Breaking Down Revenue Per Recipient: A Marketers Guide

If you're investing in email marketing, there's one metric that tends to spark panic when it takes a dip: Revenue per Recipient (RPR).

It feels simple. You send emails. You expect revenue. When RPR drops, it seems like your email program is underperforming. But that's not always the case.

At Orita, we use machine learning to help brands send smarter, more targeted emails. Our tools focus on who to send to based on their engagement level. Increased click rates is one key outcome of using Orita, but RPR is an outcome that depends on many factors—including what happens when someone clicks on an email and lands on your site.

First: What is Revenue per Recipient?

Revenue per Recipient (RPR) is calculated by dividing the total revenue attributed to email sends by the total number of emails sent. It's an outcome metric, not an input. That means it's shaped by all the steps in your email funnel/.

Think of RPR as a Formula

Revenue per Recipient = (Number of recipients x Click Rate) x (On-site Conversion Rate x Average Order Value)

The first part of this equation, number of recipients X click rate, is your email performance. Orita helps you optimize this portion of your RPR by finding the optimal balance here. Changes to your email content (e.g. new subject line strategies or new design) can also impact your click rate performance.

The second part of your RPR, onsite conversion rate X AOV, is your on-site performance.

When RPR Drops Despite Higher Engagement

We recently saw a case where open and click rates rose dramatically after implementing Orita. The brand was emailing more people, getting more clicks, and generating more traffic. So why did RPR fall?

Because their order rate, or on-site conversion rate dropped. Even though more people were visiting the site, fewer were converting. That suggests a problem after the click: possibly a mismatch between email and site content, technical friction in the checkout flow, a potential sell-out of the promoted products, or a broader merchandising issue.

This is a key insight: a lower RPR doesn't necessarily mean your emails are underperforming. Sometimes, it means your emails are doing their job—but your site isn't picking up the baton.

Diagnosing the Real Problem

When you're trying to figure out what's dragging RPR down, ask:

Is the problem with my email program:

Are we sending to too many people / the wrong people? If click rates are declining, you might be over-sending, or reaching too many non-engaged profiles
Has our content changed meaningfully? Changes in your approach to subject lines, or email designs can impact click rate performance.
Are we acquiring the wrong kind of subscribers? If you're getting traffic from unqualified sources, these people may not convert, no matter how good your emails are. One common example is people signing up for giveaways.

Is the problem on the website:

Are we creating disconnects between the email and the site? If the offer in the email isn’t visible on-site or the landing page doesn't match expectations, you're losing conversions.
Is something broken on our site? Pop-ups, broken discount codes, changes to on-site merchandising can impact purchase intent.
Sold-out inventory—Are we promoting something in email that isn't actually available?

What Orita Can Show You

Our goal is to help you identify and act on the segments of your audience who are actually ready to buy. When email engagement goes up but RPR goes down, we can help you see that your segmentation is working—and help you flag what's not.

And because we focus on incrementality (i.e., did the email actually drive revenue or would it have happened anyway?), we can help you pinpoint whether you're making meaningful gains.