Email Marketing Benchmarks: August 2026

These are our August 2026 email marketing benchmarks: real data from 10 e-commerce brands and 7.2 million emails. The headline: email revenue rose 14.7% to $790,850, and every dollar of the increase came from flows. Flow revenue jumped 45.5% (+$119K) while campaign revenue slipped 4.2% (-$18K) despite 39% more campaign sends. The flow multiplier snapped back from 12.7x to 20.9x.

Across 10 brands and 7.23 million emails in August, the portfolio generated $790,850 in email-attributed revenue. Campaigns drove 51.8% of email revenue, flows 48.2%, the closest the split has been to even all year. The flow share climbed from 38.0% to 48.2% in a single month.

August is July's story in reverse. July proved that cutting campaign volume 20% could hold revenue flat because per-recipient value rose. August ran the opposite experiment: campaign recipients surged 39.0% and campaign revenue fell anyway, with campaign RPR down 31.1%. Meanwhile flows scaled volume and efficiency at the same time: 28.5% more flow recipients at 13.2% higher RPR. Email drove 28.9% of total store revenue, holding flat even as store revenue rose 16.7%.

August at a Glance

Portfolio: 10 brands · 7 verticals · $790,850 total email revenue · 7.23M recipients

Revenue split: Campaigns $409,552 (51.8%) · Flows $381,298 (48.2%)

Roster note: 10 active brands this month vs. 12 in July. A Growth-tier Health & Wellness brand left the portfolio at the end of July, and an Emerging-tier Beauty brand had no August send activity. All prior-month comparisons in this post are restated to the 10 continuing brands (and reflect Klaviyo attribution settling since the July edition published), so they differ from the 12-brand totals in the July post.

Scorecard

vs. July: Total email revenue rose 14.7% ($690K → $791K on the restated 10-brand basis), and the composition of that gain is the story of the month. Flow revenue jumped from $262.0K to $381.3K (+45.5%) while campaign revenue slipped from $427.7K to $409.6K (-4.2%), lifting the flow share from 38.0% to 48.2%. Campaign recipients surged 39.0% (4.98M → 6.92M) and campaign RPR fell from $0.086 to $0.059 (-31.1%). Flow recipients rose 28.5% (240K → 309K) and flow RPR still climbed from $1.09 to $1.24 (+13.2%). That two-sided move expanded the flow multiplier from 12.7x back to 20.9x. Email attribution held flat at 28.9% as total store revenue rose 16.7%.

vs. Industry Benchmarks

How does this portfolio compare to Klaviyo's published industry averages?

Campaign open rates sit about 5 points above industry. Click and conversion rates remain below industry averages, and August widened the gap: campaign click fell 25% as recipients rose 39%, the audience-breadth tradeoff we documented in February and March operating at full force. The flow open rate ticked up to 39.87%, still trailing the 48.57% industry flow benchmark.

Email attribution came in at 28.9%, above the ~27% industry benchmark on the restated 10-brand roster. Store revenue rose 16.7% across the portfolio this month and email revenue rose 14.7% right alongside it, so email held its share of a growing pie. Individual brand attribution ranges from 6.5% to 45.4%.

Klaviyo Benchmark Ratings (Campaigns)

Klaviyo benchmarks every account against similar-sized senders. Here's how our 10 brands stacked up on campaigns:

Flows distribution:

The familiar split holds: deliverability metrics skew Good or Excellent, performance metrics skew Poor, the audience-breadth math we explored in February's Spotlight on the click rate gap. Campaign bounce rate is the strongest line this month: 8 of 10 brands rate Good or Excellent even after the 39% volume push. Campaign click rate held at 6 of 10 Good or Excellent despite the weighted rate falling, because the dilution is concentrated in the largest sender rather than spread across the roster. The weak spot is flow spam complaint rate: 6 of 10 brands rate Poor, mostly small-volume flows where a handful of complaints moves the rate, but two brands crossed the 0.1% line and go on the watch list.

The Flow Multiplier

We track what we call the Flow Multiplier: flow RPR divided by campaign RPR. For every dollar a campaign generates per recipient, how many dollars does a flow generate?

