What Direct Response Media Group does

Direct Response Media Group Inc. (DRMG) is a privately held Canadian direct mail marketing company headquartered in Oakville, Ontario, founded in 2003. The company operates as Canada Post's largest shared mail partner, providing guaranteed delivery to 100% of Canadian households through a portfolio that includes solo direct mail (postcards, menus, brochures), the Money Saver Magazine and Money Saver Envelope shared publications, the Greater Toronto Home Magazine (distributed to 700,000 GTA homes seven times per year), and personalized addressed mail campaigns. Underlying these products is the proprietary DRMG Insight analytics platform, which layers call tracking, QR code scan attribution, and an Audience Targeting engine built on 14+ demographic and behavioral data categories for neighborhood- and postal-walk-level segmentation. DRMG serves over 18,000 businesses across 40+ industry verticals, spanning national brands (Leaf Filter, Honda Indy Toronto, Peoples Jewellers), franchise systems (Pizza Nova, Harveys, Dairy Queen, Arby's, Bath Fitter), local small businesses, and public-sector clients such as the Toronto District School Board.

DRMG's revenue model is built on transaction-based, quote-priced campaign fees rather than subscription SaaS billing. Shared mail economics allow advertisers to split postage and printing costs with non-competing brands, bringing per-advertiser cost to approximately one-quarter of solo direct mail rates and bundling in design, targeting, and delivery. Premium ad placements (front/back covers, double-page spreads) within shared publications provide an upsell layer. Distribution flows through three primary channels: Canada Post's Neighborhood Mail and Personalized Mail services for physical delivery; a direct field sales team of local account representatives guiding clients from strategy through execution; and a self-service website funnel offering ROAS calculators, distribution maps, and quote requests. The company is founder-led by President and CEO Jason Bradbury, with Dave Vander Ploeg as Group Publisher.

Growth has been driven by a combination of organic expansion and selective M&A: DRMG acquired The Home Magazine and Action Pak assets in 2013, Ad Save in 2016, and the Canadian subsidiary of Valassis in 2019. Strategic partnerships include Valpak of Canada (2015) and Direct Target Promotions (2021). DRMG has received the Canada Post Expert Partner of the Year award (2024) and the Smartmail Marketing Environment Partner Award (2025), reflecting both its commercial incumbency and its sustainability positioning (eliminating 147,000 pounds of plastic annually from its products).

Name

Direct Response Media Group

Legal name

Direct Response Media Group Inc.

Website

https://drmg.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2003

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

Direct Response Media Group is a privately held Canadian direct mail marketing company and Canada Post's largest shared mail partner, serving 18,000+ businesses across 40+ verticals with solo mail, shared publications, and the DRMG Insight analytics platform.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Oakville

HQ country

Canada

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Solo Direct Mail: One-to-one postcard, menu, or brochure mailings sent individually to prospects. Offers maximum brand standout and response rate control. Pricing is quote-based per campaign.
2. Shared Mail / Cooperative Mail: Multiple non-competing advertisers share the cost of postage and printing by combining their ads in the Money Saver Magazine, Money Saver Envelope, or Greater Toronto Home Magazine. Reduces per-advertiser cost to approximately one-quarter of solo mail rates. All prices include printing, graphic design, demographic targeting, and Canada Post delivery.
3. Addressed / Personalized Mail: Personalized addressed mail campaigns using first-party customer lists or rented third-party lists for customer retention and re-engagement. Minimum 100 pieces for machineable personalized mail.
4. Premium Ad Placements: Premium placements within publications including front covers, back covers, double cover bars, cover bars, full pages, half pages, and double-page spreads in the Money Saver Magazine and Greater Toronto Home Magazine.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

Direct Response Media Group (DRMG) is a Canadian direct mail marketing company that designs, prints, and distributes solo direct mail, shared mail publications (Money Saver Magazine, Money Saver Envelope, Greater Toronto Home Magazine), and personalized addressed mail to businesses' target audiences across Canada. As Canada Post's largest shared mail partner, DRMG delivers to 100% of Canadian households and supplements its print products with the proprietary DRMG Insight analytics platform that combines call tracking, QR code tracking, and demographic audience targeting to measure campaign ROI.

Product overview

Direct Response Media Group operates a platform-plus-modules architecture centered on direct mail marketing services. The core product portfolio includes Solo Direct Mail (solo postcards, menus, brochures), shared mail products (Money Saver Magazine, Money Saver Envelope), specialized publications (Greater Toronto Home Magazine), and Addressed Mail for personalized campaigns. These mail products are supported by the DRMG Insight analytics platform, which includes integrated modules for Call Tracking, QR Code Tracking, and Audience Targeting. The company leverages first-party and third-party data partnerships to offer demographic, behavioral, and customer-based targeting across Canada, reaching 100% of Canadian households through its partnership with Canada Post.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Money Saver Magazine: Canada's most trusted and recognized shared mail publication distributed monthly to Canadian households.
• Money Saver Envelope
• Greater Toronto Home Magazine
• DRMG Insight

Products and services

• Solo Direct Mail / Solo Postcard One-to-one direct mail communication through solo postcards, menus, or brochures, allowing businesses to stand out and communicate directly with individual prospects. Pricing is quote-based per campaign.
• Money Saver Magazine Canada's most trusted and recognized shared mail publication, allowing advertisers to share postage costs with other non-competing businesses by combining ads in one distribution piece.
• Money Saver Envelope National envelope product for distributing coupons, menus, catalogs, and promotional materials through a shared mail format.
• Greater Toronto Home Magazine Specialized publication connecting top-tier home service providers with homeowners actively looking to upgrade, renovate, and maintain their properties, distributed to 700,000 homes in the Greater Toronto Area 7 times per year.
• Addressed Mail (Personalized Mail) Personalized addressed direct mail campaigns targeting customers based on first-party data or third-party rented lists to retain or re-engage existing customers. Minimum 100 pieces for machineable personalized mail.
• DRMG Insight Analytics Dashboard Proprietary centralized analytics platform that monitors and measures the effectiveness of online and offline marketing efforts for direct mail campaigns, integrating call tracking, QR code scans, and campaign performance data.

