Intelligent Mail Barcodes Explained: How They Work and Why They Matter
Have you ever wondered about the vertical bars printed along the bottom of an envelope of a piece of mail you’ve received? You’ll often see them on business mail, and not only are they there for a reason, but they also do a lot to improve the post office’s accuracy and efficiency in delivering mail! Those vertical bars are actually an Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb), technology developed by the United States Postal Service (USPS) to improve mail sorting, delivery accuracy, and tracking.
Postalocity uses these Intelligent Mail barcodes on all mail automated through our platform, giving not just us, but you, better visibility of the mail you send. Read on to learn more about Intelligent Mail barcodes, how they improve the mailing process, and how Postalocity utilizes this technology to pass along benefits to you when you send invoices, statements, marketing campaigns, tax forms, letters or other business mail through the Postalocity platform.
What is an Intelligent Mail Barcode?
An Intelligent Mail barcode is a 65-bar USPS barcode that stores routing and tracking information for individual mail pieces while streamlining older USPS technologies into a single barcode.
An Intelligent Mail barcode can identify:
- The organization sending the mail – Mailer Identifier (MID)
- The mail class and service level – Service Type Identifier (STID)
- A unique serial number for each mail piece – Serial Number
- USPS routing information – Routing Code
- Delivery ZIP Code information – Routing Code
An Intelligent Mail barcode is not required to send a mail piece, but using one makes mail processing faster and more efficient, while providing status and delivery insights to senders that utilize it.
How Does an Intelligent Mail Barcode Work?
Bars appear in four different vertical states within the Intelligent Mail barcode to help encode significantly more information within a compact space.
Each barcode contains five primary components.
Barcode Identifier
This field tells USPS how the barcode should be interpreted and processed.
Service Type Identifier (STID)
The STID identifies the class of mail and any USPS services associated with the mail piece, such as tracking or address correction.
Mailer Identifier (MID)
Every approved mailer receives a unique Mailer Identifier from USPS. This number identifies the organization that prepared the mailing.
Serial Number
The serial number uniquely identifies each mail piece, allowing USPS and the mailer to distinguish one piece from another.
Routing Code
When included, the routing code contains ZIP Code information that enables automated sorting and directs the mail piece to its delivery destination.
Why USPS and Postalocity Use Intelligent Mail Barcodes
The Intelligent Mail barcode eliminates the need for manual sorting, allowing Postalocity and USPS sorting equipment to quickly identify where every mail piece should travel by scanning the barcode printed by Postalocity on each piece of mail. Postalocity’s automated systems sort and organize mail to USPS standards, helping to facilitate faster and automated proper processing paths by the post office when they receive mail from us.
Intelligent Mail barcode technology helps USPS:
- Process millions of mail pieces more efficiently.
- Improve delivery accuracy.
- Reduce sorting errors.
- Increase delivery speed.
- Provide mail tracking visibility.
- Support automation discounts.
The result is a faster, more reliable mail delivery system for both businesses and consumers.
How Postalocity Passes Along Benefits of Intelligent Mail Barcodes
Intelligent Mail barcodes (IMbs) aren’t just helpful to USPS; they also provide real benefits to the businesses that utilize them.
Businesses can print Intelligent Mail barcodes (IMbs) in-house, but accessing the full benefits of USPS Intelligent Mail can require specialized equipment, software, and integration. These requirements can increase costs and complexity, particularly for businesses seeking Full-Service capabilities and enhanced mail visibility.
Postalocity is an automated presort mailing platform, which means we print full-service Intelligent Mail barcodes that are USPS compliant and include unique serial numbers. We sort mail to USPS standards and prepare and submit mailing data documentation electronically to USPS.
But we’re here to make mailing convenient for you too, not just USPS, so we pass along benefits of using Intelligent Mail barcodes to you as the sender without the costs and extra work for printing IMbs in-house!
Free Mail Tracing
Once mail with an Intelligent Mail barcode enters the USPS system, it is scanned as it makes its way through and exits the post office via delivery, creating a record that also serves as tracking for the organization sending the mail (the MID), in this case, Postalocity. Postalocity provides that information as free mail tracing on the pieces for customers, allowing them to see the status of their First Class mail without having to pay additional costs for the full tracking that comes with sending certified or Priority Mail.
This visibility is especially useful for:
- Billing statements
- Healthcare communications
- Legal notices
- Direct mail campaigns
- Election mail
- Customer correspondence
Lower Postage Costs
As a bulk presort mailer using full-service Intelligent Mail barcodes, Postalocity qualifies for postage discounts on First Class mail that we pass along to our clients in the form of lower per-piece costs than mail sent manually or prepared using a postage meter in-house.
How you can use Postalocity to save costs with postage prices increase.
Better Mailing List Quality
Intelligent Mail barcodes work alongside USPS address services to help identify outdated addresses and reduce undeliverable mail.
Postalocity uses this data at the front end of your mailing process, completing an address verification step on your mailing before you even send it to identify bad addresses, ones with a low deliverability score, and ones that can be reformatted to improve their deliverability chances.
This helps reduce your returned mail, and your costs for sending a mailing, by eliminating or updating bad mailing information.
Who Uses Intelligent Mail Barcodes?
Organizations that benefit from Intelligent Mail include:
- Banks
- Credit unions
- Insurance providers
- Healthcare organizations
- Utilities
- Government agencies
- Nonprofits
- Marketing agencies
Whether you need to send a single mailing or have a regular schedule of mailings planned, Postalocity’s automated mailing platform offers you cost savings and visibility into the pieces you send.
Final Thoughts
The Intelligent Mail barcode has become an essential part of modern USPS mail processing, improving mail sorting and delivery accuracy. The data and efficiency created by use of the barcode also makes it helpful to businesses sending mail.
When you send your mail through Postalocity, you can utilize the benefits of an Intelligent Mail barcode, with free mail tracing, address verification, and lower per-piece costs than traditional First Class mail.
Take advantage of these benefits by sending your mail with Postalocity.
