Average order value
Mean revenue per transaction — drives which email tactics (discount vs. service) make economic sense.
Average order value (AOV) is mean revenue per transaction, calculated as total revenue divided by number of orders over a window. AOV shapes which email tactics are worth running. At low AOV (under $40), discount-driven cart recovery and broadcast campaigns dominate the economics; the per-email production cost has to stay low. At mid AOV ($40–$200), behavioral triggers and personalization start paying off. At high AOV (above $200), service-led emails outperform discounting — buyers at high price points respond better to human-tone follow-up than to coupon codes.
AOV also dictates list-acquisition economics. A list of 10,000 subscribers is more valuable to a high-AOV brand than to a low-AOV one because each conversion is worth more. This is why DTC brands selling $500+ items often have smaller lists with deeper segmentation, while brands selling $20 items rely on scale.