Yury Shraybman, founder and team lead at Innovative Mortgage Brokers in Philadelphia, told Mortgage Professional America that some buyers have grown more cautious as rates climbed, particularly those already stretched on the monthly payment.
“I tell my clients to focus on the overall payment rather than just the rate, so we are looking at different ways to structure the loan, including seller concessions, temporary or permanent buydowns, and ARMs when they actually make sense for that particular buyer,” he said.
Unlike boomers, today’s buyers cannot count on a refinance to fix the payment later, he cautioned. “If rates improve later, refinancing may be an option, but you cannot obviously refinance the purchase price you paid for the home,” he said.
He also sees pent-up demand. “Getting consistently below 7% would probably get people’s attention, and moving closer to the mid-6% range could bring a meaningful number of buyers back into the market,” Shraybman said.
First American’s Real House Price Index showed real prices down 1.3% year over year in August 2026, even as rates rose.
Office workers responded to the widespread disruption with jokes about lost productivity, an unexpected day off, and a new name for the product family.
I made my 120th PSLF payment in September. None of my payments from July through November are showing on my account. I certified my employment, and those payments still didn’t update. My servicer told me it takes 60 to 90 days for payments to post, and it’s been well past that. In the meantime I’m still paying $500 a month even though I’ve reached 120. Do I have to keep paying while I wait?
— A composite of two reader comments
Welcome to the Friday mailbag, where we take one reader question and answer it. Have one? Send it to us — details at the bottom.
The Short Answer
Our rule of thumb is to keep making your payments until your PSLF forgiveness is approved. Every payment after your 120th is refunded once the Education Department discharges your federal student loans, and those extra payments cover you if the glitch is hiding an error in your count.
If you can’t afford to keep paying, ask your servicer for a forbearance now that you’ve made your 120th payment, knowing that a forbearance month won’t count if your true count comes up short.
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Why Isn’t My PSLF Count Updating?
PSLF counts have been stalled since July 2026 because of a technical glitch in the Education Department’s student loan systems. It’s an internal database and technical problem, not a backlog of work waiting in a queue. The glitch began with the July 1, 2026 changes the Department made to put the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s new student loan limits and repayment plans in place.
In August, we reported that July and August payments weren’t showing up in PSLF counts for a large number of borrowers. Readers in our comments continue to say their trackers still haven’t moved, and servicers keep calling it a known issue without giving a fix date. Payments made during the glitch still count once the system records them.
The glitch is separate from the Department’s August count correction, which took back months spent in non-qualifying forbearance or on the Extended and Graduated plans. If your count dropped instead of stalling, that correction is the more likely cause.
The glitch is drawing outside pressure. State student loan ombudspersons have flagged the issue as well, and 33 members of Congress asked Education Secretary Linda McMahon to respond by November 18, 2026.
What Does Paying While You Wait Actually Cost?
Paying while you wait costs you the extra payments plus the months it takes to get them back. Our reader pays $500 a month. Say her 120th payment was in September 2026 and her forgiveness is approved in February 2027. That’s four extra payments from October through January, or $2,000. The refund then takes another 3 to 6 months to arrive, so that money could be tied up until late summer 2027.
That cost “buys” protection against an error. If somehow the Department’s final count is 118 because two older months didn’t qualify. The payments she kept making would fill months 119 and 120 without anyone at her servicer having to catch the mistake, and her forgiveness date wouldn’t move.
When Does Forbearance Make More Sense?
Forbearance makes sense when another $500 a month for half a year, plus the wait for the refund, is money your household doesn’t have. Once you’ve made your 120th payment, you can ask your servicer to put your federal student loans in forbearance while the glitch gets fixed and your forgiveness is processed.
The risk is coming up short. General and hardship forbearance months don’t count toward PSLF, so if your real count is 118, you’d owe two more qualifying payments after the forbearance ends, plus another round of review.
Check your own records before you ask (step 2 below). The more certain you are of 120, the smaller that risk gets.
Refunded $2,000 for October through January comes back 3 to 6 months after the discharge
Same Result No extra cash out, forgiveness on the same timeline
Count Turns Out To Be 118
Covered October and November payments fill months 119 and 120
Delayed Forbearance months don’t count, so 2 more payments and another review
Cash Out Until Approval
$2,000 Paid now, tied up until the refund arrives
$0 Only after the servicer approves the forbearance
Source: The College Investor.
What Should You Do This Week?
Download your records. Save your MyAid data file from StudentAid.gov and take a dated screenshot of your PSLF tracker. Do the same thing each month until your student loans are discharged.
Build your own count. List each month since your first qualifying payment with the repayment plan, the amount paid, and your employer. Our PSLF checklist covers which months qualify.
Certify through month 120. Submit a PSLF form that covers your employment through the month of your 120th payment if you haven’t already. That form also starts the forgiveness review.
Pick your path. If you can afford it, stay on autopay and keep each billing statement as proof of the payments the tracker is missing. If you can’t, request forbearance from your servicer in writing and confirm it’s approved before you skip a bill.
