The Klaviyo Email Flows Every Ecommerce Store Needs, and the Order to Build Them

The Klaviyo email flows every store needs are a welcome series, abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase and winback flow, plus your transactional messages. Klaviyo itself recommends setting live the welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase and winback flows first, in that order, because they cover the moments when a shopper is most likely to act.

This guide walks through each flow: what triggers it, what to put in it, the settings that trip people up, and how to tell whether it is working.

Key takeaways

• Build in this order: welcome series, abandoned cart (checkout and cart), post-purchase, winback, then browse abandonment.
• Run one system per message. If Klaviyo sends abandoned cart emails, turn off Shopify's native version.
• Use separate welcome flows for email and SMS, because a profile can only enter a welcome series once.
• Time winback flows to your real buying cycle, not a round number.
• Split flows by purchasers vs non-purchasers so you don't hand discounts to people who would have bought anyway.
• Judge flows on revenue per recipient and placed-order rate, not open rate.

What a Klaviyo flow is (and how it differs from a campaign)

A campaign is a one-off send to a list or segment. A flow is a sequence of automated actions triggered by a behavior or event, such as joining a list, starting checkout, placing an order or approaching a date. Klaviyo describes flows as being able to include time delays and multiple paths that split on different criteria.

Flows fall into a few trigger types, and knowing which one you are using prevents most setup mistakes:

The core flows, in build order

1. Welcome series

Trigger: someone is added to your main newsletter list (from a signup form, subscribe page, manual add or API).

The welcome series is the first conversation you have with a new subscriber, and it usually carries the signup incentive if you offer one. A practical structure:

1. Email 1 (immediately): deliver the promised offer, say what you sell and why it is different, and show bestsellers.
2. Email 2 (1–2 days later): social proof and the problem your product solves. Use real reviews only.
3. Email 3 (2–3 days later): education or a buying guide, plus a reminder that the offer expires (if it does).
4. Email 4 (optional): brand story, sustainability, guarantees, shipping and returns.

Add a conditional split after email 1: people who have placed an order skip the rest of the "make your first purchase" messages and move to a softer brand series.

Two configuration details matter:

• Separate email and SMS welcome flows. Klaviyo recommends this because subscribers can opt in to each channel at different times and can only enter a single welcome flow once.
• Pause before importing a list. If the welcome series is live when you import old contacts, everyone imported is scheduled for message one. Klaviyo's guidance is to set the flow to Manual, import, then set it back to Live.

2. Abandoned checkout and abandoned cart

Triggers: Started Checkout (abandoned checkout) and Added to Cart (abandoned cart).

Klaviyo uses "abandoned cart" as an umbrella term and recommends building both: one flow on Added to Cart and a separate flow on Started Checkout, so you reach shoppers at each stage. Klaviyo's help center notes that almost 70% of carts are abandoned on average, which is consistent with Baymard Institute's average of 70.22% across 50 studies.

A typical abandoned checkout flow:

1. Message 1 (1–4 hours): a plain reminder with the cart contents, product images and a direct link back to checkout. No discount.
2. Message 2 (about 24 hours): answer objections: shipping cost and time, returns, sizing, payment options, reviews.
3. Message 3 (48–72 hours): for first-time shoppers only, consider a small incentive using a unique coupon code.

Settings to get right:

• Turn off the platform's own reminder. If you use Shopify or BigCommerce, native abandoned cart emails may already be on. Klaviyo advises turning them off to avoid duplicate messages. On Shopify, these live under the Shopify Messaging app's automations.
• Respect sync timing. For integrations other than Shopify and BigCommerce, Started Checkout data may sync on a schedule (some hourly). Klaviyo recommends at least 1 hour 15 minutes if you need a short delay.
• Use flow filters. The default flow exits people who place an order since starting the flow. Many "skipped" recipients are normal and correct.
• Branch by cart value. A high-value cart can justify a personal note from customer service; a low-value cart may just need the reminder.

For the full picture of why people abandon and what to fix on the site itself, see how to reduce cart abandonment.

3. Post-purchase

Trigger: Placed Order.

Klaviyo groups thank-you, cross-sell, upsell and product review flows under post-purchase. The most useful split is first-time vs repeat customer (Placed Order equals 1 over all time). First-time buyers need reassurance and onboarding; repeat buyers need recognition.

A solid sequence:

1. Thank you / what happens next (same day): no selling. Explain shipping, how to use the product, who to contact.
2. How-to or care guide (on or after expected delivery): reduce returns and support tickets.
3. Review request (7–14 days after delivery, depending on the product): ask once, make it one click.
4. Cross-sell (2–4 weeks later): products that complement what they bought, not random bestsellers.

Klaviyo recommends adding time delays for review, cross-sell and upsell messages, but not for thank-you messages. Check that these don't collide with your order confirmation and shipping notifications.

4. Winback

Trigger: Placed Order, with a long time delay and a filter that removes anyone who has ordered since.

