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30 Second Summary
30-Second Summary
- Klaviyo's core features you need to learn & master are flows, campaigns, email builder, signup forms, metrics, segments, dynamic blocks, and show/hide features
- If you're a beginner, start by setting up a signup form, creating your first email with Klaviyo's email builder, and launching your first flow or campaign
- If you're an intermediate, make sure you have your 8 key email flows created, are sending out campaigns regularly, and starting to leverage your customer data to improve performance through A/B testing, predictive analytics & custom segments.
- If you're a pro, take your email marketing to the next level with personalization & segmentation using show/hide blocks and an integrated email/SMS strategy
- Use a tool like Backbone to plan, manage & create email campaigns and flows in minutes.
Welcome to our comprehensive guide on mastering Klaviyo email marketing. By the end of this article, you'll be able to set up your email campaigns, understand and use Klaviyo's core features, design compelling emails, manage your campaigns, and create automated flows that drive customer engagement and conversions.
We will be covering topics including why Klaviyo is the top choice for both beginners and experts, how to use Klaviyo and its features, strategies to capture email subscribers, guidelines for designing impactful emails, managing campaigns, harnessing the power of automated flows, and finally, we'll share tips tailored for users at every stage of their Klaviyo journey.
Whether you're a beginner, an intermediate, or a seasoned pro, you'll learn how to take full advantage of Klaviyo's features to get started with, grow, or scale your email marketing.
Why Choose Klaviyo?
If you're serious about using email marketing to grow your ecommerce business, you'll need an ESP (email service platform) that can scale with you. Klaviyo's easy-to-use email builder, Flow Library, and pre-built email templates makes it friendly for beginners. Yet its powerful data infrastructure & APIs allow your ecommerce business to execute complex email marketing strategies through its show/hide capabilities & dynamic blocks for hyper-personalization.
How To Use Klaviyo
With all of Klaviyo's features, it can feel overwhelming to know where to start. But remember, you don't need to become a master at Klaviyo's platform. You just need to know how to use Klaviyo to build & execute an effective email marketing strategy to grow your ecommerce business.
There are 8 key features of Klaviyo that are the building blocks of your email marketing strategy:
- Sign Up Forms are how you'll build your email list. You can set up a basic sign up form with Klaviyo to appear on your website & allow website visitors to opt-in with their email list to become email subscribers. (Beginner)
- Email Builder is an easy-to-use drag and drop tool that lets you design branded emails within Klaviyo without needing any coding. Just add in images and text! (Beginner)
- Campaigns are one of two types of emails you can send from Klaviyo. Campaigns are one-time, targeted emails sent to your email list. Setting up and sending a successful email campaign is your first step to getting started with Klaviyo. (Beginner/Intermediate)
- Flows are the second type of email you can send from Klaviyo. Flows are automated email sequences triggered by customers taking a specific action or meeting certain criteria. They are a powerful and important part of an effective email strategy. Learn more about creating effective flows in Klaviyo by visiting our guide on Klaviyo email flows. (Beginner/Intermediate)
- Segments allow you to group your email subscribers based on specific criteria such as their engagement, purchase behaviour or characteristics. This allows you to send more personalized emails which improves engagement & conversion rates. (Intermediate/Pro)
- Metrics allow you to feed customer data into Klaviyo which gives you the power to create more effective customer segments, campaigns, and flows. Klaviyo also has integrations with popular ecommerce platforms such as Shopify for easy setup. (Intermediate/Pro)
- Dynamic Blocks are a powerful way to easily take your email personalization strategy to the next level. Dynamic blocks featuring the products a shopper viewed, added to cart, purchased or may like makes your email content more relevant to each unique recipient. (Pro)
- Show/Hide Blocks allow you to control the visibility of certain sections of an email based on a subscriber's engagement, behavior, or characteristics. This is an advanced, but powerful feature to personalize the content that recipients see. (Pro)
Mastering how to use Klaviyo and its features can significantly enhance your email marketing efforts, providing a more personalized and efficient approach to reaching your audience.