Escalate after 90 days. If your count still hasn’t updated 90 days after your certification, file a complaint with the Federal Student Aid Feedback Center, then the CFPB or your state student loan ombudsperson. Name the months that are missing.
It’s important for borrowers to realize at the end of the day nobody cares more about your money and your payment counts than you. I know it’s hard to reconstruct 10 years of history, but for others reading this, it’s essential that you keep track of your eligible payments, your employment certifications, and always save a record of everything.
Where Do Borrowers Get This Wrong?
The most common mistake is skipping payments after the 120th without an approved forbearance. Until your loan servicing portal says, “no payment required,” you need to keep making payments or request that forbearance. A skipped payment without forbearance makes the account delinquent, and borrowers in our comments report credit score drops of 90 points or more from missing payments.
A second mistake is waiting on the any type of lawsuit to help you today. The American Federation of Teachers’ suit, Weingarten v. McMahon, proposes a “Withheld Payments Class” for borrowers whose unposted payment would be their 120th. A court hasn’t certified that class, so your own records remain the strongest protection you have. This lawsuit may give you relief in the future or help future borrowers, but if you are waiting today, it’s not likely to solve anything in the short term.
The Bottom Line
Keep paying if you can, keep your proof, and certify your employment through month 120 and beyond. The extra payments come back 3 to 6 months after the discharge and protect you if your count is wrong. If you can’t pay them, forbearance after your 120th payment is a reasonable choice, as long as you’ve checked your own count first.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are PSLF Payments Made After 120 Refunded?
Yes. Once the Education Department approves your Public Service Loan Forgiveness, payments made after your 120th qualifying payment are refunded. The refund first pays down any other federal student loans you owe, and it takes 3 to 6 months after the discharge to arrive.
Can I Stop Paying My Student Loans Once I Reach 120 PSLF Payments?
Yes, if your servicer approves a forbearance after your 120th payment. Wait for the approval before you skip a bill. Forbearance months don’t count toward PSLF, so if your count turns out to be short, you’ll owe more qualifying payments later.
When Will The PSLF Count Glitch Be Fixed?
The Education Department hasn’t given a date. Servicers have told borrowers 60 to 90 days, but payments made since July 2026 have not been tracking, because the glitch is a system problem AND a queue that will take time to clear.
Do PSLF Payments Still Count If They Haven’t Posted Yet?
Yes. A qualifying payment made while you work full time for a qualifying employer counts once the system records it, even if the tracker lags. Keep your billing statements in case the final count doesn’t match your records.
Send Us Your Question
Got a student loan, financial aid, or money question you can’t get a straight answer on? Send it to us and we may answer it in a future Friday mailbag.
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Reader Mailbag
Have a question for us? Ask away. Questions submitted may appear articles on The College Investor. We may not answer every question. We reserve the right to edit and publish your questions. But don’t worry — your identity will remain anonymous.
Editor: Colin Graves
The post I Made My 120th PSLF Payment, But My Count Is Stuck. Do I Keep Paying? appeared first on The College Investor.
This time last week, AI without Jensen Huang seemed impossible. Today, that’s the world we live in.
Granted, it’ll have been less than (or about) 24 hours into that new world by the time you’re reading this, and there’s so much we don’t know about what a Jensen-less AI landscape looks like. One thing we do know: It will affect the private markets.
“Nvidia matters more to private AI markets than any single investor because it has three roles,” said Harrison Rolfes, PitchBook senior research analyst, who was among many who answered my feverish reporting calls yesterday. “It’s the largest corporate investor in U.S. AI. It’s the main supplier for AI startups, and it’s the main [benchmark] public stock investors use to judge the AI market.”
Now, in the near term at least, how Nvidia and new interim CEO Colette Kress will handle dealmaking is in question. Rolfes pointed out to me that Nvidia invested $189 billion in 2026, making it AI’s top U.S. corporate backer. This broke down somewhat expectedly: OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI account for $172 billion, and 27 other deals make up the remaining $17 billion. Kress, and any Huang successor, could be more circumspect moving forward. (Indeed, worth noting: Nvidia’s blockbuster $12.93 billion buyout of open-source startup Hugging Face hasn’t yet closed.) And some companies will struggle more than others, especially neoclouds, for which Huang was dealmaker and guarantor.
“If they’re dependent on Nvidia to bankroll them, like [CoreWeave] or Lambda Labs or some of these neoclouds, then I think you could be really screwed,” one early-stage VC told me.
Much will move forward, nevertheless: My colleague Beatrice Nolan and I reported that Anthropic’s IPO is high-stakes but (for now) very much on, and some VCs told me that, yes, this could pressure AI valuations—and so what.
“I think the valuations were ridiculous anyway,” said Rob Biederman, managing partner at Asymmetric. “I don’t think it would be the worst thing for the tech world if there was a little bit of a reset shakeout because a lot of things are getting funded right now that aren’t especially good ideas.”
For startups wondering what’s next, Rolfes had some advice: Nvidia will invest less for now, but (on the bright side) it’s possible GPU prices will also drop.
