Open rate is no longer a metric
Since Apple's Mail Privacy Protection, a large share of opens are machine-generated. Reporting open rate to a board in 2026 is reporting noise. It still has one use — comparing two subject lines within the same audience on the same day — and no other.
The metrics we report instead
Revenue per recipient (RPR). Total campaign revenue divided by emails delivered. The single best comparison metric because it is unaffected by list size.
Click-to-delivered rate. Real human intent. Track unique clickers, not total clicks, so one person clicking five links does not distort the number.
Conversion rate from click. Separates the email problem from the landing page problem. A high click rate with low conversion is rarely an email issue.
List growth net of churn. Subscribers gained minus unsubscribes, bounces and suppressions. Many programmes that look flat are actually shrinking.
Flow revenue share. Automated revenue as a percentage of total email revenue. Below 20% means there is money sitting in unbuilt automation.
Deliverability placement rate. Inbox versus spam versus promotions, measured with seed testing rather than assumed.
Complaint rate. Keep it under 0.1%. It is the leading indicator of a programme about to fall over.
Sensible UK benchmarks
These are broad ranges from accounts we manage — treat them as direction, not targets:
- Click-to-delivered: 1.5% to 3.5% for ecommerce campaigns, 3% to 8% for engaged B2B lists
- Unsubscribe rate: under 0.3% per campaign
- Flow revenue share: 25% to 40% for mature ecommerce
- Revenue per recipient: £0.10 to £0.60 for ecommerce campaigns
Attribution: agree the window first
Klaviyo defaults to a five-day click and one-day view window; GA4 will attribute differently again. Neither is wrong, but they will not match. Pick one as the number of record, document it, and report the other as context.
Build a report people read
One page. Revenue and RPR at the top, trend against last period, three things that worked, one thing being fixed next month. Anyone who wants the detail can open the appendix.
Our campaign reporting service sets this up as a live dashboard so you are not rebuilding a deck every month.