Range: 3.4x to 63.7x across all 10 brands. Median: 13.7x. The portfolio aggregate expanded from 12.7x back to 20.9x, retracing most of July's record compression, and again both sides of the ratio moved: flow RPR rose 13.2% ($1.09 → $1.24) while campaign RPR fell 31.1% ($0.086 → $0.059). The campaign side of that ratio is a volume story, the largest brand's campaign list expansion diluted the weighted average, which we unpack in this month's Spotlight below.

Distribution: 3 brands at 30x or higher, 4 brands in the 10x–30x range, 1 brand in the 5x–10x range, and 2 brands under 5x. The top multiplier belongs to the Beauty brand, whose flows earned $22.39 per recipient this month against $0.35 for its campaigns. The 3.4x at the bottom is the same campaign-strength story as July: that Food & Bev brand's campaigns earned $0.90 per recipient (91st percentile in Klaviyo's ratings), so its flows only look ordinary by comparison.

The Benchmarks

Here are the full email marketing benchmarks for August, broken down by revenue, engagement, deliverability, and the flow vs. campaign split.

Revenue

Total email-attributed revenue across the portfolio: $790,850.

Campaigns drove $409,552 (51.8%). Flows drove $381,298 (48.2%). The flow share jumped from 38.0% in July to 48.2%, the highest of the year, as the largest brand (Home Goods) came out of its seasonal trough through its automations first: its flow revenue rose 63% month-over-month, which accounts for 68% of the portfolio's entire flow-revenue gain.

Campaigns went to 6.92M recipients. Flows went to 309K. Flows generated $1.24 per recipient vs. $0.06 for campaigns, a 20.9x portfolio-level gap, up from July's 12.7x.

Revenue by Vertical (Email-Attributed)

The largest Scale-tier brand remains the gravity well of the portfolio, and it got heavier: $433K of $791K in email revenue (55%), 5.00M of 7.23M recipients (69%). Its recovery from the summer trough, felt first in flows, is the single biggest driver of the portfolio's revenue step-up, and its campaign list expansion drives most of the aggregate rate moves this month.

Notable vertical stories this month: the Beauty brand grew email revenue 49% ($60.2K → $89.6K) on flows alone, its flow revenue doubled to $66.2K on essentially flat flow volume, and it posted the portfolio's top attribution at 45.4%. An Apparel brand's campaign revenue rose 157% ($9.5K → $24.5K) on just 8% more recipients. The B2B brand grew campaign revenue 35% on 2% fewer recipients, the tighter-sends playbook still working where it's applied.

Engagement

Open Rate: Portfolio weighted average 43.09% (campaigns 43.24%, flows 39.87%). Range: 36.27% to 59.69% for campaigns.

Open rates barely moved month-over-month: campaigns eased from 43.43% to 43.24% while flows ticked up from 39.41% to 39.87%. Six of 10 brands rate Good or Excellent on campaign open rate. As always, Apple's Mail Privacy Protection inflates these numbers; the signal is downstream, and downstream is where August diverged.

Click Rate: Portfolio weighted average 0.52% (campaigns). Range: 0.35% to 2.27%. Klaviyo's industry average is 1.29%.

Campaign click rate fell 25% month-over-month (0.70% → 0.52%) as campaign recipients rose 39%, the signature of broader audiences, and the exact mirror of July's move. Two of 10 brands rate Poor for campaign click rate, the larger-list senders where the audience math compresses rates, the same pattern from February's Spotlight on the click rate gap.

Conversion Rate: Campaign average 0.02%. Flow average 0.38%. Flows convert at roughly 15x the rate of campaigns, a similar gap to July's because both sides fell together: campaign conversion dropped 24.9% and flow conversion 10.1%.

Month-over-month: The pattern is dilution, July's concentration play run in reverse. Campaign recipients rose 39.0%, and every campaign quality metric fell: click rate 0.70% → 0.52%, conversion rate down 24.9%, RPR down 31.1%. The flow side is the counterpoint: flow recipients rose 28.5% and flow RPR still rose 13.2%, because flow volume grows when buyer activity grows. Triggered sends scale with intent; broadcast sends scale with list size.