“If you’re a startup, maybe don’t reach out to Nvidia in the short term to get investment cash,” he said. “What they should do is reach out to go get compute, go buy the chips…If some of these startups can get a hold of cheaper chips, then they can build out their product, which means we’ll probably start to see an influx of seed-stage [and] Series A-stage startups moving up.”
Here’s our larger feature contemplating life in AI after Jensen.
Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today’s newsletter.
VENTURE CAPITAL
–Mirendil, a San Francisco-based developer of tools for frontier AI research, raised $1 billion in Series A funding. KleinerPerkins and ClearlakeCapital led the round and were joined by Battery Ventures, Doerr Capital, Google, M13, PearVC, and S32.
–UFORCE, a London, U.K.-based developer of uncrewed defense systems, raised $700 million in Series A funding. Valor Equity Partners and the U.K. National Wealth Fund led the round and were joined by MenloVentures, Shield Capital, Ballistic Ventures, Lakestar, and others.
–Databento, a Salt Lake City-based market data platform, raised $100 million in Series C funding. Fifth Down Capital led the round.
–SE3, a Munich-based developer of spatial AI software for military drones, raised $30 million in Series A funding. Accel led the round and was joined by Keen, Lakestar, and Seedcamp.
–Hatz AI, a provider of a platform that lets managed service providers sell AI services to small businesses, raised $24 million in Series A funding. NadiaPartners led the round and was joined by Vestigo Ventures and The Private Shares Fund.
–Nebuly, a Turin, Italy-based provider of software that measures the return on enterprise AI, raised $21 million in Series A funding. Planven led the round and was joined by ExorVentures and others.
–Griffin, a London, U.K.-based embedded banking platform, raised $20 million in Series B funding. OctagonPartners led the round and was joined by Notion Capital, A+ Ventures,NordicNinja, and Breega.
–Biomatter, a Vilnius, Lithuania-based developer of AI-designed enzymes, raised $18 million in Series A funding. Astanor led the round and was joined by UVCPartners, Inventure, and Metaplanet.
–Gama, a Paris, France-based maker of lightweight solar arrays for satellites, raised €15 million ($16.6 million) in seed funding from Transition, PlanetA, DraperAssociates, and Manta Ray.
–Duet, a New York City-based network of primary care practices owned by nurse practitioners, raised $15 million in Series A funding. Kairos led the round and was joined by LererHippeau.
– Athlete To Athlete, a youth sports mentorship platform, raised $8 million in Series A funding. RallyVentures led the round.
–Twin1 AI, a San Mateo, Calif.-based developer of AI digital twins for professionals, raised $5 million in seed extension funding. Curql led the round and was joined by GreyhairVentures and KittyHawkFrontier.
PRIVATE EQUITY
– Branford Castle Partners acquired Floratine Products Group, a Collierville, Tenn.-based maker of specialty plant nutrition products for golf courses, sports turf, and agriculture. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– BluestoneEquityPartners acquired a majority stake in 11th St. Workshop, a New York City-based designer and fabricator of custom environments for live events, brand campaigns, and retail spaces. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– TrustedSpace, a Washington Harbour Partners portfolio company, acquired Falcon ExoDynamics, an El Segundo, Calif.-based developer of autonomy technology for national security spacecraft. Financial terms were not disclosed.
IPOs
– vVardis, a Zug, Switzerland-based health care and dental company, now plans to raise up to $199.2 million in an offering of 8.3 million shares priced between $21 and $24 on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Marriott Bonvoy Bevy™ American Express® Card is offering an improved welcome bonus of 150,000 Marriott Bonvoy points plus a $250 credit. Thanks to Kai for sharing this offer in our Facebook Group. Let’s go over the offer details.
Welcome Offer
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The Marriott Bonvoy program is one of the largest hotel rewards programs in the world, counting 30 brands spread out around the world. Brands very from budget hotels to luxurious properties in exotic locations. Marriott Bonvoy points are worth about 0.6 cents each. You earn 10 base Bonvoy rewards points per dollar spent at Marriott properties. So if you spend $100, you’ll earn 1,000 points. But, some budget brands have lower base earning rates. Bonvoy elite status holders earn additional points:
Silver members earn 10% more.
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Titanium and Ambassador members earn 75% more.
You also get extra points for holding a Marriott Bonvoy credit card. Marriott is a transfer partner for Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards, giving you more options to accrue points. When it comes to using points, Marriott now uses dynamic pricing, with award rates varying between 7,500 and 100,000 points per night. A few luxurious properties can go much higher than that. Credit cards will also earn you free nights, which you can top up with up to 25,000 points.
Guru’s Wrap-up
This is a pretty good welcome offer for the Marriott Bonvoy Bevy Card. You get 150,000 bonus points plus a $250 statement credit after spending $5,000 within the first six months.
The statement credit helps offset the card’s $250 annual fee during the first year. Also the six-month spending window makes the $5,000 requirement more manageable. The highest ever offer on this card was for 175,000 bonus points.
The Bevy Card can make sense for Marriott loyalists who want a mid-tier premium card without paying the Brilliant Card’s much higher annual fee. Just be sure to review Amex’s Marriott welcome-bonus eligibility restrictions before applying.
