Why does regular AOV review matter?
If you want your business to grow, paying attention to your average order value (AOV) is a must. Whether you’re running campaigns, sending flows, or testing new channels, you should always be asking: is this making people spend more per order?
But reviewing AOV once and moving on doesn’t cut it. Rather, use a feedback loop where you:
- Regularly check your numbers.
- Spot what’s working (and what’s not).
- Try small changes.
- And improve, step by step, month after month.
Let’s dive into how to build this AOV review process. We’ll cover the basics, some advanced techniques, and a setup you can use to always keep improving.
Evaluate and benchmark AOV
Within Klaviyo, there are a number of metrics you can look at to evaluate the impact of your strategy on average AOV. Click through the dropdowns below to learn about some key performance indicators (KPIs) and how to interpret them.
Evaluate message impact on AOV
Your business review dashboard serves as your single source of truth for campaign and flow performance. Use this dashboard to monitor:
- Campaign AOV over a specified time period
- Flow AOV over a specified time period
Identify AOV trends
Advanced KDP and Marketing Analytics provide additional insight into how your AOV is performing over time.
The Conversion overview tab within Customer insights provides your total AOV for a particular timeframe, as well as a comparison to the previous timeframe.
Use this view to quickly identify trends in your AOV.
Benchmark your AOV among peers
Klaviyo also provides AOV benchmarks based on your brand's industry and size. Click Benchmarks on the left to access Business performance benchmarks.
From here, you can see how your AOV performs in comparison to your peers:
A poor AOV value here may indicate that you should implement additional AOV strategies or re-evaluate your strategy.
Calculate AOV for individual profiles
If you have access to predictive analytics, each customer profile will show their AOV:
You can also manually calculate AOV for a particular profile by dividing their total revenue by their total number of orders. Update the metrics panel to show placed order revenue and number of placed orders, and use these numbers in your calculation:
Your ecommerce platform may also provide AOV per customer; consult your platform's documentation for more information.
Advanced AOV analysis
Use these strategies to dive deeper into your AOV analysis and interpret what you're seeing per channel and per customer group.
Channel analysis
SMS flows and campaigns usually have higher AOV than email.
Why? SMS is more personal and immediate. People act (and spend) faster.
If your SMS AOV is less than or equal to your email AOV, try these tips:
- Compare content and offer structure between SMS and email
- Test timing of your SMS messages
- Make your SMS call to action (CTA) is extremely clear
You can track AOV per channel in your business review dashboard.
Create AOV segments
With Marketing Analytics, you can use recency, frequency, and monetary (RFM) segment analysis to pinpoint which customer groups have higher and lower AOV. Navigate to the RFM analysis tab within Customer insights. RFM analysis creates groups of customers, like Champions, Loyal, At risk, etc., based on their past purchasing behavior. You can then calculate median AOV for each segment based on Placed order revenue and Number of placed orders.
You can also manually create segments for high and low value customers.
Use these segments to spot opportunity areas. For example:
- Who has the highest AOV? Try using upsells, bundles, and premium offers to move other customers into this group.
- Who has low AOV but good frequency? Try special offers or bundles to increase order size.
- Do any segments have declining AOV? Target these at-risk segments with special offers or re-engagement flows.
Tailor your messaging as you communicate with these different segments:
- Big spenders: send early access and exclusive, high-ticket items.
- Low AOV, frequent: share volume and bundle discounts.
- At risk: send re-engagement messaging (e.g., "We miss you!") plus incentives.
Analyze loyalty segments
Your most loyal customers might have a lower AOV per order, but a huge lifetime value (LTV).
Don't get stuck chasing AOV only. Segment your customers and analyze AOV for each group (e.g., first-time buyers, VIP, winback opportunities) separately.
For example, Emma, a makeup influencer, is one of SWAK's most loyal customers. While she never makes massive purchases, she needs to restock at least one product every week.
Ultimately, the goal is more revenue, so focus on nurturing and rewarding these loyal customers rather than pushing them to increase AOV.