Capturing Email Subscribers From Klaviyo
As a DTC e-commerce brand, most of your email subscribers are going to come from your website Welcome Pop-Up which incentivizes website visitors to opt-in to receive emails from you with a welcome discount.
Most ecommerce businesses offer a 10% or 15% off code in exchange for a shopper entering their email address. This allows you to build your email list and convert more website visitors into customers. Klaviyo's signup forms are an easy tool to set up your website pop-up.
To set up your first website pop-up:
- Navigate to Klaviyo's Sign Up Form tab, select "Create Signup Form" & select a template from Klaviyo's Form Library.
- Use their design builder to customize the test & images for your brand
- Then navigate to the "Behaviors and Targeting" tab to determine when your pop-up will display to website visitors. We recommend setting a loading delay of 5-7 seconds, to show again 7 days after closing & to not show again after the form is submitted. These settings will maximize your email list growth rate while avoiding a negative user experience.
Designing Emails For Klaviyo
Klaviyo's email builder is designed to be easy-to-use while also extremely customizable. Whether you're building campaigns, flows or email templates, you'll be using Klaviyo's email builder so the first step is to master this built-in tool.
Here are the steps to creating your first email:
- Open the Klaviyo email builder by navigating to Content > Templates > Create a blank email
- This will bring you to the drag-and-drop email builder where you can add elements such as images, products, and content to your email
- You can then customize the email with different elements depending on whether it's a promotional email, product spotlight, or content email
When designing emails in Klaviyo, here are a few best practices to follow to optimize for more clicks and conversions:
- Position Your Logo at the Top: This is essential for immediate brand recognition. As soon as the recipient opens your email, they should be able to identify who it's from.
- Use a Bold Header Image and Header Text: Incorporate an eye-catching header image and clear, compelling header text. This is the first thing the reader sees after opening your email and can significantly influence their engagement level.
- Place Your CTA Above the Fold: The "fold" refers to the point where a reader would need to scroll to see more. By placing your Call To Action (CTA) above this point, you ensure it's immediately visible when the email is opened, increasing the likelihood of it being clicked.
- Include Relevant Content: Make sure your email content provides value to the reader. This could be information about your product, an engaging story about your brand, or a snippet from your latest blog post. The aim is to keep the reader engaged and interested in what you have to say.
Remember, every email should be unique but consistent to your brand. If you need some inspiration, here are some email marketing examples to inspire your next email campaign!
Creating and Managing Campaigns
Planning a create email campaign calendar is an incredibly important part of an effective email marketing strategy. Klaviyo email campaigns allows you to send targeted, segmented email campaigns to your audience.
Here's a quick step-by-step guide on setting up a campaign and reviewing its performance:
- Navigate to the Campaigns > Create New Campaign on your Klaviyo dashboard
- Begin setting up your Campaign Details which includes the name of your campaign and selecting the list or segment of people who you want to receive your campaign
- You can also select your Tracking Details to collect more data from Klaviyo to analytics platforms like Google Analytics or Triple Whale
- Next, you'll need to enter the subject line, preview text and sender info for the campaign. You want to write a subject line & preview text that is eye-catching to a recipient in their inbox, but relevant to the email content. Typically ecommerce businesses use their brand name as the sender name since that is most recognizable to customers.
- Then you can navigate to Drag And Drop in order to create your email using Klaviyo's email builder.
- Once you're done designing your email, you can do a quick check of your campaign details to make sure you're sending the campaign to the right audience and you've included important elements such as an unsubscribe link in the email.
- Lastly, you're ready to hit send! You can schedule your campaign for a future send time or send it immediately.
And that's it! Your email campaign is good to go.
After the campaign has been sent, navigate to the Campaign Dashboard > Campaign to view its performance. Here, you can see insights such as the campaign's open rates, click rates, purchase rates, and revenue. This data will help you optimize future campaigns for ongoing performance growth.
The Power of Flows
Unlike campaigns, Klaviyo email flows are triggered emails that are sent automatically to recipients when they take an action or meet certain criteria. You can get started with building flows by using Klaviyo's Flow Library or building them from scratch:
- Navigate to the page Flow > Create Flow
- Start by determining your flow trigger. This determines who will enter your email flow.