How AI Predicts Direct Mail Results written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing
Catch the Full Episode:
Overview
On this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I talk with Brad Kugler, founder of DirectMail2.0. A lot of small business owners wrote off direct mail years ago. Brad explains why a growing group of them is coming back to it, and how AI now lets them estimate a campaign’s response before they spend anything on printing and postage.
Brad spent twenty-six years in VHS and DVD distribution, until streaming wiped out the category. He rebuilt his career as a technology layer on top of direct mail. His company partners with printers, mail houses and agencies to add tracking, reporting and digital ads aimed at the same households that get the postcard. We talk about why the mailbox gets so much more attention than the inbox, and how variable data printing and QR codes make mail as measurable as any digital channel. We also cover how a database of tens of thousands of past campaigns can flag weak creative and bad timing before a campaign goes out.
I also hand Brad a real scenario: a Kansas City remodeling contractor with a $20,000 winter budget. He lays out how he’d build an omnichannel campaign for them and what the smallest useful test looks like. If you own or market a local business and have wondered whether direct mail still pays off, this one gives you a practical way to find out.
Guest bio
Brad Kugler is a Clearwater, Florida entrepreneur and the founder of DirectMail2.0, now rebranding as DM Intel (Direct Marketing and Intelligence). Before direct mail, Kugler spent twenty-six years running his family’s VHS and DVD media distribution business, from 1990 until streaming ended the category in 2016. He went on to build DirectMail2.0, a white-label platform that adds tracking, reporting and digital ad targeting to direct mail campaigns for printers and agencies. The company acquired the Who’s Mailing What archive. Kugler says the combined data covers more than 80,000 campaigns and 2.2 billion mail pieces, and it powers the company’s AI tools for predicting campaign performance.
Key takeaways
The mailbox is quiet. Most people get three or four pieces of mail a day and hundreds of emails, so a postcard has far less competition for attention.
Match the channel to the economics. Mail makes sense when a customer is worth four figures or more over time, like recurring landscaping or jewelry. It makes less sense for selling a few dozen pizzas.
Variable data inkjet printing makes one-to-one personalization affordable, which traditional sheet and web presses couldn’t do.
Personalized QR codes, text-back numbers and call tracking make a mail piece about as trackable as a digital ad.
Geofenced digital ads aimed at the same households can add eight to sixteen extra impressions per mail piece. Kugler puts the cost at roughly 10 to 15 cents more per piece.
Kugler reports a typical 25 to 50 percent lift over mail alone, for a 10 to 15 percent increase in cost.
Printing and postage are costs you never get back. Testing creative and targeting against past campaign data before you mail is cheap insurance.
Timing is part of the offer. A landscaper should mail in February, before homeowners have already hired someone in May.
Reach fewer people more often. On a $20,000 budget, Kugler would reach 7,000 households three times rather than 20,000 once.
The smallest test worth running is about 2,500 households with three touches. B2B mail works, but it takes more persistence and testing than B2C.
Great moments
[00:11] – Why some small business owners are taking a second look at direct mail
[01:13] – Kugler’s first public mention of the rebrand from DirectMail2.0 to DM Intel
[02:02] – Going from VHS to streaming, and deciding to be the disruptor this time
[03:37] – How a technology layer sits on top of print without printing anything
[05:15] – Three pieces of mail versus 300 emails a day
[05:44] – The pizza shop rule of thumb for when direct mail pays off
[07:16] – Variable data printing, QR codes and call tracking
[08:40] – A 25 to 50 percent lift for a 10 to 15 percent increase in cost
[10:07] – Building a prediction model from more than 80,000 past campaigns
[11:26] – Why a landscaper should mail in February instead of May
[12:59] – Live scenario: a Kansas City remodeler with a $20,000 winter budget
[15:43] – What’s in the omnichannel bundle: QR codes, an identity pixel, call recording and geofenced ads
[18:14] – Reach 7,000 households three times before 20,000 once
[19:07] – The smallest direct mail test worth running
[19:48] – Why B2B direct mail is harder
Memorable quotes
“I needed to re-educate myself, and I needed to be a disruptor and not a disruptee.” – Brad Kugler
“You go somewhere where everybody else isn’t.” – Kugler
“You can track a piece of mail like you track a package now down to your doorstep.” – Kugler
“I would always go for a smaller number who you hit repetitively.” – Kugler
“At least it gives you a better mousetrap than just going with your gut.” – Kugler
So most small businesses, most small business owners at least, wrote off direct mail years ago. Well, right now, a handful of operators are kind of rediscovering it. And the AI tools they’re now able to employ to predict the response before a single piece gets printed. the owners who dismissed the channel maybe now are sitting on data they never bothered to run the numbers on. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Brad Kugler. He is a
Clearwater, Florida entrepreneur who spent two decades running his family’s DVD and media distribution business until, well, streaming video kind of gutted that. rather than go down with the industry, he built Direct Mail 2.0, acquired the direct mail archive of who’s mailing what. I used to get that, and now runs DMI or DM Intel.ai, a connected set of tools that pairs AI prediction with direct mail and digital.
Cracking. So hopefully I got all that right. Brad, welcome to the show.
