Understanding benchmarks in Klaviyo

read
Last updated at:

Overview

Learn how benchmarks allow you to analyze your account data in relation to Klaviyo best practices, industry trends, and companies similar to your own. By seeing how different aspects of your account perform, you can prioritize efforts in areas that need improvement in order to use Klaviyo to its maximum potential.

Benchmarks prerequisites

Email

In order to see benchmarks, you must meet our eligibility requirement of having sent at least 25 emails in the last six months. Any account that provides its industry will be able to see industry-level benchmarks. Benchmarks are updated with new data on the 10th of every month. You will see a timestamp of when your benchmarks were last updated in the upper right. If you become eligible for benchmarks this month, your benchmarks will not be available until next month.

Klaviyo formulates peer group benchmarks by using information on your industry and vertical. Peer groups are a set of one hundred companies that are similar to your own in size and scope (e.g., average item value, total revenue, year over year growth rate, percent of days with a campaign sent and email revenue percentage). Your industry and vertical information is stored on the Organization page under Contact Information. For details on how to update this organizational information, head to How to Update Your Industry and Vertical in Klaviyo.

SMS

Similar to email, SMS campaign benchmarks, requires that you have sent at least 25 SMS messages. You will be unable to see peer group data or industry data in SMS campaign benchmarks If you do not meet this eligibility criteria.

This article explains the different benchmarking pages and how to read them. For information on how to customize the tables and graphs in each page, head to How to Customize Your Benchmark Pages. For strategic guidance on using your Analytics tab, head to our course on Customizing Your Analytics Experience.

Accessing benchmarks

To access benchmarks, head to the Analytics tab, located in the left-hand navigation.

Then, select Benchmarks. You will arrive at the benchmarks overview page, but can navigate to other pages and refine what type of messaging you want to review.

Inside of the Analytics page showing Metrics, Custom Reports, and Benchmarks sections to click into for further reporting options

Within the benchmarks tab, there are four separate pages that allow you to analyze your data in relation to other companies similar to your own. These pages include:

  • Overview
  • Business Performance
  • Email Campaign Performance
  • SMS Campaign Performance
  • Flow Performance
  • Signup Forms Performance

With the release of iOS15, macOS Monterey, iPadOS 15, and WatchOS 8, Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) changed the way that we receive open rate data on your emails by prefetching our tracking pixel. With this change, it’s important to understand that open rates will be inflated.

To see if your opens are affected, we suggest creating a custom report that includes an MPP property. You can also identify these opens in your individual subscriber segments.

For complete information on MPP opens, visit our iOS 15: How to Prepare for Apple’s Changes guide.

Benchmarks overview page

When you select Benchmarks, you will arrive at the overview page by default. The Overview page displays a quick summary of what aspects of your marketing program are performing well and what aspects are performing poorly.

The Explore Benchmarks section provides links over to the Business Performance, Email Campaigns, SMS Campaigns, and Flows benchmark reports. You can also navigate to these same pages by clicking on any of the corresponding tabs at the top.

Inside the Benchmarks Overview page with explore benchmarks shortcuts at top and performance benchmarks listed below this

The Top Performing Metrics section displays your top-most metrics, ranked in order of decreasing percentiles. Meanwhile, your Bottom Performing Metrics shows your bottom five performing metrics, ranked in order of increasing percentiles. Both tables will also show the raw output values of each of your performance metrics.

Understanding how the Business, Campaign, and Flow Performance pages organize data

The business, campaign, and flow performance pages allow you to dig deeper into more specific data for a focused analysis. To navigate into any of these, click on the associated tab.

Benchmarks toolbar at the top of the page showing overview, business, email campaign, sms campaign, flows, and signup form sections

In any of these pages, you will see a graph and table of data trends across different performance indicators over time. They also include the same two display options for your data either in a bar chart or line chart.

Tables

The default table view summarizes account performance for the entire time period selected per metric. This view is helpful in that it provides a raw value for each metric, as well as a visual performance indicator.