Deliverability

Unsubscribe Rate: 0.13% portfolio average, down from 0.16% in July. Six brands rate Good or Excellent on campaigns, and one rates Poor. The campaign-side rate fell from 0.14% to 0.11% even with 39% more volume, evidence the added recipients were re-engaged rather than annoyed.

Bounce Rate: 0.41% campaign portfolio average, up from 0.33%, the one deliverability metric that paid for the volume push. Eight brands still rate Good or Excellent for campaigns, and two rate Poor, both just under 1%. Flow bounce improved: only one brand rates Poor on flows this month (Jewelry, at 1.90%), down from three in July.

Spam Complaint Rate: 0.006% campaign portfolio average, improved from 0.009% and well below the 0.1% ISP danger line. Seven of 10 brands rate Good or Excellent on the campaign side. The flow side is this month's watch item: 6 of 10 brands rate Poor, and two small-volume senders crossed the 0.1% line on flows, where a handful of complaints against a few hundred sends moves the rate fast.

Deliverability held up under a 39% volume increase, which is the real test of the list hygiene work: unsubs fell, spam fell, and only bounce rate ticked up as sends reached deeper into the lists.

Flows vs. Campaigns

The core comparison:

The per-recipient gap widened back to 20.9x (from 12.7x), and once again both sides of the ratio moved. Flow RPR rose 13.2% as automations caught the demand recovery. Campaign RPR fell 31.1% as sends grew faster than the buyers behind them. The underlying relationship still holds: flows earn far more per recipient, campaigns reach far more people, and a healthy program runs both. August is what it looks like when the flow side does the earning.

Spotlight: All of August's Growth Came From Flows

The portfolio added $101K in email revenue this month (+14.7%). Decompose that gain and it stops being a portfolio story: flows added $119K while campaigns gave back $18K. Flows delivered 118% of the net increase. The channel that runs in the background, with no calendar, no creative sprint, and no send-day decision, carried the entire month.

What makes that worth a Spotlight is what the campaign side was doing at the same time: sending more than ever. Campaign recipients rose 39.0% (4.98M → 6.92M), the biggest volume increase in this series, and campaign revenue fell 4.2% anyway. In aggregate, the marginal campaign email in August was worth less than zero.

Where the volume went

The surge is concentrated. The Home Goods brand added 1.70M campaign recipients (+53%), which is 88% of the portfolio's entire campaign-volume increase, and its campaign revenue fell 15.6% ($265K → $224K) as its campaign RPR nearly halved ($0.084 → $0.046). Reaching deeper into a large list during a demand recovery captured more inboxes, not more buyers: the buyers were already being caught downstream.

The counterexamples prove it wasn't a bad month for campaigns as a craft. The B2B brand grew campaign revenue 35% on 2% fewer recipients, lifting its campaign RPR 38% to $0.21. An Apparel brand grew campaign revenue 157% on 8% more recipients. Where sends stayed matched to audience quality, campaign economics improved. Where volume ran ahead of intent, they diluted.

Where the revenue came from

The flow side scaled volume and efficiency together, which broadcast sending almost never does. Flow recipients rose 28.5% and flow RPR still rose 13.2%, because flow volume is demand-driven: welcome, cart, and browse sends only fire when someone shows up. Three brands tell most of the story:

• Home Goods: flow revenue up 63% ($128K → $209K), which is 68% of the portfolio's flow gain. Flow recipients nearly doubled (+95%) as traffic returned from the summer trough, and flow RPR held most of its value ($2.15 → $1.80). Same brand, same month: campaigns diluted at +53% volume while flows scaled at +95%.
• Beauty: flow revenue doubled ($33.0K → $66.2K) on just 6% more flow recipients. Flow RPR jumped from $11.88 to $22.39, and the brand now carries the portfolio's highest flow multiplier at 63.7x.
• Jewelry: flow revenue up 89% ($9.9K → $18.6K) with flow RPR up 66% to $11.66, more than offsetting a campaign pullback.

The mechanism matters. Store revenue across the portfolio rose 16.7% in August as seasonal brands came off their summer lows. Flows are wired to that recovery automatically: more visitors means more triggers means more sends to people mid-purchase-decision, at near-constant per-recipient value. Campaigns have no such governor. The 39% volume increase was a choice, and in aggregate the choice returned less money than sending fewer emails would have.