Brad Kugler (01:13.752)
Thank you, John. Happy to be here. And I have to say this is really the first public announcement of what I’m calling our rebrand from Direct Mail 2.0 to DM Intel, Direct Marketing and Intelligence. again, soft launch, but you got the scoop on that, and I’m happy to talk about it and anything else you like to talk about.
John Jantsch (01:34.442)
So I have to tell a little story. There was a little I can’t even call it a D V D store. It was a VHS video store, you know, tape store probably before before your time, even called SRO Video, and I remember it fondly, but yes, they they they they went by the wayside, but gosh darn it, I bet you there’s some some videos that she had down in the basement there that probably have never been put on stream streaming. She had quite an archive.
Brad Kugler (02:02.662)
It’s funny, I’ve actually heard of that. You know, I I started in the VHS business in nineteen ninety. Okay. That was probably the tail end of SRO even at that point, but I wrote it all the way from its its sort of big proliferation in the early nineties all the way down to nothing in 2016. And I have to say
coming to Direct Mail 2.0 or digital marketing is is an interesting story because I was disrupted. You know, I I made the transition from VHS to DVD, great, no problem. But as streaming proliferated after 2010, the writing was on the wall. And I never finished college. I had been in the business since as I said, you know, 26 years. And I’m looking at
I’m looking at starting a new career with two kids in college. And talk about stressful mortgage, two kids in college. What am I gonna do now? No college degree. Am I even marketable other than being a CEO for a small business? It was it was disconcerting to say the least. And I knew two things. I needed to re-educate myself, and I needed to be a disruptor and not a disruptee.
John Jantsch (03:21.961)
Well, you know, I’ve I’ve actually heard you say that or read it somewhere, that line. So I was prepared for you to say that. But on one hand, it’s a little ironic because I think a lot of people would say digital disrupted direct mail. and here you’re back in direct mail, adding a disruptor. So tell me about that.
Brad Kugler (03:37.807)
So I I’ll make it real simple. I don’t print or mail anything. I I am a technology layer that sits on top of direct mail. We partner with printers and mail service providers and agencies who do direct mail and we give them a technology edge by providing tracking, reporting tools, and allowing them to digitally target the same people receiving the mail. So in marketing, we all know that it’s repetition.
You know, it’s repetition that drives home the message. So when you have a piece of direct mail, that’s one piece in the mailbox. Now, if I can deliver ads to the same guy receiving that mail piece for pennies per piece, I’m repeating that message. And here’s the key with direct mail: direct mail being a physical, tactile thing, stays in memory, scientifically proven much longer than a digital ad you have no recollection of seeing in an email or
browsing the web. So I’m combining the two technologies to sort of create or disrupt direct mail.
John Jantsch (04:44.787)
Yeah. So so we’re adding a layer. So this is additive. you know, the because the technology allows us to do that. Go step back just a moment. where where do you feel direct mail sits in general? you know, there there definitely are people said it was dead, and now there’s kind of a a chorus of people starting to say, you know what? Nobody does it anymore. And now we’ve got this other technology, and there’s a lot of other advantages to maybe doing it. So where do you sit on on
Just the idea of direct mail as a channel.
Brad Kugler (05:15.436)
So obviously the bright shiny object gets all the attention. And now email and digital are no longer bright shiny objects. Okay. They’ve been around for a generation. The average person gets six to ten thousand digital images a day. how many pieces are in your mailbox? I get three, maybe four a day. Okay. Yeah. How many emails do you get a day? 300? Yeah. So so here you go.
John Jantsch (05:18.535)
Right, right.
John Jantsch (05:23.081)
Yeah, yeah.
John Jantsch (05:34.473)
Yeah. Yeah. The credit card people have stayed at it. Right. Two thousand. Yeah.
Brad Kugler (05:44.779)
You go somewhere where everybody else isn’t. So people are coming back to the mailbox. It’s tactical and it’s tactile and physical. And then you layer on some of the best direct mail, I’m sorry, digital marketing technologies. And now you’ve got a hybrid that’s best of both worlds. Okay. Direct mail has always converted well, but it converts. If I was running a pizza shop, I wouldn’t send a $10,000 direct mail campaign to sell a few dozen pizzas.
You know, if I’m selling jewelry or landscaping that comes every month for years, now you’ve got a four digit revenue source, it justifies the direct mail. That’s that’s the rule of thumb here.
John Jantsch (06:28.894)
What are some of the technologies that people are marrying? You know, obviously the printing technology has changed dramatically. I mean, it used to be, you know, ten up on a sheet, start the presses, ink up, go. You know, and now with all of this digital printing, I mean, you know, you see personalization, you see different images, you know, on different I mean, so what has the technology really done to the effectiveness of direct mail?
Brad Kugler (06:48.908)
Yeah. So so you you’re well versed and obviously the technology has improved in the direct mail. You can you can have variable data presses that can you know personalize a postcard one to one. So and and there’s no real additional cost in investing in the in the infrastructure in the first place. It’s you could never do that with a sheet or a web press. It’s impossible.
John Jantsch (07:15.668)
Yeah. Yeah.