Standard view

Upon landing on any table view, you will automatically see the following columns and values:

  • Metric
    The metrics we've chosen that represent the performance of your account. Examples include open rate, click rate, and repeat customer rate.
  • Performance
    Connotes how well each performance indicator has functioned in relation to your peer group. These statuses are poor, fair, good, and excellent. For more information on what statuses entail and how to level up, head to How to Improve Your Benchmark Results.
  • Your Value
    The raw amount equated to the given performance indicator; e.g., for average order value, you will see that exact monetary value for your business.
  • Peer Median
    The value attributed to companies in the middle tier of performance. Half of the companies perform better than the median, and half perform worse.

Inside the Email Performance page showing metric performance, benchmarks, your value, and peer medians

Detailed table view

To view more values and performance indicators associated with your metric, toggle on the option for Detailed View on the upper right side above the table.
On the Email Performance page with Detailed View toggled on in the upper right

Once this has been toggled on, you will see additional performance indicators populate in the table including:

  • Your Percentile
    Where you rank in relation to your peers within your designated peer group. For example, if you are in the 75th percentile, your company ranked higher than 75% of other similar companies. We report the 25th, 50th (median), and 75th percentiles.
  • 25th Percentile
    The value attributed to companies in the lowest tier of performance.
  • 75th Percentile
    The value attributed to companies in the highest tier of performance.

    Inside the Business Performance page showing metrics, performance, values, percentiles, and peer medians and percentiles in list

Graphs

The different graphs will show your own performance, the median performance of your industry, and the median performance of your peer group.

In each graph you will see different colors that represent different performance indicators including:

  • Green
    Represents your own performance for that given metric.
  • Dark Blue
    Represents the median performance of your peer group.
  • Teal
    Represents the median performance of your entire industry.
  • Dashed Blue Line
    Where applicable, the dashed blue line represents Klaviyo guidance or best practices for values to hit.

The different chart styles include:

  • Bar Graph
    In the bar graph, compare your rates in comparison to those of your peers and industry in bars lined up next to each other. Each bar grouping will display according to the time range you choose.

View of a bar graph performance example view with chart displayed by average cart size monthly

  • Line Graph
    In the line graph, compare your trends over time in comparison to those of your peers and industry data. Each plot point represents the data for a given set of time (e.g., each month), and they connect to give a visualization of your results over time so that you can easily see where you rise or fall in performance. It’s important to note that you can only view the line chart if you are viewing more than one time period (e.g. multiple weeks in a quarter, months, or years).

How we calculate your rates

Rates in benchmarks’ data represent the averages over a specific time period (e.g., last month). These averaged benchmark rates include:

  • open rates
  • click rates
  • click through rate
  • placed order rate
  • email revenue per recipient
  • bounce rate
  • spam rate
  • unsubscribe rate

For example, say you are looking at your click rate metrics for the last quarter. If your first campaign has 50 deliveries and 25 recipients click, it would have a click rate of 50%. And say your second campaign has 100 deliveries, and only 20 recipients click, it would have a click rate of 20%.

Instead of averaging these together to get a click rate of 35%, we combine the data from both campaigns and then calculate the overall click rate. To do this, we take the clicks from the first campaign plus the clicks from the second campaign, divided by deliveries from the first campaign plus deliveries from the second campaign. In this case, this would look like click rate = (25+20)/(50+100) = 30%.

Using the business performance page

The Business Performance page provides a breakdown of key performance indicators pertaining to overall business health, so that you can monitor trends over time and focus on areas that need improvement. Here you will see a table, graph, and line chart outlining the areas of the business in which you excel and those that need to improve.

Displaying your data

By default, your Business Performance page will show a standard table view as in the example below.

Default view of Business Performance page shoting metric, benchmarks, your value, and peer median in list below

You can also choose to expose the data for percentiles by toggling the option for Detailed View in the upper right side.


Additional data display options

In the top right of your Business Performance table, you will see three options for viewing your data: bar graph, line chart, or table. Toggle between the three options and view your data in a way that makes the most sense to you. You can choose to see your data displayed as a table, line chart, or bar graph.

Three icons representing bar, chat, and table option views of your data

If you choose to display your data as a bar graph or a line chart, you will be shown the same data from the standard table view. This data includes your own performance, the median performance of your peer group, and the median for your entire industry.