- Next, set up any flow filters and trigger filters your email flow needs. This will prevent certain people from entering the flow.
- Then, add the emails you want to include in the flow and select each email to use the Klaviyo email builder to create each email in the flow.
- Lastly, add in the appropriate delays between each email in the flow to make sure recipients get the emails at the right time.
For Advanced users, you can add conditional splits, trigger splits, and additional email filters for more advanced segmentation and personalization for your audience. And once you're satisfied with your flow, set it live!
Email flows are a critical part of an effective email marketing strategy for DTC e-commerce brands. In fact, you should aim to generate 10-20% of the total revenue for your ecommerce business with these basic email flows:
- Welcome Flow: This introduces new subscribers to your brand and encourages first purchases.
- Browse Abandonment: It nudges customers who viewed a product but didn't add it to their cart.
- Add to Cart: This flow engages customers who added a product to their cart but did not purchase.
- Abandoned Cart: It targets customers who added a product to their cart but left before completing the purchase.
- Post-Purchase Nurture: This nurtures customers after a purchase to enhance customer loyalty and encourage repeat purchases.
- Cross-Sell Flow: It recommends related products to customers based on their past purchases.
- Replenishment Flow: It reminds customers to re-order products they frequently purchase.
- Winback Flow: It targets inactive customers with enticing deals to regain their business.
Use our DTC Flow Foundations guide for a step-by-step playbook to building each of these flows for your brand.
Tips For Beginners
If you're a beginner to email marketing & Klaviyo, here are a few tips to get started:
- Brand Template: Set up a basic template with the Klaviyo email builder that has your logo & branding to make it easy to create campaign and flow emails without having to start from scratch each time
- Website Pop-Up: Set up a website pop-up using Klaviyo's sign up form and aim for a 5-7% opt-in rate
- Email Flows: Start building the 7 basic email flows above to automate 10-20% of your business revenue
- Campaign Calendar: Start sending email campaigns regularly, aiming for at least 1-2 campaigns each week
Tips For Intermediates
If you're already familiar with Klaviyo email marketing & have the basics set up, here are some tips to take it to the next level:
- Segmentation: Start creating more complex customer segments based on what a customer has purchased, how engaged they are with emails, or what products they've shown interest in. Use these segments to drive more revenue from your campaigns with more targeted, personalized, and effective emails.
- Predictive Analytics: Leverage Klaviyo's predictive analytics to build an expected date of next order (EDNO) flow
- A/B Testing: Launch content A/B tests in your flows & campaigns to optimize email designs for more clicks and conversions. Test the length of your email, the type of content you include, or how you recommend products.
Tips For Pros
If you're already a seasoned Klaviyo expert looking for more advanced strategies to elevate your email marketing, try these strategies:
- Leverage show/hide blocks: Use Klaviyo's show/hide feature to personalize your emails and get higher engagement & conversion rates. You can use show/hide blocks to feature different headers, product recommendations, or content based on a customer's behavior to make each email feel custom-tailored.
- Segment flows: Dive deeper into your customer data and create unique conditional splits in your email flows based on churn risk, number of repeat purchases, or lifetime value. Sending unique emails to these distinct customer segments can increase retention and maximize customer lifetime value.
- Build integrated email & SMS flows: Expand your skillset to use Klaviyo's SMS feature. This multi-channel approach ensures that you're engaging your customers where they are most comfortable, leading to higher response rates.
Come See What Backbone Has To Offer
And there you have it – your one-stop guide to mastering Klaviyo. Now it's up to you to put these tips into action and make email marketing work wonders for your business. But remember, for email marketing to be a source of consistent revenue to grow your business, you need to be regularly sending campaigns & optimizing flows.
That's where Backbone comes in. It'll let you manage & grow your email marketing channel, with the power of team but at a fraction of the time & cost. With Backbone, you can plan a month's email campaigns & flows, and create email templates in literally minutes.
