Table of Contents
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Executive summary
Multi-channel campaigns
01
05
SMS marketing
Automated flows
02
06
List growth
Priority checklist
03
07
Segmentation
What’s next?
04
08
Automated flows
Drive more revenue
per recipient
Flows drive the most revenue per recipient (RPR) because they send automatically based on someone’s behavior. One secret to flows is more flows, not necessarily complex flows.
Maximize flow revenue by adding more automations across the customer journey. Start with welcome flows for email and SMS, browse and cart abandonment, post-purchase, win-back, sunset, and VIP flows.
Your automated flow checklist
Aim for an average flow order rate of 2.6%.
Keep flow bounce rate under 0.35%.
Launch multiple flows, prioritized based on your list size:
For entrepreneurs: Set up at least 2-4 flows to capture and convert traffic. Those flows should be:
For small businesses: The fastest-growing small business accounts on Klaviyo have these 7 flows in common:
For enterprise brands: The fastest-growing enterprise accounts on Klaviyo have 10 or more flows live. To get to 10, create flows that support brand investment in integrations—like your loyalty program, price drop alerts, and more.
• Welcome series
• Abandoned cart
• Post-purchase
• Review request
• Welcome series
• Abandoned cart
• Browse abandonment
• Win-back
• Review request
• Post-purchase
• Back-in-stock
• Welcome series
• Abandoned cart
• Browse abandonment
• Win-back
• Review request
• Post-purchase
• Back-in-stock
• Cross-sell flow
• +2 specific to bespoke integrated
data sources or business needs
• +2 specific to bespoke integrated
data sources or business needs.
Best practices & strategic guidance
To get the most out of your flows, keep these best practices in mind when setting them up.
Treat your flow strategy
as a nurture program
Think of your flow strategy as a nurture program to grow LTV. Flows drive incremental revenue by engaging with every customer as they show increased or decreased interest with the brand.
The same way you would want to interact with a customer visiting your store in person, flows help brands automate timely and targeted touchpoints that strengthen consumer relationships, fostering long-term engagement.
The customer journey visualized
Welcome series
Browse
Abandonment
Cart
Abandonment
Checkout
Abandonment
Review
Request
Review thank you: Positive review
Site bounce
Review thank you: Negative review
THANK YOU
UPSELL
CUSTOMER WINBACK
Negative review response
Become a fan/promoter
Become a churn risk
Customer research
View product
Start checkout
Use product
Visit site
Subscribe
Add to cart
Purchase
The customer lifecycle, nurtured by flows
1.
2.
3.
4.
Discover: someone signs up to learn more about your brand, hear about special offers, and get notified about new launches with different strategic lead captures → welcome series flow
Convert: someone clicks to browse, but doesn’t add to cart or purchase → browse abandonment flow
Convert: someone adds to cart or starts check-out, but doesn’t complete their order → cart abandonment and check-out abandonment flows
Engage: someone places an order and could benefit from education or tips on using your product → customer post-purchase flow
5.
6.
7.
Engage: an order gets delivered → review request flow
Nurture: use Klaviyo’s predictive analytics to send an email before a customer’s predicted next purchase dates, plus another email 5 days following that date containing cross-sell or up-sell content → “expected date of next order” flow
Nurture: send a retention offer if someone goes 180 days without ordering → win-back flow
Advanced lifecycle touchpoints
Customer loyalty flows:
Catalog interest flows:
Shipping and fulfillment flows:
- Collect customer birthday → happy birthday flow
- An order gets fulfilled → shipping confirmation flow
- If you have an integrated third-party tool for shipment tracking:
- Timestamp a profile property with someone’s first purchase date → first purchase anniversary flow
- Received delivery
- In transit
- Out for delivery
- Price drops on a product someone browsed and/or added to cart recently → price drop flow
- To allow shoppers to sign up for stock alerts when products come back in stock → implement the right Klaviyo form and a back-in-stock flow
If you do nothing else: Aim for at least 7 live
automated flows
Automation breadth matters:
utomation complexity—like splits and experiments—is useful, but it’s not as impactful as simply adding more flows. Launch at least 7 flows, then annually audit and update them. Spend the rest of your time on campaigns or incorporating additional flows.