Example of a line chart on the Business Performance page showing average cart size monthly
Example of a bar chart on the Business Performance page showing average cart size monthly

For the bar and line chart options, hover over the chart itself to see a breakdown of the data for your account, peer group, and industry. Additionally, you will see a status (Excellent, Good, Fair, or Poor) that rates your performance in comparison to Klaviyo best practices and your peer group.

Example of hovering over one of the bar charts on the Business Performance page to show data for peer group, industry, and benchmark performance

Performance Indicators and Values

In the Business Performance table view, you will see data around the following performance indicators:

  • Average Cart Size
    Average number of items in your customers' carts during the time period selected
  • Average Order Count
    Average number of orders customers have made over all time up until the end of the period selected
  • Average Order Value
    Average US dollar value of carts during the time period selected
  • % of Orders Returned
    Percentage of orders where a return was made

On the line chart and bar graph options, you will need to choose the appropriate performance indicator from the dropdown menu above the visualization.

Example of the dropdown on any performance page to choose different metric option

Using the Email Campaign Performance page

The Email Campaign Performance page provides a breakdown of key performance indicators that specifically relate to email marketing and deliverability. On this page, you can monitor your performance to ensure that you retain high deliverability and that your content resonates with your audience. The page contains a table, bar graph, and line chart outlining the areas where your email campaigns excel and where they need to improve.

Displaying your data

By default, your Email Campaigns page will show a table view as shown in the example below. 

Inside the Campaign Performance page showing metrics, benchmark performance, your values, percentile and peer median

You can also choose to expose the data for percentiles by toggling the option for Detailed View on the upper right side.

Inside the Email Campaign Performance page with Detailed View option toggled on

 

Performance indicators and values

One table outlines your marketing performance while the other shows deliverability performance. 

For marketing performance, you will see data around the following performance indicators:

  • Open Rate
    Percentage of people who open your email out of those who receive it
  • Click Rate
    Percentage of people who click a link in your email out of the people who receive your email
  • Click Through Rate
    Percentage of people who click a link in your email out of the people who open your email
  • Conversion Rate
    Percentage of people who place an order after interacting with your email out of the people who receive your email
  • Email Revenue Per Recipient
    Your total revenue attributed to email for a given timeframe divided by the total number of people who received an email within that time frame to give you a sense of how much revenue you're earning on average for each recipient

For deliverability performance, you will see data around the following performance indicators:

  • Bounce Rate
    Percentage of times your email bounces
  • Spam Report Rate
    Percentage of people who report your email as spam out of those who receive your email
  • Unsubscribe Rate
    Percentage of people who unsubscribe out of the people who receive your email

On the line chart and bar graph options, choose the appropriate performance indicator from the dropdown menu above the visualization.

Inside the Email Campaign Performance page showing different performance metrics to choose from

 

Additional data display options

In the top right of your Business Performance table, you will see three options for viewing your data: bar graph, line chart, or table. Toggle between the three options and view your data in a way that makes the most sense to you. You can choose to see your data displayed as a table, line chart, or bar graph.

Three icons representing bar, line, or table view options for data

If you choose to display your data as a bar graph or a line chart, you will be shown the same data from the standard table view. This data includes your own performance, the median performance of your peer group, and the median for your entire industry.

Example of a line graph inside the Email Campaign Performance page showing open rate data monthly

Example of a bar graph inside the Email Campaign Performance page showing open rate monthly

For the bar and line chart options, hover over the chart itself to see a breakdown of the data for your account, peer group, and industry. Additionally, you will see a status (Excellent, Good, Fair, or Poor) that rates your performance in comparison to Klaviyo best practices and your peer group.

Example of hovering over one of the bar charts on the Email Campaign Performance page to show data for peer group, industry, and benchmark performance

Using the SMS Campaigns page

The SMS Campaigns page provides a breakdown of your SMS key performance indicators specifically associated with your SMS marketing and deliverability performance. Here, you can monitor your trends over time and focus on areas that need improvement in your SMS marketing strategy. You will see a graph outlining trends over time and tables showcasing how your SMS metrics perform.

Displaying your data

By default, your SMS Campaigns page will show a table view as in the example below.

Inside the SMS Campaign Performance page showing metrics, benchmark performance, your value, and klaviyo guidance in list

Additional display options

Under Marketing and Deliverability Performance, you will see three options for viewing your data: bar graph, line chart, or table.

