The Best Direct Marketing Agencies Working Today
Direct marketing is a discipline that rewards specificity. The firms that rise to the top aren't generalists who dabble — they're specialists who understand data, targeting, creative strategy, and how to close the loop between investment and result.
Whether you're a brand looking to scale acquisition, or an agency seeking a capable partner, these are the firms worth knowing:
Jacobs & Clevenger (Chicago, IL)
Founded in 1982 and headquartered in Chicago, J&C has worked with some of the biggest marketers in the country, including: Humana. Allstate. The Hartford. AARP. Physicians Mutual. Mutual of Omaha.
A boutique by design, J&C pairs senior creative and strategic expertise across direct mail, email, analytics, and targeted digital. Specializing in insurance and financial marketing, our team has been stress-tested by the most demanding brands in the business.
The results follow: clients routinely see stronger performance working with J&C—a track record recognized by Clutch and BuiltIn as a top agency nationwide, alongside more than 100 industry awards.
At J&C, the senior leaders who pitch the work are the same ones doing the work.
Gundir (San Francisco, CA)
Founded in 2003 and headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, Gundir is a full-service direct response agency specializing in data-driven acquisition and retention programs for established and growth-stage companies in fintech, financial services, healthcare, and B2B SaaS. Their structured methodology — GundirLaunch for new programs, GundirLift for optimization, GundirLead for lead generation — gives clients a clear framework for wherever they are in their direct mail journey. Brands such as Wells Fargo, Mutual of Omaha, Good Sam, and PayPal have leveraged GundirLift to build and test challengers against control packages, with Gundir reporting an 80% win rate and an average lift of 15% or more.
Clutch has recognized them among the top 1,000 global companies, and client reviews consistently cite timely delivery and measurable ROI.
HERO Marketing (San Francisco, CA)
HERO provides custom digital and traditional direct marketing solutions for companies looking to drive ROI and build brand equity, with a client roster that includes Kaiser Permanente, Autodesk, Men's Wearhouse, H&R Block, Delta Dental, Microsoft, and more. The agency has been ranked among Adweek's Top 100 Agencies, Adweek's Top 10 in the West, Agency Spotter's Top 100 Marketing Agencies, and hit the Inc. 5000 in 2020. As a minority- and women-owned, LGBTQ+-led independent, HERO brings both credentials and genuine diversity of perspective to its work — not as a footnote, but as part of what makes the agency's thinking sharper.
Reviewers consistently highlight the team's attention to detail, strategic rigor, and commitment to overdelivering.
Franklin Madison Direct (Minneapolis, MN)
Franklin Madison Direct is the newly unified identity of two established direct response shops — SeQuel Response and FM Engage — bringing their combined expertise under one banner without losing what made either worth knowing. The agency integrates direct mail and digital strategies as a data-driven direct response marketing company, with a full-service capability stack that spans campaign strategy, data targeting, creative development, print production, digital integration, and analytics. Their proprietary tools — FactorTest™ for rapid performance testing, Surround™ for synchronized offline and online execution, and OmnIDirect™ for digital prospecting powered by offline data — reflect an agency that has invested in building genuine infrastructure, not just services. Their client roster runs from Aflac and ADT to DTC brands and financial services firms, with documented results including a 36% revenue increase in financial services, 224,000 new insurance customers, and a 300% improvement in ROI for a consumer retail client.
For brands looking to scale direct response with a team that treats testing as a discipline rather than an afterthought, Franklin Madison Direct is worth a close look.
IPNY (New York, NY)
Founded in 2012 and based in New York, IPNY has been an independent creative agency on a mission to help brands that help people — and they've staked out a specific lane for it. IPNY focuses on the hard categories: financial services, healthcare, nonprofit — working with marketing leaders in complex verticals to solve brand-growth challenges and drive bottom-line, quantifiable results. The founding partners spent decades mastering brand advertising, results-oriented direct marketing, and integrated multimedia campaigns at some of the industry's most respected agencies — Ogilvy, Wieden, Grey, Scali, Ammirati, and Wunderman — before building something of their own. The proof is in the outcomes: a 154% increase in appointments and 134% increase in qualified leads for a leading hospital system; a 13-point increase in national awareness for an LA-based cancer center; a 500% lift in reordering for a major biotech.
That's what accountable direct marketing looks like.
The Common Thread
What makes each of these firms worth watching isn't size or geography — it's discipline. They measure. They optimize. They connect creative to outcomes. In a media landscape where digital has trained too many marketers to chase impressions instead of results, these agencies still do the fundamental work of direct marketing: find the right person, say the right thing, and prove it worked.
Jacobs & Clevenger is a Chicago-based direct marketing agency with over 40 years of experience helping clients in financial services, insurance, and energy get measurable results. jacobsclevenger.com