What to do next:
Take a look at the flows you’ve implemented already, and identify places along the customer journey that you could automate by launching a new flow. Need inspiration? See examples of the top automations that drive strong engagement.
Top-performing brands have at least 7 flows live, including a welcome series for both email and SMS, plus browse and cart abandonment, post-purchase, win-back, sunset, and price drop flows.
Launch more flows
More inspiration & use cases
3 SMS and email automation use cases from Callie’s Hot Biscuit, Every Man Jack, and Tatti Lashes
Start driving more impact today. Sign up to get started with Klaviyo, or upgrade your account to get more sends.
Get started now
Upgrade now
Table of Contents
Get started now
Upgrade now
Executive summary
Multi-channel campaigns
01
05
SMS marketing
Automated flows
02
06
List growth
Priority checklist
03
07
Segmentation
What’s next?
04
08
Multi-channel campaigns
Fuel growth with
multi-channel campaigns
Across channels, top-performing brands send at least 12 campaigns per month.
You can drive more growth with even just one campaign per week, and easily increase campaign volume with segmentation. Campaigns with an element of urgency work best, like product launches and limited-time offers. Gut-check your campaigns by asking, “Would I want to receive this?”
Your multi-channel campaign checklist
Send 2 email campaigns per week to your engaged segment.
Send 4 additional segmented email campaigns for a total of ~12 sends per month.
Monitor and maintain high engagement with email campaigns:
Send at least 1 SMS campaign per week.
Monitor and maintain high engagement with SMS campaigns:
• 47% open rate
• 2.15% click rate
• 0.41% order rate
Best practices & strategic guidance
Your content strategy and style ultimately depend on your business goals, industry norms, and brand voice. But 3 types of campaigns can help every brand establish a differentiated cadence to drive traffic and conversion.
Campaigns that offer snackable content
What: Write short but attention-grabbing blog posts that reference your products and offer novel value to your subscribers. Educating customers on how to use a product, or giving subscribers inspiration on trends related to your product line, can generate excitement and interest. Examples:
Why: Subscribers are more likely to stay subscribed, and engage with your content, if you don’t exclusively promote what you sell in every interaction. Pair useful information like this with traffic-driving events and conversion-driving promotions, and you’ll strengthen your relationships with consumers in a way that translates to higher customer lifetime value (LTV).
When and how: Aim for 1-2 emails a month that focus on novel content (not squarely product promotion) and adapt your cadence and promotion channels based on engagement. Snackable or long-form content, such as blogs, are best to promote via email. If your brand is active on social media, try promoting a new Instagram story or content-based post via SMS.
- Beauty tutorials for hair and makeup products
- Styling guides for clothing
- Dog park etiquette for pet products
- Birthday party ideas for kids’ products
- A weekly cleaning schedule for cleaning products
Campaigns that feature traffic-driving events
What: Drive traffic to your website by sending marketing campaigns that promote something new and different, or introduce a sense of urgency—without offering a discount. Examples:
Why: The key to increasing average order value (AOV) and LTV is getting customers back on your website. Many brands default to leading with discounts and incentives to drive traffic, but that’s not always the best strategy. Send email and SMS campaigns without a discount incentive to diversify your marketing tactics, increase conversion opportunities, and protect your margins.
When and how: Aim for 2+ messages a month that focus on traffic-driving events. Experiment with email and SMS to see which channel drives the highest RPR for your brand. SMS can be a great way to capture attention and drive subscribers back to your site.
- Company updates
- New product launches
- New seasonal collections
- Announcing low inventory on a favorite product
- Announcing a product that has become a new trend or is a new bestseller
- Price drops on products or collections
- New collaborations
- Press highlights
Campaigns that mainly promote products
What: It's important to regularly promote your products—individually, together, and by category. Product promotion campaigns can include discount promotions or other incentives that support your business needs. Examples:
Why: The average person needs to see a brand, product, or service 7x in messages before they buy. Keeping your products top of mind using targeted email, SMS, and mobile push is critical for nurturing your customers and subscribers to buy.