Toggle between the three options and view your data in a way that makes the most sense to you. You can choose to see your data displayed as a table, line chart, or bar graph.

Bar, table, or graph icons to choose different options for displaying data

If you choose to display your data as a bar graph or a line chart, you will be shown the same data from the standard table view. This data includes your own performance in green and a dashed blue line on both of these charts that represents Klaviyo guidance or best practices for values to hit.

Example of a line chart inside the SMS Campaign Performance page showing click rate data monthly

Example of a bar graph chart inside the SMS Campaign Performance page showing click rate data monthly

For the bar and line chart options, hover over the chart itself to see a breakdown of the data for your account, peer group, and industry. Additionally, you will see a status (Excellent, Good, Fair, or Poor) that rates your performance in comparison to Klaviyo best practices and your peer group.

Example of hovering over one of the bar charts on the SMS Campaign Performance page to show data for peer group, industry, and benchmark performance

Performance indicators and values

If you click the table icon, you will see how you perform across the following metrics:

  • Click Rate
    Percentage of people who click a link in your SMS out of the total people who receive your SMS
  • Conversion Rate
    Percentage of people who place an order after clicking a link in your SMS out of the people who receive your SMS
  • Revenue Per Recipient/Message
    The total revenue attributed to SMS divided by the total number of people who received your SMS within that time frame
  • Unsubscribe Rate
    Percentage of people who unsubscribe out of the people who receive your SMS

On the line chart and bar graph options, choose the appropriate performance indicator from the dropdown menu above the visualization.

Dropdown menu inside the SMS Campaign Performance page showing options for different performance metrics to choose

Using the Flows page

The Flows page hones in on your flow data to showcase your performance over time and in relation to other companies similar to your own. On this page, you can focus on specific flows, such as a welcome series or abandoned cart flow, to track their success over time and view where areas of improvement lie.

Inside the Flows Performance page showing overall flows, welcome series, abandoned and browse abandonment, and thank you flow examples to click into

Here, you will see a graph and four tables outlining the areas of your flows that you excel in and those that need improvement. You can view data around the following key flows:

  • Welcome Series
  • Abandoned Cart
  • Browse Abandonment
  • Customer Thank You or Post-Purchase
Klaviyo will automatically identify the correct flow for each of the above flow types. For example, for Abandoned Cart, we find flows triggered by a customer adding an item to their cart but not placing an order. If you have multiple flows for a given flow type, Benchmarks will display the flow with the most sent emails in the last month. If Benchmarks identifies an incorrect flow, you can update the flow by following the instructions laid out in the Flow Performance section of How to Customize Your Benchmarks Pages.

Displaying your data

Under each table, you will be able to toggle open the appropriate benchmarks and data. For example, the table below shows overall performance over the last three months across all flows.
Inside the Flows Performance page showing metrics, benchmark performance, your value, and peer median value in list

You can also choose to expose the data for percentiles by toggling the upper right side the option for Detailed View.
Inside the Flows Performance page with Detailed View option toggled on in upper right

Additional display options

Under Marketing and Deliverability Performance, you will see three options for viewing your data: bar graph, line chart, or table.

Toggle between the three options and view your data in a way that makes the most sense to you. You can choose to see your data displayed as a table, line chart, or bar graph.

Three icons for chart, line, or table view options to display data

If you choose to display your data as a bar graph or a line chart, you will be shown the same data from the standard table view. This data includes your own performance in green and a dashed blue line on both of these charts that represents Klaviyo guidance or best practices for values to hit.

Example inside the Flows Performance page showing a line chart for overall flows data monthly

Example inside the Flows Performance page showing a bar graph chart for overall flows data monthly

For the bar and line chart options, hover over the chart itself to see a breakdown of the data for your account, peer group, and industry. Additionally, you will see a status (Excellent, Good, Fair, or Poor) that rates your performance in comparison to Klaviyo best practices and your peer group.

