creative strategy drives response because it has to earn attention quickly, communicate clearly, present the offer, and make the next step easy. We approach it through a direct-response lens, not a brand-advertising lens.

Data and audience strategy determine who receives the mail. We use first-party customer data, external list sources, audience modeling, and segmentation to identify the best audience for each program.

You describe your expertise in using internal client data sets plus external physical address-based data. How does this dual-data approach ensure that direct mail reaches the most responsive audience?

First-party data tells us who a client’s best customers already are. External address-based data tells us where to find more people like them.

We start by profiling a client’s existing customer file. That analysis reveals the characteristics, behaviors, and geographic patterns of customers who are already converting. From there, we use external list sources, audience models, and market-level data to identify households or businesses that share those attributes but have not yet engaged with the brand.

The combination allows us to build audiences that are both large enough to support meaningful testing and targeted enough to perform efficiently. We are not mailing to broad geographic areas and hoping for the best. We use data to narrow the universe to the households most likely to respond and then structure the campaign so we can clearly see which segments perform best.

You mention using vetted production partners and advanced technologies to secure the lowest postage rates. How does this operational expertise translate into cost efficiency and reliability for your clients’ campaigns?

Postage is typically the highest cost in a direct mail program. Getting it right requires both expertise and strong vendor relationships.

We work with vetted production partners and use advanced tools to qualify mail for the best available postage rates. That includes co-mingling, drop shipping, CASS certification, and NCOA processing. These are standard practices for any well-run direct mail program, but they require operational discipline to execute consistently.

The benefit to clients is greater cost efficiency and reliability. Campaigns stay within budget. Mail drops on schedule. And the physical piece that arrives in the mailbox matches what was approved during the production proofing process. Those outcomes require attention at every step between file approval and delivery.

Your services include upfront analysis for pinpoint targeting and detailed post-campaign reporting benchmarked against KPIs. How does this analytics discipline help clients improve ROI and performance over time?

Measurement starts before the campaign launches. We work with clients to define the KPIs that matter most — cost per lead, cost per acquisition, response rate, and return on ad spend—and then build a tracking plan designed to capture that data.

Tracking mechanisms can include QR codes, campaign-specific URLs, phone numbers, promo codes, Informed Delivery data, CRM reporting, and match-back analysis. Match-back analysis is especially important because many people receive a mail piece and respond through a different channel. A match-back analysis connects mailed records to later actions, even when the recipient does not use the exact URL or phone number printed on the piece.

After the campaign, we evaluate performance across audience segments, creative versions, offers, geographies, and cadence. That analysis drives the next campaign. Over time, the program is refined based on what the data actually shows—not assumptions about what should work.

You have been optimizing direct mail for over 20 years. How has the channel evolved during that time, and how has Gundir evolved with it while staying true to its response-driven fundamentals?

The channel has changed significantly in terms of data, speed, and measurement. When I started in direct mail, audience selection relied heavily on rented lists and broad demographic segmentation. Today, the data available for targeting is far more precise. You can model audiences at the household level, extend a postal file into digital channels, and measure the impact of a mail piece on downstream digital behavior.

Production and execution have also changed. Personalization at scale, variable data printing, digital proofing, and faster production timelines have all expanded what is possible.

What has not changed is the underlying logic. The channel still works because a physical piece that reaches the right person with the right offer and a clear call to action generates a response. Gundir has evolved its tools, data capabilities, and integration with digital channels, but the core focus has always been the same: measurable response, disciplined testing, and ongoing program improvement.

Direct mail can be perceived as an “old-school” channel. How does Gundir combine traditional direct mail with modern data targeting and analytics to compete with purely digital marketing channels?

The perception that direct mail is old-fashioned usually comes from programs that were not built correctly. A poorly targeted, generic mailer with no tracking or follow-up plan is not a competitive acquisition tactic. But a well-structured direct mail program with precision audience targeting, strong creative, offer testing, match-back analysis, and integration with digital channels is as measurable and scalable as most digital programs, and it reaches audiences in a far less crowded environment. Gundir’s advantage is that we combine the creative discipline of direct response with modern data strategy. We use customer profiling, predictive modeling, and address-based targeting to identify the right audience. We develop creative designed to generate a specific action. We measure performance the same way a digital campaign is measured. And we connect the mail program to digital touchpoints such as display advertising, email, Informed Delivery, and retargeting so the impact of the piece extends beyond the mailbox.

The channel is not competing with digital marketing. It works alongside it. When both are structured around the same audience and acquisition goals, the combined system outperforms either channel alone.

What does the future hold for your company and its customers? Are exciting things on the way?

The opportunity we are most focused on is building programs in which direct mail and digital channels work together as a single, coordinated acquisition system. That means using the same audience data to power both the mail program and digital touchpoints and measuring the full program rather than each channel in isolation. Products such as GundirBoost, PostReminder, and our Informed Delivery integrations are part of that direction. They extend what a mail piece can do, by connecting the physical touchpoint to digital engagement and giving clients better visibility into how mail influences behavior across channels.

We are also investing in faster execution, stronger analytics, and better tools for campaign planning and reporting. The brands we work with are accountable for acquisition results. Our job is to help them achieve those results as efficiently and transparently as possible.

Meet the leader behind the success of Gundir

Mike Gunderson is the Founder and President of Gundir, the award-winning direct marketing agency. Since 2003, Gundir has helped businesses generate new leads and close more sales through its expertise in direct mail and address-based targeting. Its clients have included AAA, Adobe, PayPal, Square, and ZipRecruiter, and the agency consistently ranks among the nation’s top five direct mail agencies. This year, Clutch named Gundir one of the top direct mail agencies in the United States for 2026.

Mike is also the founder and CEO of Respond Now LLC, a direct-response product incubator that helps small, medium-sized, and enterprise businesses bring their ideas to market through direct marketing. Its products include PostReminder, VoteReminder, and Respond Fast.

In addition to running his companies, Mike has served as president of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) Silicon Valley and has served on the EO board for over eight years. He is also a board member of Inclusive Sports Foundation, which provides physical and social activities for children with special needs.

Mike spends his free time with his wife and three children. He enjoys mountain biking on Pleasanton Ridge near his home and taking frequent rides through the San Francisco East Bay on his Morgan 3 Wheeler and Triumph motorcycle.

“Every program has a timeline, a quality process, and clear accountability at each stage. That keeps campaigns on schedule and prevents coordination errors that delay mailings or compromise quality.”

“Creative strategy drives response because it has to earn attention quickly, communicate clearly, present the offer, and make the next step easy. We approach it through a direct-response lens, not a brand-advertising lens.”