The most important decision is timing. Klaviyo's guidance is to target only people who have gone longer than your average buying cycle. If you qualify for Klaviyo's predictive analytics, you can read the average time between orders directly. Klaviyo lists the requirements for customer lifetime value predictions as at least 500 customers who have placed an order, at least 180 days of order history with orders in the last 30 days, an ecommerce integration or API order data, and some customers with three or more orders. If you don't meet those yet, Klaviyo suggests building a segment of customers with at least two orders in the last two years and averaging the time between orders from an export.

A winback sequence:

1. "We miss you" plus what's new at roughly 1x your buying cycle.
2. Best reason to come back (new formula, restock, bundle) a week later.
3. Last-chance incentive for customers whose historic value justifies it.

5. Browse abandonment

Trigger: Viewed Product.

Browse abandonment reaches identified visitors who looked at a product but didn't add it to cart. Because viewing shows less intent than starting checkout, Klaviyo recommends making these messages a lighter touch than your cart flow: one or two emails, no discount, the viewed product plus alternatives.

On Shopify, Viewed Product tracking comes from Klaviyo's app embed. Klaviyo also notes that, depending on your Shopify customer privacy settings, onsite events may not be tracked for visitors in the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland without consent, so expect smaller audiences there.

Transactional flows and the flows that come next

Order confirmation, shipping and delivery notifications are transactional. Whether you send them from Shopify or Klaviyo, make sure only one system sends each.

Once the core five are live and measured, these are the usual next additions:

• Sunset / list hygiene: move long-term non-engagers to a re-permission message, then suppress them. This protects deliverability.
• Replenishment: for consumables, trigger a reminder based on typical usage time.
• Back in stock and price drop: high-intent, low-volume, very efficient.
• VIP / loyalty milestones: see ecommerce customer retention strategies.
• Subscription lifecycle: for recurring products, see the subscription ecommerce guide.

Flow comparison at a glance

Branching and discount discipline

Discounts in flows are the fastest way to train customers to wait. Klaviyo's branching guidance suggests messaging existing customers and non-customers differently, and offering coupons only to shoppers who have never purchased. Use dynamic, unique coupon codes so they don't end up on coupon-sharing sites.

Other splits worth testing:

• Country or market: different shipping promises, currencies and legal footers.
• Product category: if you sell very different products, a category split makes cross-sells relevant.
• Value: high-value carts or customers can get a personal touch instead of a code.

From experience: When reviewing Shopify Plus stores, the problems that cost the most are rarely clever strategy gaps. They are duplicate reminders from two apps, welcome flows that fired at an entire imported list, and discounts sent to people who were already going to buy. Fix the plumbing before you write new copy.

How to measure whether your flows work

Open rates are unreliable because of privacy features in mail clients, so measure what happens after the click:

• Revenue per recipient for each flow and each message.
• Placed-order rate per message.
• Unsubscribe and spam complaint rate, especially on the third and later messages.
• Incrementality: for big flows, hold out a small random group that gets no message and compare their conversion with the group that does. Without a holdout, flows take credit for orders that would have happened anyway.

Review flows monthly. Remove messages that add unsubscribes without adding orders.

Klaviyo flow setup checklist

• [ ] Ecommerce integration connected and Viewed Product, Added to Cart, Started Checkout and Placed Order events visible under Analytics > Metrics
• [ ] Shopify native abandoned checkout emails turned off (if Klaviyo sends them)
• [ ] Welcome series linked to the list your signup forms actually feed
• [ ] Separate email and SMS welcome flows
• [ ] Abandoned checkout and abandoned cart as two flows with order-placed exit filters
• [ ] Post-purchase split by first-time vs repeat customers
• [ ] Winback timed to your measured buying cycle
• [ ] Coupons limited to non-purchasers and generated as unique codes
• [ ] Smart sending and quiet hours reviewed so people don't get several messages in one day
• [ ] Unsubscribe link, physical address and consent records in place for every market you send to
• [ ] A holdout test planned for your highest-revenue flow

Next steps

• Check which of the five core flows you already have live, and build the missing ones in the order above.
• Audit duplicates between Shopify Messaging and Klaviyo this week.
• Pull your average time between orders and reset your winback delay to match.
• Fix the onsite causes of abandonment using the ecommerce conversion rate optimization checklist.
• If your store runs on Shopify Plus and you want flows, data and checkout reviewed together, see Shopify Plus development and audits.

Sources

• Klaviyo Help Center, Getting started with flows: https://help.klaviyo.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002774932
• Klaviyo Help Center, How to create an abandoned cart flow: https://help.klaviyo.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002779411
• Klaviyo Help Center, How to create an email welcome series: https://help.klaviyo.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002775172
• Klaviyo Help Center, How to create a winback flow: https://help.klaviyo.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002775192
• Klaviyo Help Center, How to create a browse abandonment flow: https://help.klaviyo.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002775252
• Klaviyo Help Center, How to create a post-purchase flow: https://help.klaviyo.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028872611
• Klaviyo Help Center, Understanding branching best practices for flows: https://help.klaviyo.com/hc/en-us/articles/360051182592
• Klaviyo Help Center, Understanding Klaviyo's predictive analytics: https://help.klaviyo.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020919731
• Baymard Institute, Cart abandonment rate statistics: https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate

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