Flows beat campaigns
In almost every Klaviyo account we take over, automated flows generate between 25% and 40% of email revenue from a fraction of the sends. They run whether or not anyone is at their desk. If your flow revenue is below 20% of total email revenue, that is the fastest money in your account.
1. Welcome series
Not one email — four or five. The first should deliver whatever was promised at signup and set expectations. The rest introduce the brand, handle the top two objections, add social proof, and only then push a first-purchase incentive. Delaying the discount to email three or four typically raises overall margin without hurting conversion.
2. Browse abandonment
Triggered when someone views a product and leaves without adding to cart. Keep it to two emails, keep it helpful rather than pushy, and exclude anyone who has entered the cart abandonment flow so people are not double-mailed.
3. Cart and checkout abandonment
The single highest-revenue flow in most stores. Send the first message within an hour while intent is still warm, a second at 24 hours with reassurance — shipping, returns, guarantees — and a third at 48 hours only if margin allows a nudge. Include the actual cart contents dynamically.
4. Post-purchase
Split by first-time versus repeat buyer. New customers need onboarding, usage tips and a reason to trust you. Repeat buyers should be offered the logical next product. This is also where review requests belong, timed to when the product has actually arrived.
5. Winback
Trigger on time since last order, tuned to your real purchase cycle rather than a generic 90 days. Two or three emails, escalating from "here is what is new" to a genuine incentive, then suppress if there is no response.
What to fix before you build more flows
- Segmentation: flows that ignore engagement status still hit the inbox problem described in our deliverability checklist.
- Smart sending: turn it on so people do not receive four automated emails in a day.
- Exclusions: every flow should exclude recent purchasers where relevant.
- Attribution windows: Klaviyo defaults are generous. Compare against your analytics platform before reporting numbers to the board.
How long this takes
A clean build of these five flows, properly segmented and with real copy rather than templates, is roughly four to six weeks including review cycles. Rebuilding an existing messy account is usually faster because the data and branding already exist.
Our Klaviyo agency team builds and maintains these flows for UK ecommerce brands, including migrations from Mailchimp and Dotdigital.