Trackmymail.com, Gaithersburg, MD, a company that offers a Web-based Planet Code tracking service, will provide Planet Code tracking capabilities to U.S. Monitor, a mail monitoring service.
Planet Codes are 12-digit barcodes, developed by the U.S. Postal Service, that collect location and time data about a company’s mailing as it moves through the automated mail-processing flow. Customers using Planet Codes can learn when and if their customers received their bills, credit cards or advertising mail; see how many days a piece has been in a USPS Bulk Mail Center before it enters the mail stream and learn which mail pieces passed through the next stage of postal automation.
Trackmymail basically offers a simplified Web interface to the Planet code program. Customers register on trackmymail’s Web site (www.trackmymail.com) and receive their Planet Code numbers via download or through the mail in the form of discs or tapes. After they send out their mailings with the codes embossed on them they can come back to the site to view the delivery results of their mailings, which are updated daily.
U.S. Monitor, New City, NY, provides its customers delivery tracking services, where a network of seeds track delivery times of when mailings actually arrive at people’s homes.
The alliance allows U.S. Monitor to “pick up where trackmymail.com leaves off,” said Paul Ercolino, director of sales for U.S. Monitor. “The combination of our seeds and the Planet Codes will allow customers to see that a piece of mail is in Chicago today, for example, waiting in a BMC and that it should be delivered to Aurora, IL, in the next 24 hours.”
In addition, it will be able to “confirm whether or not the mail has hit its in-home window when it was supposed to. [The USPS] usually says that a piece of mail should hit its in-home window within 24 hours after it lands in the last postal destination or the BMC. We can actually confirm that.”
Instead of using trackmymail’s Web site, U.S. Monitor’s customers will use U.S. Monitor’s Web site (www.usmonitor.com), which will be fueled by trackmymail’s system. The system is scheduled to be available to U.S. Monitor customers in July.
As a result of the alliance, trackmymail will also have access to U.S. Monitor’s audience, which comprises large catalogers and credit card companies that have an interest in mail tracking.
“We are excited about the opportunities this combined effort creates,” said Dave Lewis, vice president of marketing for trackmymail.
