Print & Delivery Timeline
From campaign trigger to letterbox. Understand how your postcards are processed, printed, and delivered via Australia Post.
Postcard Status Lifecycle
Every postcard progresses through a series of statuses on its way to the recipient’s letterbox: Pending → Queued → Sent to Printer → Printing → Shipped → Delivered. A postcard can also be marked as Holdout (excluded for testing) or Failed (could not be processed).
Pending
Your postcard has been created and is waiting to be checked against suppression rules before going to print.
Queued
Your postcard has passed all checks and is ready to be printed in the next print run.
Sent to Printer
The postcard has been sent to our printing partner and is waiting to be printed.
Printing
Your postcard is currently being printed by our printing partner.
Shipped
The printed postcard has been handed off to Australia Post for delivery.
Delivered
The postcard has been marked as delivered based on the estimated transit time (default 5 business days from shipping).
Holdout
This recipient was randomly assigned to the holdout group for A/B testing. No postcard is printed or sent, but the recipient is tracked for comparison.
Failed
Something went wrong with this postcard. Common reasons include an invalid address or the recipient being excluded by suppression rules.
Processing Schedule
Automated campaigns are processed on a daily schedule.
Campaign Processing
Daily at 2:00 AM AEST. TouchDrop checks active automated campaigns, identifies new recipients, and creates postcards.
Redemption Tracking
Daily at 6:00 AM AEST. A second daily job checks for discount code redemptions and attributes conversions back to campaigns.
Manual triggers
One-time campaigns and manual triggers can be run at any time from the campaign detail page. They don’t wait for the daily schedule.
How Printing Works
Once your postcards are ready, TouchDrop handles everything. Postcards are grouped together and sent securely to our professional printing partner.
What happens behind the scenes
- All queued postcards for your campaign are grouped into a print run.
- Each postcard includes the recipient’s address, your artwork, their unique discount code, and QR code.
- The print run is sent securely to our printing partner, who handles professional printing and postage.
- Once printed, your postcards are handed to Australia Post for delivery.
Print quality
All postcards are professionally printed on high-quality card stock. Your artwork is reproduced in full colour on both sides. The printing and postage process is fully managed by TouchDrop — you don’t need to coordinate with the printer directly.
Estimated Delivery
After a postcard is shipped, TouchDrop estimates delivery based on a configurable transit window.
Default transit time
5 business days. Each campaign has a configurable transit time, used to estimate when the postcard will arrive and when the attribution window begins.
Delivery estimation
Once the transit period has elapsed from the ship date, the status is updated to “delivered”. This is an estimate — Australia Post does not provide individual tracking for postcards.
Typical Timeline
Here is a typical timeline from when a campaign runs to when a postcard arrives in the recipient’s letterbox.
Day 0 — Campaign runs at 2 AM AEST. New postcards are created for qualifying recipients and sent to our printer.
Day 1–2 — Postcards are professionally printed and handed to Australia Post for delivery.
Day 6–7 — Postcards arrive in letterboxes (estimated 5 business days transit). The attribution window begins.