Klaviyo Benchmarks by Industry: Where Do You Stand?

You cannot improve what you do not measure. And you cannot measure meaningfully without context.

A 25% open rate might be great or terrible depending on your industry, your sending frequency, and the type of email. Without benchmarks, you are guessing whether your email program is performing well or leaving money on the table.

I am going to share the benchmarks we see across eCommerce brands we work with, supplemented by Klaviyo's published data. These are not theoretical numbers from a whitepaper. They are from real stores sending real campaigns and running real flows.

Use these numbers to find gaps. If you are significantly below benchmark in any metric, that is where you should focus your optimization efforts first.

Campaign Benchmarks by Industry

Campaigns are your scheduled sends — newsletters, promotions, product launches, content emails. Here is what good looks like.

Health and Wellness

• Open rate: 28-35%
• Click rate: 2.5-4.5%
• Revenue per recipient: $0.08-$0.15
• Unsubscribe rate: 0.15-0.25%

Health brands tend to have above-average engagement because their products are tied to personal goals and routines. Subscribers genuinely want the content.

Beauty and Skincare

• Open rate: 25-32%
• Click rate: 2.0-3.8%
• Revenue per recipient: $0.10-$0.18
• Unsubscribe rate: 0.18-0.28%

Beauty has strong visual content that drives clicks. Revenue per recipient is high because product photography is compelling and purchase cycles are relatively short (monthly replenishment).

Fashion and Apparel

• Open rate: 22-28%
• Click rate: 1.8-3.2%
• Revenue per recipient: $0.06-$0.12
• Unsubscribe rate: 0.20-0.35%

Fashion has higher unsubscribe rates due to trend-driven audiences and high sending frequency. Click rates are moderate because browsing behavior is common (people click to look, not necessarily to buy).

Food and Beverage

• Open rate: 30-38%
• Click rate: 3.0-5.0%
• Revenue per recipient: $0.12-$0.20
• Unsubscribe rate: 0.12-0.20%

Food brands consistently outperform on open and click rates. The content is inherently engaging (recipes, new flavors) and the purchase cycle is short (weekly or biweekly for consumables).

Home and Garden

• Open rate: 24-30%
• Click rate: 2.0-3.5%
• Revenue per recipient: $0.08-$0.14
• Unsubscribe rate: 0.15-0.25%

Home brands have moderate engagement with higher AOV purchases. Revenue per recipient is healthy because individual orders tend to be larger.

Pet Products

• Open rate: 32-40%
• Click rate: 3.5-5.5%
• Revenue per recipient: $0.15-$0.25
• Unsubscribe rate: 0.10-0.18%

Pet parents are among the most engaged eCommerce audiences. They open everything related to their pets and buy frequently. This is one of the highest-performing categories in email marketing.

Electronics and Tech

• Open rate: 20-26%
• Click rate: 1.5-2.8%
• Revenue per recipient: $0.05-$0.10
• Unsubscribe rate: 0.22-0.35%

Tech has lower engagement because purchase cycles are long (people buy electronics infrequently) and much of the audience is in research mode rather than buying mode.

Fitness and Sports

• Open rate: 26-34%
• Click rate: 2.5-4.2%
• Revenue per recipient: $0.10-$0.16
• Unsubscribe rate: 0.15-0.25%

Fitness audiences are highly engaged around goal-setting periods (January, summer) but engagement dips during off-peak months.

Flow Benchmarks

Flows typically outperform campaigns significantly because they are triggered by specific behaviors — the person receiving the email just did something that signals intent.

Welcome Flow (Full Series)

• Open rate: 45-65% (first email), declining to 30-40% by email 5
• Click rate: 8-15% (first email)
• Revenue per recipient: $1.50-$4.00 (full series)
• Conversion rate: 8-15% (full series)

The welcome flow is usually your highest-revenue flow. If yours is underperforming, the issue is typically a weak offer or too long a delay before the first email.

Abandoned Cart Flow

• Open rate: 40-55%
• Click rate: 8-15%
• Revenue per recipient: $3.00-$8.00
• Recovery rate: 5-12% of abandoned carts

Abandoned cart is the workhorse. It should be your second or third highest-revenue flow. If recovery rate is below 5%, check your timing (first email within 1 hour), offer structure, and product block display.

Browse Abandonment Flow

• Open rate: 35-45%
• Click rate: 4-8%
• Revenue per recipient: $0.50-$2.00
• Conversion rate: 2-5%

Browse abandonment has lower intent than cart abandonment (they looked but did not add to cart). Expectations should be lower but it is still a significant revenue stream at scale.