Brad Kugler (07:16.642)
But you can do that with variable data inkjets. And you know, pretty much if you’re in the business now, you got one. So you can do that. Any type of personalization segmentation helps with targeting, it helps with relevancy. So that’s a that’s a plus. Now, if you start combining that with personalized QR codes, text back numbers, call tracking, you can track a piece of mail like you track a package now down to your doorstep. So you’ve got tools that make direct mail.
as immediately quantifiable and reportable as any digital product at this point. So so it’s caught up to the digital products. where people need help is deploying an omnichannel campaign.
systemically or systematically with a with a print campaign, it’s a lot of moving parts. So this is where guys like me coming in that automate that process, time the campaign deployments, time all of the reporting and the digital deployment of digital ad targeting. And now you’ve got a real product that’s easily deployable from for one or two phone calls rather than calling five different guys and agencies. So that it that’s what it is. It’s it’s all technology driven.
John Jantsch (08:26.176)
Right.
John Jantsch (08:32.042)
So I assume there’s a a cost involved in employing your platform. So what kind of lifts are you seeing and why?
Brad Kugler (08:40.793)
We’re seeing usually 25 to 50% over direct mail alone. And and this is this is the real simple elevator pitch. If I can get you a 25 to 50% lift in your direct mail responses for a 10 to 15% increase in cost, does that work for you? I mean, it’s a no-brainer. If would you make an investment like that? And we’re seeing that. And and again.
And I sure I’m sure being a marketing guy, you know, there’s no guarantees in marketing. There’s so many variables that somebody could have a have a have a flat campaign and it does happen. And but for the most case, we do see a lift for a very small increase in price. And if nothing else, the reporting you’re getting and the targeting visibility and transparency you’re getting with our reporting will help you correct those mistakes in the next mailing.
But like any marketing campaign, there’s gotta be a little repetition. There’s gotta be a staying partner. It’s not a one and done and all of a sudden all the leads run in. You gotta stick with it a little bit, like any type of campaign.
John Jantsch (09:35.136)
Mm-hmm.
John Jantsch (09:40.609)
So one of the things I’ve seen as people have moved back to direct mail is there’s a a lot of the everydoor stuff that that people are doing because it’s, you know, in theory it’s cheaper. I would say twenty five to thirty percent of it goes in every trash can before it gets to a door. But what what does the predictive modeling, you know, do to to actually save, you know, on on printing costs in general and and postage costs?
Brad Kugler (09:55.756)
At least
Brad Kugler (10:07.001)
So let let me take a step back and explain what our predictive modeling is. We we’ve launched over 80,000 direct mail campaigns, 2.2 billion pieces of mail in 157 different verticals. We have kept all that data. I knew it would be valuable someday, and I believe with the acquisition of who’s mailing what, we have the largest database of direct mail marketing in the world.
So, what we’ve done with that database, because 20,000 of those campaigns can carry results, who engaged with those campaigns? How were they engaged in? So we can take a piece of creative, we can take your targeting that you’re intending to do. And before you spend the money on the print and mail, which are hard cost, never to be recouped, you can feed that data into our model.
John Jantsch (10:55.008)
Mm-hmm.
Brad Kugler (10:57.717)
And it will give you back a kind of benchmark. If the benchmark for a credit card campaign comes at this level, we can dissect your campaign and predict based on past results, is it going to perform better, equal, or worse? And what can you do to perform better? sometimes an easy example is add a QR code, it gives you a 3% lift. make your headline bigger, offer something free. If you’re a landscaper, for instance,
John Jantsch (11:18.197)
Mm-hmm.
Brad Kugler (11:26.433)
Start doing your mailing in February rather than May, you know, when people have already found someone. So some of it’s obvious, but some of it is very specific for that cohort, that cohort of who you’re targeting and what vertical you’re in because of all of our past history. So the savings can be infinite. If you’ve got a campaign that’s just time-wronged and creative-wronged, and we avert some of those with our recommendations.
John Jantsch (11:43.071)
Brad Kugler (11:52.996)
Well, you’ve saved the entire cost of the mailing and not recompensed anything, you know. again, no guarantees. It’s all probability rated based on past experience, but past results do not guarantee future results. But at least it gives you a better mousetrap than just going it from your gut, you know?
John Jantsch (12:14.25)
So you were rolling this out, I think, as a as kind of a white label for agencies, is that kind of the model or
Brad Kugler (12:19.201)
Well, the predictive modeling we’re doing under our own label. But for the omnichannel marketing suite for pr for for direct mail, yes, that is white labeled. So if you’re a cut commercial printer or an agency, you know, they don’t ever have to know who we are. You can label it, tweak the campaigns, manage them yourself, and resell it. we offer it what we think is a wholesale, and there’s
room on the bone, left there’s more meat on the bone so that you can make a margin on it. So we’re trying to be that guy that helps the printers and agencies add a revenue and a profit center to their business.
