Email is usually reported in its own private vocabulary of opens and clicks, which makes it impossible to compare against any other channel. This guide is for whoever runs email. It covers reading email as a costed channel, the right way to compare flows against campaigns, and which metrics survive contact with a profit conversation.
Why opens stopped meaning anything
Open rate has been unreliable since mail privacy protection began pre loading images, which registers an open whether or not anybody looked. The number still appears in every email tool and still moves, but it no longer measures attention.
Click rate is more honest and still describes engagement rather than outcome. A campaign can be clicked enthusiastically and sell nothing.
Revenue per recipient is the figure that survives. It divides revenue by the number of people sent to, which makes a small segment with a high response rate directly comparable to a large send with a low one. It is the only email metric that answers whether a send was worth making.
Flows and campaigns are different businesses
Tatheon keeps them separate throughout, and that separation matters.
Campaigns are one off sends. Their revenue is spiky, tied to the day you sent, and the work is recurring: every campaign needs writing, building and scheduling.
Flows are automated. Their revenue accrues continuously from work done once. Averaging the two together systematically undervalues flows, because a flow earning a steady amount every day looks unremarkable next to a campaign that earned a lot on one day.
The practical consequence is that most brands under invest in flows. A flow improvement compounds daily and permanently. A campaign improvement applies once.
Deliverability is a revenue metric
Deliverability appears technical and belongs in this conversation, because email that does not arrive earns nothing and costs the same to produce.
Watch it as a trend rather than an absolute. A gradual decline usually means list quality is degrading, most often because a lead magnet or a competition is adding addresses that never engage. Sending to people who never open trains mailbox providers to treat all your mail as low value, which reduces delivery to the engaged customers who were paying for the programme.
Pruning a list feels like destroying an asset and usually raises revenue, because the remaining sends land better.
What Klaviyo’s revenue figure is doing
Klaviyo attributes an order to email using its own window, typically several days after a click or open, and counts the entire order.
Tatheon shows that claim and also shows the reconciled figure, which accounts for the fact that Meta and Klaviyo frequently claim the same order. Expect Klaviyo’s own number to be higher. Neither is wrong. Klaviyo answers whether email touched the purchase, and the reconciled figure answers what share email should be credited with.
Use the Klaviyo number to compare one email against another, because it is consistent within itself. Use the reconciled number when comparing email against paid channels for budget decisions.
What to check first
Look at revenue per recipient by flow, find the flow with the lowest, and ask whether it should exist. Most email programmes carry two or three sequences that were built once, never revisited, and are quietly reducing the deliverability of everything else.