Example of hovering over one of the bar charts on the Flows Performance page to show data for peer group, industry, and benchmark performance

Performance indicators and values

The performance indicators available to view in your flow performance table and graphs include:

  • Open Rate
    Percentage of people who open your email out of those who receive it
  • Click Rate
    Percentage of people who click a link in your email out of the people who receive your email
  • Click Through Rate
    Percentage of people who click a link in your email out of the people who open your email
  • Conversion Rate
    Percentage of people who place an order after interacting with your email out of the people who receive your email
  • Email Revenue Per Recipient
    Your total revenue attributed to email for a given timeframe divided by the total number of people who received an email within that time frame to give you a sense of how much revenue you're earning on average for each recipient
  • Spam Report Rate
    Percentage of people who report your email as spam out of those who receive your email
  • Unsubscribe Rate
    Percentage of people who unsubscribe out of the people who receive your email
  • Bounce Rate
    Percentage of times your email bounces

Using the Signup Forms page

The Signup Forms page provides a view of your popups’ success through the submit rates and comparing your results to peer benchmarks. These peer benchmarks can help you recognize where you may be falling short with each of your forms.

Benchmarks data is currently only available for popup forms. Flyout and embedded forms are not supported on this performance page.

Displaying your data

Default view

By default, your Signup Forms page will show a table view, as in the example below. Since form performance is only tied to submit rate, that will be the only conversion metric used. Your submit rate is the total number of form submissions divided by the total number of form views, in a particular time period.

You will see a raw percentage of submit rates and your performance against the peer group median.

View of default benchmarks chart with submit rate and benchmark status of excellent

Additionally, we will then ascribe one of the following performance statuses to your rate:

  • Poor
    The submit rate is less than the 25th percentile for the peer group
  • Fair
    The submit rate is between the 25th and 50th percentiles for the peer group
  • Good
    The submit rate is between the 50th and 75th percentiles for the peer group
  • Excellent
    The submit rate is greater than the 75th percentile for the peer group

You can find the submit rates for a particular form by choosing it from the dropdown menu.

Dropdown menu inside the Signup Forms Performance page showing options for different metrics to choose from

Note that this list only includes popup forms and is organized alphabetically. Forms that are still in draft mode will display with the gray icon and live forms with the green icon. If a draft form has never been published, it will not display any data.

You can also adjust the date range to pull in data for a given time period.

Dropdown menu inside the Signup Forms Performance page showing options for choosing different data time range

Detailed view

To expose additional data for benchmarks percentiles, toggle the option for Detailed View in the upper right side.

Inside Signup forms performance page showing Detailed View option toggled on in upper right

The Detailed View table will show your overall submit rate percentile, and where you land in the 25th, median, and 75th percentiles. The 25th percentile is the value attributed to companies in the lowest tier, the median is the value attributed to companies in the middle tier, and the 75th percentile is the value attributed to companies in the highest tier of performance. In other words, if your percentile is in the 70th, this means that you performed better than 70% of similar peers.
Inside Signup forms performance page showing Detailed View option toggled on and submit rate, benchmark performance, your percentile, peer percentiles, and peer median data

Additional display options
At the top right, you will see 3 icons for viewing your data. Toggle between the 3 options and view your data in a way that makes the most sense to you. You can choose to display your data as a table, line chart, or bar graph.

Three icons for table, bar, and chart options for displaying data

If you choose a bar graph or a line chart, you will be shown the same data from the standard table view. This data includes your own performance in green, your peer group in dark blue, and your industry in teal.

Example inside the Signup Forms Performance page showing bar graph option for specific form with data displayed monthly

Example inside the Signup Forms Performance page showing line graph option for specific form with data displayed monthly

Note that the line chart will only appear for time periods longer than one month.

For the bar and line chart options, hover over the chart itself to see a breakdown of the data for your account, peer group, and industry. Additionally, you will see a status (Excellent, Good, Fair, or Poor) that rates your performance against your peer group.

Example of hovering over one of the bar charts on the Signup Performance page to show data for peer group, industry, and benchmark performanc

Learning from benchmarks results

It is important to learn from your benchmarking data and make necessary adjustments to grow your business. For performance indicators that rank as poor or fair, dig deeper into why that is the case. Then, build a strategy that you can implement to amend those shortcomings and expand upon areas that are best serving your brand.

For information on how to improve benchmarks that are not to your liking, head to How to Improve Your Benchmark Performance.

Additional Resources

x
Was this article helpful?
56 out of 72 found this helpful