John Jantsch (12:59.336)
All right, so I gave you a little heads up on this, fair warning, but I’m gonna throw out a typical sort of B2C, hyperlocal example and and just kind of how you would approach the omni channel, you know, idea behind this. So I’ll I’ll read off what I wrote to you. So I’ve got a client that’s looking for handyman leads or actually a modeling contractor or they have a handyman division. In the winter, that business slows down sometimes.
they’ve got a twenty thousand dollar budget. they are in a metro s midsized metro area, Kansas City, Missouri, mostly upscale work or is is the work that they do. They’ve already considered some radio and direct mail. but walk me through how you would if you were advising them, how would you how would you design the that entire campaign?
Brad Kugler (13:48.399)
Well, you know, without kind of selling my own products here, I would definitely say feed your proposed campaign into our predictive modeling. Not only will it predict the outcome based on benchmarks of that industry for that time period, for that geography, it’ll also show you what the competitors are offering.
And and why is that useful? Like let’s say a competitor’s offering, buy a five-hour block of handyman time, you know, for 350 bucks, we’ll sell it to you for 250. You know, they can see if anybody’s got a similar offer or or what other handyman services are being offered in that locale. So the the the point of knowledge being power is key here. And we have the largest database of other direct mail offerings.
So, not only are you going to get a prediction on how well your mailpiece is going to do before you spend a penny on mailing it, so you can tweak it, but you can also see what competitors are offering for similar products in a similar area. So that for sure. As far as economies for scale, our omnichannel platform, dm20.com, will combine a lot of these digital products with the mailing products, and it will
obviously save you time and resources. You are not an agency. You don’t have a team there who can actually manage and you know initiate these campaigns. We can do it in a few clicks. So we’re offering people that do not have in-house marketing teams the avail to basically have an agency in a box by using us. So there’s a lot of benefits and and obviously if we weren’t adding to somebody’s
bottom line and top line with our campaigns, we wouldn’t b have been around for nine years already. So and now with the AI tools we’ve built, I think we’re just a better mousetrap, improving all the time.
John Jantsch (15:38.381)
So so again, part of what I was trying getting at is what would an omni channel approach for for that type of thing look like? Yeah.
Brad Kugler (15:43.869)
I see. So so the bundle would be this. Rather than just a postcard in the mail, we would have trackable QR codes added to every piece. We would track who goes to the website and what we do with our de-anonymizing pixel or identity resolution pixel. We’re able to tell you which of those people you mailed to actually made it to the website. So you can track conversions. If they call
Or you want to do a text pan campaign, we’ll record those call transactions and engagements. We even record the phone calls to your office that again is perfectly secure that only you can see. So maybe you’ve got somebody at the front desk who’s burning the leads as they come in. At least they’re trackable and at least they’re memorialized so you can go back to them and recover those failed closes. not to mention a social media campaign. We’re doing a
geofenced campaign that will target the same households that are getting the mail. So if if they’re getting one piece of mail in the mailbox, we’re hoping they get eight to sixteen additional impressions digitally between Meta, that’s Instagram and Facebook, Google, they’re getting additional campaigns. So it stays top of mind. So we’re doing all of that for an extra maybe 10 to 15 cents per piece.
John Jantsch (17:03.125)
And that’s y you would provide the list as part of that as well, because that’s no.
Brad Kugler (17:07.502)
No, the the list we can help with that. It’s not included in that price. So we can either get them the list or you know, assuming that they’ve mailed before, maybe they have a list or the commercial printer they’re using as a list. The list the list acquisition is easy. You know, you tell me what kind of household you’re getting. There’s thousands of people that can procure that in seconds.
John Jantsch (17:10.603)
Yeah. Yeah.
John Jantsch (17:28.373)
Yeah, yeah. but again, that’s that seems like that’s a key component to the Omni part, right? Yeah, yeah.
Brad Kugler (17:34.273)
It it absolutely is. And in fact, there’s so many vendors of that. We’ve we’ve vacillated on do we want to offer this too? I mean it’s it’s a commodity. List brokerage now is a commodity. You can go to a website and put in your it it’ll go and search your customers and it will come up with your ICP. It feeds at this point it’s a pretty easy thing to acquire. And you know, to make five percent on that, I don’t know that it’s worth it when most people already have a source for that.
But we can help if someone doesn’t have that.
John Jantsch (18:06.017)
All right, so so a business owner well, I one last question on that. I is that twenty thousand budget realistic for that type of thing or yeah, okay.
Brad Kugler (18:14.125)
absolutely. I mean if you’re I’m gonna assume a dollar a target, so you can either hit twenty thousand people one time or you could what I would prefer is they hit seven thousand people three times. Okay. Again, it’s that repetitive message. I would always go for a smaller number who you hit repetitively.
John Jantsch (18:34.879)
Yeah. And the nice thing about a local business like that is that they probably can actually target by even even smaller than zips.
Brad Kugler (18:42.691)
yeah, you can go specific households. Now you’re not gonna get E D DM that way, but you’re gonna pay a little more for postage, but you’re gonna target guys that are homeowners versus renters. You’re gonna target guys that are gonna really it’s a better targeting operation.
John Jantsch (18:47.881)
No. Yeah.
John Jantsch (18:53.611)
Yeah. Right, right.
