The 2024 Benchmark Report

01

02

03

04

3 key learnings

Email and SMS campaigns

Automated email flows

Quarterly trends

Learn more

01

3 key learnings

high-level takeaways

Set the scene with trends based on all ecommerce data

Quarter-over-quarter engagement rates are relatively steady—especially in email.

Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

Most industries saw only marginal changes from one quarter to the next across average open rate, click rate, and placed order rate. 

There's an exception to this: Some industries, like food and beverage, saw higher placed order rates and revenue per recipient in Q4 2023, but the largest increases are less than $0.04 in RPR, primarily in SMS marketing.

What does this mean for the wider ecommerce industry?

These days, shoppers expect sales all year, not just on Black Friday—year round, brands often compete for consumer attention with clever discounts and limited-time offers.

Brands that want to excel beyond the average will need to go beyond discounts to develop smarter digital relationships. Effectively using customer data for smarter segmentation and better personalisation is key to standing out. (Keep an eye out—more tactical advice on this later in the report.) 

Automation is the conversion-driven marketer’s secret weapon.

While one-time email and SMS campaigns often get the glory, automated flows (like abandoned cart or post purchase messages) generate up to 30x more revenue per recipient* than campaigns because they are so timely and targeted.

Of course, campaigns still drive plenty of purchases—and can be even more effective with smart segmentation—but marketers who want to drive revenue while they sleep will do well to focus on their flows.

*Based on the difference between average RPR for email campaigns ($0.11) and average RPR for abandoned cart flows ($3.65).

SMS has the potential to drive

even more revenue per recipient

than email.

Average revenue per recipient (RPR) for SMS campaigns was slightly higher than email based on all ecommerce industries—which represents exciting things for marketers currently leading the way with this relatively new channel.

Texting is already proving ROI for high-intent buyers, so as SMS marketing strategies further advance and interweave with email best practices, the potential for texting-driven revenue could be even higher than email.


Better than your average benchmark report

Want ongoing suggestions based on your performance?

Try Klaviyo’s personalized benchmarks. You’ll see how you compare to the 100 businesses most similar to yours and where you can take steps to improve.

Learn more

Powered by Ceros

“Segmentation is key! The more you know your subscribers/customers, the more you'll be able to segment your database and your sendings. Don't send to your entire database because you think you'll make more money. Segment regarding RFM data, activity with your emails and website, and give them different messages.” 

“Firstly, perform regular list cleaning to ensure you’re only targeting engaged users that want to hear from you. Then, segment your subscribers into groups that have similar behaviors or interests to serve hyper-tailored content where relevant.”

“Remember that SMS is different in that it is a social tool that we normally use for 2 way communication. Set up Klaviyo auto-responses that walk customers through a simple "What's your favorite flavor" 1, 2, 3 type flow, delivering the customer via SMS to the page that houses the products they are interested in.”

You really need to make sure your SMS messages are personalized. If you're recycling your email message to SMS you're missing the boat. Make SMS conversational and personal. Ask questions and encourage a response. That might be more work for customer service but you will drive more sales and build a positive brand impression.”

“From a customer database perspective, the best indicator of whether a user will complete an action is if they've done that same action before. Therefore, make sure you ruthlessly filter those that don't click SMS out of your sends, to ensure you're targeting users who are likely to click (and shop) again.”

68.75%

5.22%

12.68%