Most Klaviyo accounts have a welcome email and maybe an abandoned cart flow. The open rates look fine. The click rates look fine. And the account generates almost no revenue because opens and clicks are not the same thing as purchases.
I built a Klaviyo setup for a Shopify supplement brand from zero. No flows, no strategy, 3,000 dormant subscribers sitting on Mailchimp. Twelve months later: $12,000 in monthly email revenue, 20,000+ subscribers, 60%+ open rates on targeted flows, and $1,500 in SMS revenue from a single flow in its first 15 days.
Here are the six flows that generated those results, in the order I'd build them for any e-commerce brand starting today.
The open rate trap
Before we get into the flows, let's address the metric most e-commerce brands obsess over: open rate. A 40% open rate means nothing if nobody buys. A 25% open rate that generates $3,000/month in revenue is vastly more valuable than a 60% open rate that generates $200.
The metrics that matter for Klaviyo flows are revenue per recipient and revenue per flow. These tell you how much money each flow generates relative to the people who enter it. Open rates and click rates are diagnostic tools (they help you figure out where a flow is breaking down), but they're not the goal. The goal is attributed revenue.
Klaviyo tracks this natively. Every flow shows you exactly how much revenue it generated. If you can't see that number, your attribution settings need attention before anything else.
Flow 1: The welcome series (build this first)
The welcome series is the highest-value flow in most Klaviyo accounts. It triggers when someone subscribes: popup form, landing page signup, checkout opt-in. These are people who just expressed interest. Their attention is at its peak. Most brands waste this moment with a single "thanks for subscribing, here's 10% off" email and then silence.
What to build: A 5 to 7 email sequence over 10 to 14 days. The first email delivers the promised offer (discount, free shipping, whatever the opt-in incentive was). Emails 2 through 4 build trust: brand story, social proof, best-selling products, customer reviews. Emails 5 through 7 create urgency: the discount expires, the product is selling fast, or there's a limited-time bundle.
What most brands get wrong: They stop at one email. Or they send the discount and then nothing for two weeks, by which point the subscriber has forgotten they signed up. The welcome series needs to arrive while the subscriber still remembers why they opted in. Send email 1 immediately, email 2 within 24 hours, and space the rest 2 to 3 days apart.
From the supplement brand project: The welcome series generated the most revenue of any single flow. Over 12 months, it was responsible for approximately 25% of total email revenue. The opt-in form (a popup offering a discount on first order) was A/B tested monthly. The highest-converting version used a two-step popup: first asking "what's your health goal?" and then showing the email capture.
Flow 2: Abandoned cart
Someone added a product to their cart and left without buying. This is the most intent-rich moment you can capture outside of an actual purchase. They were close. Something stopped them: price, distraction, comparison shopping, shipping cost, or simple indecision.
What to build: 2 to 3 emails over 24 hours. Email 1 triggers 1 to 4 hours after abandonment: a reminder with the product image, name, and a direct link back to the cart. No discount yet. Email 2 at 12 to 18 hours: add social proof (reviews for the specific product, or a customer testimonial). Email 3 at 24 hours: introduce urgency or a small incentive (free shipping, a 5% discount, or a limited-stock message).
What most brands get wrong: Leading with a discount in email 1. Many abandoners weren't waiting for a discount. They got distracted, or they wanted to think about it. Offering a discount immediately trains customers to abandon on purpose. Save the incentive for email 3, and only if emails 1 and 2 didn't convert.
Expected performance: A well-built abandoned cart flow recovers 5 to 15% of abandoned carts. For a store with $50,000/month in revenue and a 70% cart abandonment rate, that's $1,750 to $5,250/month in recovered revenue from a single flow.
Flow 3: Browse abandonment
Someone viewed a product page but didn't add to cart. Lower intent than cart abandonment, but much higher volume. For most e-commerce sites, browse abandoners outnumber cart abandoners 5 to 1.
What to build: 1 to 2 emails, lighter touch than abandoned cart. Email 1 triggers 2 to 4 hours after browsing: "Still thinking about [product]?" with the product image and a link back. Email 2 (optional) at 24 hours: show similar products or a category page. The tone is softer than abandoned cart because the intent signal is weaker.
What most brands get wrong: Making browse abandonment emails feel aggressive. These people browsed. They didn't commit to anything. A gentle reminder works. A "Don't miss out! Your cart is waiting!" subject line for someone who never added to cart feels dishonest and gets marked as spam.
Flow 4: Post-purchase
The moment after purchase is the most underutilized moment in e-commerce email. The customer just gave you money. They feel good about the decision. Their trust is at its highest. Most brands send an order confirmation and nothing else until the next promotional blast.
What to build: A sequence that runs alongside the transactional emails (shipping confirmation, delivery notification). Email 1 at day 3 to 5 after purchase: thank you, product tips, how to get the most out of what they bought. Email 2 at day 7 to 10: ask for a review (only after the product has arrived and been used). Email 3 at day 14 to 21: cross-sell related products based on what they purchased.