Post-Purchase Flow

• Open rate: 50-65%
• Click rate: 5-10%
• Revenue per recipient: $0.80-$2.50
• Review conversion rate: 5-15% (if requesting reviews)

Post-purchase emails have the highest open rates because the customer is excited about their order. The revenue comes from cross-sells, upsells, and repeat purchase prompts later in the sequence.

Win-Back Flow

• Open rate: 20-30%
• Click rate: 2-5%
• Revenue per recipient: $0.30-$1.00
• Reactivation rate: 3-8%

Win-back targets lapsed customers, so engagement is naturally lower. A 5%+ reactivation rate is strong. Below 3% means your offer or timing needs adjustment.

Sunset Flow

• Open rate: 15-25%
• Click rate: 1-3%
• Re-engagement rate: 3-8%

Sunset targets your least engaged subscribers, so low metrics are expected. The purpose is filtering — keeping the few who respond and cleaning out the rest.

Revenue Attribution Benchmarks

What percentage of total store revenue should email generate? This varies by brand maturity and channel mix.

Early-stage brands (under $1M revenue): Email should drive 15-25% of total revenue. If below 15%, your email program is underbuilt.

Growth-stage brands ($1M-$5M): Email should drive 25-35% of total revenue. This is where well-built flows and consistent campaigns create serious impact.

Mature brands ($5M+): Email should drive 30-40%+ of total revenue. At this stage, email is the most profitable channel because it leverages a large owned audience.

Revenue split within email:

• Flows: 40-60% of email revenue (these run automatically)
• Campaigns: 40-60% of email revenue (these require manual sends)

If your flows contribute less than 40% of email revenue, you are missing automation opportunities. If campaigns contribute less than 30%, you are not sending enough.

Deliverability Benchmarks

These metrics indicate whether your emails are reaching inboxes:

• Bounce rate: Under 0.5% (hard bounces under 0.1%)
• Spam complaint rate: Under 0.08% (Google's threshold is 0.1%)
• Unsubscribe rate per campaign: Under 0.3%
• Inbox placement rate: Above 90% (95%+ is ideal)

If any of these are out of range, deliverability is limiting your performance regardless of how good your content is.

How to Interpret Your Numbers

Raw numbers without context are misleading. Here is how to think about benchmarks:

Compare within your industry. A 28% open rate is excellent for fashion but below average for pet products. Context matters.

Compare campaigns to campaigns and flows to flows. Flows will always outperform campaigns. Comparing them to each other is not useful.

Look at trends, not snapshots. One campaign with a 35% open rate followed by one with 20% means nothing. Look at the 30-day rolling average. Is it trending up or down?

Revenue per recipient is the ultimate metric. Open rates and click rates are leading indicators. Revenue per recipient is the outcome that matters. You can have low open rates but high revenue per recipient if the people who do open are highly qualified and ready to buy.

Benchmark against yourself first. Your own historical performance is the most relevant comparison. Are you improving month over month? That matters more than whether you match an industry average.

What to Do When You Are Below Benchmark

If specific metrics are underperforming:

Low open rates (below industry benchmark by 5+ points):

• Test subject lines aggressively (different formulas, lengths, personalization)
• Check deliverability (are you hitting spam?)
• Clean your list (sunset unengaged profiles)
• Verify sender name and domain are recognizable
• Check sending time against audience timezone

Low click rates (below industry benchmark by 2+ points):

• Simplify email design (one clear CTA, less clutter)
• Make buttons larger and more visible
• Improve product photography in emails
• Test different offers (discount vs. free shipping vs. gift)
• Reduce the distance from email open to CTA (put the CTA higher)

Low revenue per recipient:

• Segment more tightly (send more relevant offers to smaller groups)
• Improve product page conversion (the email drives traffic, the page closes the sale)
• Test different products featured in emails
• Add urgency (limited-time offers, low-stock callouts)
• Ensure mobile optimization (70%+ of opens are mobile)

High unsubscribe rate:

• Reduce frequency or segment by engagement level
• Improve content quality (are you providing value or just selling?)
• Check that signup expectations match email content
• Add a preference center (let people choose frequency and topics)

The Bottom Line

Benchmarks give you a target to aim for and a diagnostic tool when things are off. They are not gospel — every brand is different and context matters enormously.

Use these numbers to identify your biggest gaps. Then prioritize fixing the gap with the largest revenue impact. A brand with below-benchmark abandoned cart recovery has a clearer, faster path to more revenue than a brand trying to squeeze 2 extra points of open rate from campaigns.

Know where you stand. Fix what matters most. Then benchmark again in 90 days.

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Want a full audit of your Klaviyo performance against industry benchmarks? Book a free strategy call and we will analyze your metrics and identify the biggest opportunities.