Quantifiable outcome

• Average direct mail response rate of 4.4%, approximately 37x higher than the 0.12% average email marketing response rate.
• +8 more outcomes

Named customers19 records

Segments10 records

Ideal customer profiles7 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Nine partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and supporting.

• Direct Target PromotionscoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 10 May 2021Long-term strategic partnership announced May 2021 aligning two organizations in the direct mail marketing industry. Combined reach serves over 5,000 clients across diverse market categories including renovation, restaurants, retail, and professional services. Together they reach over 16 million Canadian households through postal code targeting and neighborhood mail. Joint objective: help Canadians save, businesses grow, and neighborhoods thrive.
• Valassis CanadamajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 8 October 2019DRMG acquired the Canadian subsidiary of Valassis in October 2019, significantly expanding its direct mail portfolio and market position across Canada.
• Valpak of CanadamajorGTM or Marketing Partner · 11 February 2015Partnership announced February 2015 to expand direct mail marketing and digital coupon distribution across Canada. DRMG manages Valpak sales operations for the Kitchener-Waterloo and Hamilton markets. Existing Valpak Toronto clients gained access to DRMG's Money Saver Envelope product, while DRMG clients gained access to Valpak's digital coupon platform.
• Canada PostcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDRMG is Canada Post's largest shared mail partner and Expert Partner of the Year. This partnership is the core distribution backbone of DRMG's business, enabling guaranteed delivery to 100% of Canadian households. The relationship includes joint product development (Smartmail marketing programs), commercial postal rate optimization, and sustainability collaboration.
• J.D. Irving, LimitedsupportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerPaper sourcing partnership ensuring that direct mail campaign paper is sourced from forests managed under stringent environmental standards. Part of DRMG's sustainability commitment, supporting forest replenishment, natural regeneration, and wildlife protection.
• Irving Consumer ProductssupportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerSustainability partner in paper and tissue products, continuing commitment to environmental stewardship and responsible sourcing for DRMG's direct mail materials.
• Stewardship OntariosupportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerNot-for-profit organization financed by businesses supplying designated products, packaging, and printed paper to the Ontario market. DRMG partners with Stewardship Ontario as part of its extended environmental responsibility commitment.
• Sustainable Mail GroupsupportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerIndustry coalition focused on leading the direct mail industry toward a cleaner, more sustainable future. DRMG participates as a founding/lead member committed to environmental innovation in the direct mail sector.
• Dollco Print Solutions GroupsupportingTechnology or IntegrationPrint production partnership providing sustainable printing services for DRMG's direct mail campaigns. Dollco Print Solutions Group supports DRMG's environmentally responsible print production as part of the company's sustainability commitments.

Scale indicators12 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Modern Postcard: US direct mail marketing services provider offering design, printing, and mailing for SMBs across multiple verticals. Closely comparable in service mix and customer base to DRMG's solo and shared mail products.
• Valpak: US-based shared mail coupon envelope company with a virtually identical business model to DRMG's Money Saver Magazine and Envelope products. Valpak is the most direct North American analogue, combining multiple non-competing advertisers into shared mail pieces delivered to local households.
• Harte-Hanks: Direct and digital marketing services company with significant direct mail capabilities alongside analytics and data services. Comparable in offering end-to-end campaign execution with measurement, and overlapping in target verticals.

Broad incumbents

• Valassis Communications: Major US direct mail and marketing services company (parent of the Valassis Canada subsidiary that DRMG acquired in 2019). Operates shared mail, in-store, and digital channels at significantly larger US scale, serving overlapping enterprise advertiser categories.
• Canada Post (Neighbourhood Mail): DRMG's primary distribution partner and Canada's postal operator. Canada Post offers its own Neighbourhood Mail service directly to advertisers, making it both an indispensable channel partner and a broad incumbent that competes for direct advertiser relationships.
• ADVO: Shared mail advertising company and subsidiary of Valassis, delivering shared direct mail packages to US households. Operates a model very similar to DRMG's Money Saver Magazine but at broader US scale.

Emerging players

• Lob: API-based direct mail automation platform enabling developers and marketers to send programmatic direct mail. Overlaps with DRMG Insight in addressing the digital-measurement-of-physical-mail gap, but focuses on enterprise developers rather than SMB advertisers.
• Postalytics: Direct mail automation platform for SMBs and agencies with built-in tracking and CRM integrations. Competes in the SMB-facing direct mail automation layer, partially overlapping with DRMG's smaller advertiser offerings.
• Reachdesk: Direct mail and corporate gifting platform integrating offline sends with marketing automation workflows. Represents an emerging software-first approach to the same physical-mail-meets-digital-measurement problem DRMG Insight addresses.

Others

• Merkle: Large data-driven marketing services firm (part of dentsu) with capabilities spanning direct mail, analytics, and CRM. Adjacent rather than directly competing, but representative of well-capitalized competitors that combine direct mail with technology and data layers.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/_DRMG
• YouTubeyoutube.com/user/drmgCanada/featured
• Facebookfacebook.com/drmgmarketing
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/751140
• Instagraminstagram.com/drmgmedia

Compliance3 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Subsidiaries3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A1 record

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Direct Response Media Group