For consumable products (supplements, skincare, food), add a replenishment reminder. If the product lasts 30 days, trigger a "time to reorder" email at day 25. This single email can generate significant repeat revenue because you're reaching them exactly when the product is running low.
What most brands get wrong: Cross-selling too early. If someone just bought a $40 moisturizer, sending them "you might also like" emails before the product arrives feels transactional, not helpful. Wait until after delivery and first use. The cross-sell lands better when the customer is already happy with their first purchase.
Want these flows built for your store?
I build complete Klaviyo systems: welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase, winback, SMS, and segmentation. From zero to revenue-generating in weeks.
See Klaviyo services →Flow 5: Winback
A customer who bought once and hasn't returned in 60 to 90 days is lapsing. They liked the product enough to buy, but something prevented a repeat purchase: they forgot, they found an alternative, or they didn't need it again yet. The winback flow reactivates them before they're gone for good.
What to build: 2 to 3 emails starting at the lapse threshold (typically 60 days for consumables, 90 days for durable goods). Email 1: "We miss you" with a reminder of what they purchased and what's new since their last visit. Email 2 at day 75 to 100: introduce an incentive (exclusive returning customer discount, free shipping on their next order). Email 3 at day 90 to 120: last chance framing. If they don't respond, suppress them from regular campaigns to protect your deliverability.
Expected performance: A good winback flow reactivates 3 to 8% of lapsed customers. The value here isn't just the immediate purchase. A reactivated customer re-enters the active segment, which means they'll receive campaigns, trigger future flows, and potentially become a repeat buyer again.
Flow 6: SMS (the revenue multiplier)
SMS is not email with a different delivery method. It's a separate channel with different rules: shorter messages, higher urgency, faster response, lower tolerance for frequency. Used correctly, it captures revenue that email misses entirely.
What to build: SMS welcome (triggered alongside email welcome, but shorter: brand intro + discount code + link to shop). SMS abandoned cart (single message at 1 hour after abandonment, before the email sequence starts). SMS flash sale notifications (time-sensitive offers that benefit from instant delivery). SMS back-in-stock alerts.
What most brands get wrong: Treating SMS like a miniature email. SMS subscribers have a lower tolerance for frequency. One to two SMS messages per week is the ceiling for most brands. Go higher and you'll see opt-out rates spike. The messages need to be genuinely urgent or valuable: a flash sale, a restock of something they wanted, or a time-limited offer. Not a generic "check out our new collection" every Tuesday.
From the supplement brand project: SMS was added at month 12 after the email system was fully built. A single SMS winback flow generated $1,500 in its first 15 days. The key was targeting: it only fired for lapsed customers who hadn't responded to the email winback. These were people who ignored 3 emails but responded to a text message. Different channel, different behavior.
Build order: what to prioritize
If you're starting from scratch (or starting over), build in this order:
- Welcome series + opt-in form. This captures every new subscriber from day one. The form drives the flow. Without a good form, the flow has no fuel. Build and A/B test together.
- Abandoned cart. The highest-intent behavioral flow. If your store has any meaningful traffic, this flow starts generating revenue within days of going live.
- Post-purchase. Turns one-time buyers into repeat customers. The review request email also builds social proof that improves conversion rates site-wide.
- Browse abandonment. Captures the larger volume of visitors who look but don't add to cart. Lower conversion rate per email but much higher total volume.
- Winback. Re-engages lapsed customers. This flow becomes more valuable as your customer base grows and the lapsed segment accumulates.
- SMS. Layer this on top of an established email system. SMS works best when it reaches people who didn't respond to email, not as a replacement for it.
Flows 1 through 3 should be live within the first month of a Klaviyo engagement. Flows 4 through 6 in months 2 and 3. By month 3, the full system is running and every flow is generating measurable, attributable revenue.
The three metrics that actually matter
Forget open rates. Track these instead:
Revenue per recipient. How much money does each flow generate divided by the number of people who entered it? This tells you flow efficiency. A welcome series with $2.50 revenue per recipient across 500 new subscribers per month is $1,250/month from one flow.
Flow revenue as a percentage of total revenue. Healthy Klaviyo accounts generate 25 to 40% of total e-commerce revenue through email and SMS. If you're below 15%, the flows are underbuilt. If you're above 40%, you might be over-relying on discounting (which erodes margin).
List growth rate. A flow system is only as good as the list feeding it. Track net new subscribers per month (new signups minus unsubscribes). If growth is flat, the opt-in forms need work. A healthy Shopify store should grow its email list 5 to 10% per month.
Klaviyo isn't a newsletter tool. It's a revenue system. The six flows above cover the entire customer lifecycle from first visit to repeat purchase to winback. Each one runs automatically once built. Each one generates attributable revenue you can track in your Klaviyo dashboard. Build them in order, starting with welcome and abandoned cart, and the system will compound as your list grows. The supplement brand went from zero to $12K/month. The flows that produced that result are the same ones described here.