John Jantsch (18:58.069)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So if if if I’m a business owner who still thinks direct mail is dead, what’s what’s the smallest test that could run th th this winter?
Brad Kugler (19:07.445)
You know, that’s a great people ask us that all the time. And and and a lot of people say, well, why don’t we try a hundred? And I’m like, man, you know, go see what Google says if you want to target a hundred people. They’ll they’ll laugh at you, you know. we like to see at least 2,500 on a target, and we like to see at least hitting them three times. That’ll give you an indication of of your marketing, is it hitting or not? And you can try something else. But that’s that’s we’ usually what we recommend.
John Jantsch (19:13.281)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John Jantsch (19:23.435)
Yep, okay.
John Jantsch (19:35.521)
Do you find that B to B, B to C, you know, mo I think most people think of direct mail as B to C are you finding any success in for that accounting firm or that law firm that’s targeting businesses?
Brad Kugler (19:48.311)
I I’ll be honest with you, B2C is trickier because you’re trying to find those people. I’m sorry, B you’re right. B2B is trickier. B2B is definitely trickier because you can try to target them at their home, which is easy to, you know, with data service, you can find them. Or you risk sending it to a business and that thing makes it to the trash before it makes it to any decision makers’ eyes. So you you you have additional challenges B2C with direct mail. It’s doable, people are getting success.
John Jantsch (19:53.909)
You mean B to B is trickier. Yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah.
John Jantsch (20:09.599)
Yeah, yeah.
Brad Kugler (20:16.702)
It involves a little more persistence in testing than the B to C does.
John Jantsch (20:21.141)
Yeah. Well, Brad, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast and talk direct mail. Where where would you have people find out more about what you’re doing and connect with you?
Brad Kugler (20:31.501)
the easiest thing to remember is dm two zero dot com. That’s dm two zero dot com. It it it’ll show all of our direct mail and direct marketing related features there and I’m easy to find from there. LinkedIn, I’m I’m pretty well known there too.
John Jantsch (20:47.649)
Awesome. Awesome. Well again, appreciate you taking a moment and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.
Brad Kugler (20:54.211)
I hope so. Thanks, John. It’s been a pleasure.
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After a day off due to Veterans Day, it was back to higher bond yields again, which will translate to higher mortgage rates as well.
It seems to be correlating somewhat well to the AI trade, which is relatively hot again, despite the scandal with now-former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. And due to some choice comments by Trump regarding Iran.
At last glance, the bellwether 10-year bond yield was up a big 11 basis points, putting it back above 5% (and even north of 5.10%).
Mortgage rates will rise from around 7.375% to roughly 7.50% today as a result.
Bond Yields Higher Thanks to Tech and Trump
Today is a little bit of a catch-up day for bonds, which took Wednesday off.
While the hot CPI report from Tuesday was already baked in, yields moved another leg higher due to the AI trade and some fresh rhetoric from President Trump.
The first driver is the AI trade, which has correlated well with bond yields and mortgage rates lately.
In short, there’s been a flight to safety where an overheated stock market has moved into bonds, pushing yields (and mortgage rates) lower.
But recently there’s been a risk-on trade again, even in spite of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang getting in trouble and voluntarily resigning today.
The swift decision by Nvidia and its board might be deemed a good thing, instead of dragging it all out for weeks or months.
The market seems to have shrugged off the controversy, with stocks relatively flat or even positive on the day so far.
At the same time, Trump riled the markets by saying, “We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed. We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!”
So the conflict in the Middle East some people may have forgotten about is alive and well and putting pressure on oil prices.
Simply put, higher oil translates to higher inflation which translates to higher mortgage rates.
To put it all together, that will likely reinforce additional Fed rate hikes next month and beyond, which hurts mortgage rates as well.
Existing Home Sales Hit a 16-Year Low as Higher Mortgage Rates Hurt Affordability
In related news, existing home sales slid 5.5% in October to the slowest pace in more than 16 years, per NAR.
Sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.75 million in October, which was the worst total since August 2010.
They were also 8.8% lower year-over-year as higher rates took the wind out of the market’s sails.
Many of those sales reflect contracts signed in August and September because they’re based on transaction closed during the month of October.
It can take anywhere from 45 to 60 days or longer to get a mortgage and close on a home.
During those months, mortgage rates began to rise, but got a lot worse in October.
So the damage from October’s higher mortgage rates probably hasn’t even shown up yet, and will make the November home sales numbers potentially pretty ugly.
Of course, NAR’s chief economist Lawrence Yun said, “there could be sizable pent-up demand if mortgage rates decline.”
Apparently prospective home buyers are waiting it out until rates come down, which could hurt sellers.
Despite that, the median price paid increased 0.4% from $414,900 one year ago, marking the 40th consecutive month of YoY price increases
Read on: Compare mortgage rates and monthly payments side by side with my mortgage rate calculator.
(photo: Eli Duke)
Before creating this site, I worked as an account executive for a wholesale mortgage lender in Los Angeles. My hands-on experience in the early 2000s inspired me to begin writing about mortgages 20 years ago to help prospective (and existing) home buyers better navigate the home loan process. Follow me on X for hot takes.
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