Every circulation office has one. The box (or the pile, or the corner of the post room) where returned copies end up. "Gone away." "Addressee unknown." "No longer at this address." It gets dealt with when someone has a spare afternoon, which is to say not very often.
That box is costing you money every issue. Usually more than people think.
What a gone-away is
A gone-away is a copy, or a letter, that comes back because the person it was addressed to isn't there any more. In B2B publishing, that's usually because they've changed jobs. In consumer publishing, it's more often a house move.
You only find out because the wrapper has a return address on it, and someone at the other end bothered to send it back. Many don't. So the returns you get are the visible part of a bigger problem.
The digital equivalent is the hard bounce: an email address that no longer exists. Same story, different channel, and often a sign that the print address is out of date too.
What it costs you
The obvious bit: print and postage
Every copy sent to someone who isn't there is a copy you paid to print, pack and post for nobody. Then, if you don't act on the return, you do it again next issue. And the issue after.
On its own, one wasted copy isn't much. Multiply it by the number of unprocessed returns, then by the number of issues they keep getting mailed, and it adds up quickly. Work it out for your own titles. It's rarely a comfortable number.
The audit figure
If you're ABC or BPA audited, copies mailed to people you know have gone shouldn't be counted as reaching your audience. An auditor who finds a pile of unprocessed returns will want to know why, and how many other copies are going to the wrong place. Check the current ABC reporting standards for exactly how returned and undeliverable copies should be treated, but the principle is simple: if you know it didn't arrive, don't claim it. Our guide to preparing for an ABC audit covers the wider picture.
The advertiser
Advertisers are buying readers. Copies going to empty desks are copies their ads aren't seen in. You may get away with it for a while, but a file full of people who left two years ago will eventually show up in poor response, and advertisers notice.
Data protection
UK GDPR expects personal data to be accurate and kept up to date. A gone-away is about as clear a signal as you'll get that a record isn't. Leaving it uncorrected isn't a great look if anyone ever asks.
The lost reader
This is the one people forget. In B2B, a gone-away usually means someone has moved jobs. They might still want your title at their new company. And their old job probably still exists, with someone new in it who might want the title too. A gone-away is a prompt to go and find both.
A simple routine for handling them
None of this needs to be complicated. It just needs to happen regularly.
1. Make sure returns come back to you
Print a clear return address on every wrapper or envelope, and make sure the mailing house knows where returns should go. If returns go to a general office address, agree who picks them up and how often.
2. Key them in quickly
Ideally within days, and certainly before the next mailing file is pulled. The aim is that nobody gets mailed twice after you know they've gone. A reader number on the address label makes this much faster: key the number, confirm the person, mark them as gone.
3. Stop the copies, not the record
Mark the record as gone-away so it drops out of the next issue run. Don't delete it. You want the history, and you may need it if the reader resurfaces at a new address or if the auditor asks what happened.
4. Keep print and digital separate
Someone whose magazine came back may still be reading your emails, and vice versa. Flag them separately, so a returned copy doesn't silently stop the newsletter.
5. Try to replace the reader
For B2B titles, contact the company and ask who has taken over the role, or whether the original reader has left a forwarding contact. Any replacement reader needs their own request and qualification for controlled circulation purposes. You can't just swap the name on the label. See controlled circulation explained for why.
6. Clear the flag when it's fixed
If a reader gets in touch with a new address, update it and clear the gone-away flag so they start receiving again. It sounds obvious. It gets missed surprisingly often.
7. Look at the numbers
Track how many returns come back per issue, by title. A sudden jump might mean a problem with a batch of data, a list you imported, or a mailing house issue. A steady trickle is normal. A rising trend is a sign your file is ageing and your re-qualification needs attention.
Prevention beats cure
You'll never stop gone-aways completely, because people move. But you can reduce them:
- Keep requests fresh. Regular re-qualification for controlled titles and a proper renewal series for paid ones both prompt readers to update their details.
- Clean addresses when they come in. Validating postcodes and spotting missing address lines at the point of entry saves trouble later.
- De-duplicate. Two records for the same reader means double the chance of a gone-away.
- Act on email bounces. A hard bounce on a work address is a strong hint the person has moved on.
How our software handles it
In Adeptis, the gone-away desk is a single-purpose screen for returned post. Key the reader number, confirm the person, mark them as gone away or still there. It has its own audit trail, a "done today" list and undo, and accounts can be locked to just that screen, so you can hand the job to anyone without giving them access to the rest of the database.
In Avio, gone-aways are flagged quickly against the subscriber, with separate flags for print and digital, and cleared when the address is fixed. Missed copies are recorded against the subscriber too, and the data quality scans pick up bad postcodes, missing address lines and duplicate emails before they become returns.
If the box in your post room is getting full and nobody has time, our circulation and subscriptions bureau can take it off your hands. Or get in touch and we'll talk about how to keep it empty.
Rob Sherwood is Managing Director of Adept Data Services. He has spent his career in subscriptions and circulation, at WDIS, Optima and CDS Global before founding Adept.