Read this next to July's edition and the pair makes one argument from both directions. July: campaign recipients down 20%, revenue flat, RPR up 25%. August: campaign recipients up 39%, revenue down 4%, RPR down 31%. Two consecutive natural experiments, same conclusion. Campaign revenue tracks audience quality, not audience size, and when demand comes back, the highest-leverage move is making sure your flows are ready to catch it.

How to Read This Report

This report aggregates anonymized data from 10 e-commerce brands managed by our agency. Brands are identified by vertical and revenue tier:

• Emerging: <$25K/mo in email-attributed revenue
• Growth: $25K–$100K/mo
• Scale: $100K+/mo

Klaviyo Benchmark Ratings compare each brand's metrics against Klaviyo's industry percentiles:

• Excellent = 75th–100th percentile
• Good = 50th–75th percentile
• Fair = 25th–50th percentile
• Poor = 0–25th percentile

Weighted averages weight each brand by recipient count, so larger senders have proportionally more influence on portfolio metrics. The largest Scale-tier brand, with 5.00M of the portfolio's 7.23M recipients, carries the most weight, and this month its campaign expansion is the main force behind the aggregate campaign-rate declines.

Revenue figures are Klaviyo-attributed (last-touch email attribution with Klaviyo's default attribution window). These numbers represent revenue that Klaviyo attributes to email, not total store revenue.

This is the eighth edition of our monthly email marketing benchmarks report. Historical comparisons reference July 2026 data, June 2026 data, May 2026 data, April 2026 data, March 2026 data, February 2026 data, and January 2026 data.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did campaign revenue fall when campaign sends rose 39%?

Because the added volume reached lower-intent audiences. Campaign recipients rose from 4.98M to 6.92M while campaign RPR fell 31.1% ($0.086 → $0.059), so the extra 1.94M sends produced less total revenue, not more. The increase was concentrated in one brand: the portfolio's largest sender (Home Goods) added 1.70M campaign recipients (+53%) and its campaign revenue fell 15.6%. Brands that kept sends tight went the other way: the B2B brand grew campaign revenue 35% on 2% fewer recipients.

Where did the $119K flow revenue surge come from?

Mostly from demand recovering and automations catching it. The Home Goods brand's flow revenue rose 63% ($128K → $209K) as its flow recipients nearly doubled with returning traffic, accounting for 68% of the portfolio's flow gain. The Beauty brand doubled flow revenue to $66.2K on nearly flat flow volume (flow RPR $11.88 → $22.39), and the Jewelry brand grew flow revenue 89%. Portfolio-wide, flow recipients rose 28.5% and flow RPR still rose 13.2%.

What is the flow multiplier and why did it rebound to 20.9x?

Flow multiplier is flow RPR divided by campaign RPR: how many dollars a flow earns per recipient for every dollar a campaign earns per recipient. It rebounded from 12.7x in July to 20.9x in August because both sides of the ratio moved: flow RPR rose from $1.09 to $1.24 (+13.2%) while campaign RPR fell from $0.086 to $0.059 (-31.1%) under the campaign volume surge. The August per-brand range was 3.4x to 63.7x, with a median of 13.7x.

Why is click rate so far below the industry average?

Audience size. Click rate has a mathematical relationship with how many people you send to: the larger the audience, the lower the rate. Klaviyo's industry average (1.29%) is computed across senders of all sizes; our portfolio is weighted toward larger lists where rate metrics naturally compress. August's 0.52% fell 25% month-over-month precisely because campaign sends grew 39%, the same relationship that pushed the rate up in July when sends shrank. Total clicks and total revenue are the metrics that actually matter at scale, which we explored fully in February's Spotlight.

How does this benchmark compare to my own brand?

Compare your own metrics against the table in this post and against your Klaviyo benchmark percentiles. The most useful single comparison is your flow multiplier: flow RPR divided by campaign RPR. The August portfolio range was 3.4x to 63.7x, with a median of 13.7x. If you want a deeper read tailored to your brand, get in touch.