When and how: These campaigns will be a consistent part of your weekly marketing cadence. Each week, pick two products or product categories to promote. Draft a campaign template that visually features the product, alongside a hook that piques interest by communicating why someone should buy. Experiment with highlighting a really strong product review or a description of the product that highlights key benefits. Depending on the size of your customer base, you can use segmentation to send these campaigns only to those most likely to express interest based on recent activity levels, past product views, or purchases.
- Sell off inventory you’d like to move
- Drive up sales for an exclusive time period
- Increase conversions with an audience that may need an extra push
If you do nothing else: Send 12 campaigns per month
Campaign optimization matters:
The top 10% of brands drive a 2.54% median click rate and a 0.52% order rate with campaigns. A/B test, segment, and optimize to make your campaigns more impactful.
Need help planning your calendar?
Follow our strategy guide for best practices on building your campaign calendar.
Campaign optimization matters:
The top 10% of brands drive a 2.54% median click rate and a 0.52% order rate with campaigns. A/B test, segment, and optimize to make your campaigns more impactful.
Need help planning your calendar?
Follow our strategy guide for best practices on building your campaign calendar.
The fastest-growing brands send an average of 12 campaigns per month across email and SMS. Examples include flash sale announcements, new product drops, holiday-specific offers, company wins, or community highlights.
Launch your campaigns
More inspiration & use cases
3 ways to increase email & SMS frequency from Aura Bora, Proozy, & Linksoul
Learn more
Start driving more impact today. Sign up to get started with Klaviyo, or upgrade your account to get more sends.
Get started now
Upgrade now
Table of Contents
Get started now
Upgrade now
Executive summary
Multi-channel campaigns
01
05
SMS marketing
Automated flows
02
06
List growth
Priority checklist
03
07
Segmentation
What’s next?
04
08
Segmentation
Segment to increase order rate
Segmentation increases click rates, order rates, and deliverability. Your active profiles are the most important part of your list.
Active profiles are subscribers who have engaged in the last 180 days. Keep that part of your list growing, and active, with segmentation. Creating more segments helps you increase your campaign volume by sending smaller, more targeted campaigns to specific audiences.
Your segmentation checklist
Send 3/4 of campaigns to segments rather than lists.
Use 8 or more unique segments per month for campaign sends.
Use a tiered engagement segmentation strategy, or an RFM segmentation strategy.
Best practices & strategic guidance
Segmentation is a highly useful tool for achieving 3 key priorities:
PRIORITY #1
PRIORITY #2
PRIORITY #3
For email, maintaining a good “sender reputation” so your emails land in
recipient inboxes
For SMS, segment your most engaged SMS subscribers, and send messages to them multiple times per week
Across both channels, personalize
messages to drive higher
engagement rates
If the majority of your recipients do not open or click your emails, inbox providers will assume you’re sending spam and start to filter your emails to spam folders for all recipients. Using segmentation to only send to your engaged subscribers, or to simply exclude those who’ve stopped engaging from regular sends, is key to maintaining strong email deliverability.
Don’t ignore the rest of your SMS subscriber list, though. Aim for at least one SMS message to folks on your SMS list each week, monitoring engagement rates to see which parts of your audience respond best to which types of messages––and build segments from there.
Personalized emails and texts have significantly higher engagement rates compared to generic, one-size-fits-all marketing. Your key to personalized marketing is creating tailored audiences for strategic sends. By using segmentation to define a specific audience that you believe will be most interested in specific content you have prepared, you can deliver more personalized messages at scale.
For entrepreneurs
Focus on a “less is more” approach when developing a segmentation strategy and target your fully engaged audience—those recently subscribed, or often opening and clicking emails—to maximize reach.
If you’re new to segmentation, start here:
Build loyalty with your budding VIPs:
Create a segment of customers who have purchased at least 3x. Then, foster a more personal relationship that will also increase their future average order value (AOV) and lifetime value (LTV).
You can do this by sending them advanced notice of new releases or promotions, allowing them to pick out their own bundle of 2+ products to receive 5% off the bundle, inviting them to feature their favorite products on their social media in exchange for a free gift, sending them a survey to ask what more they would like to see from your marketing content, or sending them a survey to ask what products or services they most need right now in your company’s product category.
Launch location-specific campaigns:
As you grow your customer base, begin to segment your audience by location. Send emails about an upcoming pop-up location to your Brooklyn base, if that’s where you will be. Or, let folks in Texas know they can find your new goods in H-E-B.
Keep baseline relationships in both email and SMS:
Make sure each person on your email and SMS list, no matter how you are segmenting, is getting at least one message in that channel each week.
Quick tip
Use this logic in Klaviyo to build your main campaign audience:
Is consented to receive email marketing AND has been created in the last 90 days OR has opened at least one email in the last 90 days OR has clicked at least one email in the last 90 days
- Has been created in the last 90 days
OR
Has opened at least one email in the last 90 days
OR
Has clicked at least one email in the last 90 days
Build your main campaign audience
For small businesses
For regular weekly campaign sending, implement a tiered engagement segmentation strategy that looks like this:
Send 70% of campaigns to engaged profiles:
Send 20% of campaigns to a broader audience:
Send 10% of campaigns to the whole list:
Here's what to send to this segment:
Here's what to send to this segment:
Here's what to send to this segment:
- Standard snackable content
- Less targeted promotions
- Highly relevant or unique content, such as content from a guest writer or influencer campaign content
- Large promotions
- Large traffic-driving events
- Most promotions
- Most traffic-driving events
For enterprise brands
When shaping a more advanced campaign strategy and building your audiences around engagement, consider recency, frequency, and monetary value (RFM).
As you build Klaviyo-recommended RFM segments, remember that segmentation is only half the battle. You also need to alter the language in your messages for that specific segment. Here are a few examples.
When shaping a more advanced campaign strategy and building your audiences around engagement, consider recency, frequency, and monetary value (RFM).
As you build Klaviyo-recommended RFM segments, remember that segmentation is only half the battle. You also need to alter the language in your messages for that specific segment. Here are a few examples:
As you build Klaviyo-recommended RFM segments, remember that segmentation is only half the battle. You also need to alter the language in your messages for that specific segment. Here are a few examples:
For “nearly theres” (prospects):
Be more assertive. Know the pain points, highlight the value prop, and be persuasive to ask for that click
For potential enthusiasts and potential high rollers (customers):
Be more delicate with your messaging. Entice them to come back for more, or for similar products.
For high rollers and brand enthusiasts (VIPs):
Prioritize advocacy and continued nurturing to ensure ongoing loyalty and repeat sales. Keep them coming back for more.
Core marketing audience
75% of your time goes here
High rollers
Retain and leverage
Perks, exclusivity, advocacy prompts
Recent
Frequent
High value
Recent
Frequent
Low value
Brand enthusiasts
Increse average order value
Related products, volume discount
Potential High rollers
Increase frequency
Tease perks, replenishment
Recent
Not frequent
High value
Recent
Not frequent
Low value
Potential enthusiasts
Increse AOV or frequency
Best sellers, related products
Recent
Frequent
Recent
Not frequent
Nearly theres
Nudge over the line
Sell value, FOMO, mild discounts
Waiting for wows
Push over the line
Limited deals, best offers
If you do nothing else: Make segmentation a critical part of your campaigns
Segmenting by engagement level matters:
Top-performing brands often implement a tiered engagement segmentation strategy in which they send 70% of campaigns to engaged profiles, 20% to a broader audience, and 10% to the whole list.
Not sure where to start?
Pick a few high-value segments, like repeat purchasers, new shoppers, or high-value customers, and craft campaigns specifically for them. Find more ideas in our best practices guide on creating an engagement-based sending strategy.
The top 10% of fast-growing brands make segmentation a critical part of their campaigns, which keeps their spam and bounce rates low.
Build more segments
More inspiration & use cases
3 successful SMS & email segmentation use cases from Jenni Kayne, Huda Beauty, and Compass Coffee
Learn more
Start driving more impact today. Sign up to get started with Klaviyo, or upgrade your account to get more sends.
Get started now
Upgrade now