If you're using Klaviyo for your email marketing, you've probably been stumped by at least one of these questions.
These are the Klaviyo questions I get asked most often by the small business owners I work with. Some are just getting started with email marketing, while others have been using Klaviyo for years but know there's more they could be doing with it.
I'm Elle, Shopify and Klaviyo expert, and your go-to ecommerce big sis. I spend my days helping small business owners cut through the tech overwhelm, boost conversions and actually feel excited about running their online shop again.
Here are twenty of the Klaviyo questions that come up time and time again, with straightforward answers you can put into action in your own business.
1. How do I get started in Klaviyo?
Don't try to set up every feature at once. Start by getting the foundations right. Here’s your Klaviyo kickstart checklist:
- Connect Shopify
- Import any existing subscriber lists
- Set up your integrations
- Create a master email template(get my Ready-to-use DIY Klaviyo Template here)
- Design a pop-up and make sure it's optimised for mobile
- Set up your key flows: Welcome, Abandoned Checkout, and Post-Purchase
- Plan your campaigns for the next three months.
2. What Klaviyo housekeeping tasks should I focus on?
If email marketing has been giving you headaches, here's a checklist to make your Klaviyo account feel a little less overwhelming:
- Use one single list for subscribers to keep things tidy
- Switch off double opt-in
- If your list is small (under 1,000), prioritise sending more emails over building out segments
- If your list is larger, keep segments simple and focused rather than overly granular
- Maximise sign-up opportunities with multiple forms across your site and marketing channels
- Make sure your pop-up is converting at 3–5%. If it's not, optimise it
- Perfect the fundamental flows: Welcome, Abandoned Browse, and Abandoned Checkout
- Test your own flows by putting yourself through them and checking how they actually look, sound and function
- Review this year's top-performing campaigns and plan to repeat what worked
- If you're stuck for ideas, start a content series (tips, trends, whatever fits) and commit to sending it regularly.
3. How can I optimise my email pop-up?
Your pop-up is one of the easiest ways to grow your email list, so don't just set it up once and forget about it. Check how it's actually performing and make small changes if people aren't signing up. Here's the checklist I'd work through:
- Have at least one pop-up live: It sounds obvious, but make sure you've actually got one running and collecting subscribers.
- Optimise for desktop and mobile: Ideally, create separate versions for each so they work properly on different screen sizes.
- Give it a clear hook: Make it obvious what's in it for them, for example, "Save 10% off your first order".
- Add a short delay: Aim for around 10–30 seconds rather than showing your pop-up the second someone lands on your website.
- Keep it on-brand: Match your colours, imagery and tone of voice so it feels like part of your website.
- Make it easy to close: Don't make someone hunt around for a tiny X just so they can carry on shopping.
- Collect useful first-party data: Consider a multi-step form to find out what your subscribers are interested in without asking too much at once.
- Exclude existing subscribers: They don't need to keep seeing an offer asking them to join a list they're already on.
- Keep your sign-up messaging consistent: Check your footer, checkout, product pages and anywhere else people can subscribe.
- Add an embedded form: This gives you a dedicated sign-up link you can easily share on social media and through other marketing channels.
You don't need to change everything at once. Even a small improvement to your sign-up rate can make a big difference to how quickly your email list grows.
4. What flows should I set up first?
Start with these four flows as they are closest to the customer journey:
- Welcome Flow – introduce your brand and offer a discount
- Abandoned Checkout – remind customers to complete a purchase they started
- Post-Purchase – thank them and suggest complementary products
- Abandoned Browse – nudge visitors back to items they looked at but didn't add to cart
Once those are running smoothly, consider layering in more advanced flows:
- Abandoned Cart (triggered by items added to cart)
- Price Drop (great if you run frequent sales)
- Back in Stock (for high-demand items)
- Low Stock (to create gentle urgency)
- Win-Back Campaigns (to re-engage inactive customers)
- Birthday Emails (a nice personal touch)
Top tip: add personalisation with conditional splits, like separate paths for customers versus non-customers, or based on order history.
5. What should be the order of my Welcome Flow?
This will vary slightly depending on your business, but a simple starting point is:
- First email: welcome them and give them their offer
- Second email: introduce your business and share your brand's story and values
- Third email: show them what to shop and highlight your key products
You can then add reviews, USPs and other useful content.
The important thing is that each email has its own job rather than trying to tell someone everything about your business in email one.
6. What are some failsafe newsletter topics when I'm out of email ideas?
You don't need a new product or discount every time you send a campaign. Try:
- Seasonal or transitional products
- A bestselling or hero product
- Behind the scenes
- A colour or trend focus
- A particular collection
- Gift guides
- Products you've personally been loving
- Tips or advice related to what you sell
You could also create a regular content series and send it weekly, fortnightly or monthly. It makes planning much easier than starting from a blank page every time.
7. Why aren't all my Shopify products showing in Klaviyo?
First, check whether the products have inventory recorded against them. Klaviyo may not display products without stock data.
This can cause problems for digital products or anything where you don't normally track inventory.
One workaround is to switch on inventory tracking in Shopify and assign a high number (e.g. 10,000) to bypass the issue.
8. Should I use dynamic or static discount codes for my welcome offer?
It depends on what suits your brand and customers, but the underlying goal is always the same: make it as easy as possible for people to actually use the code.
Static codes (easy to remember, reusable) are generally simpler for customers. With a dynamic code, usually a random string of letters and numbers, if someone can't find the original email to copy and paste it, that friction alone can stop them ordering.
The usual worry with static codes is misuse, but you can limit them to one use per customer. And if someone shares a static code with a friend who then orders? That's arguably still a new customer gained.
9. What metrics should I actually aim for?
There isn't one magic number that tells you whether your email marketing is working.
Klaviyo does have a benchmark feature to compare against your industry, but I wouldn't get too fixated on it, since results depend on a lot of different factors.
As a general guide, aim for a click-through rate of at least 2%, then focus on beating your own previous performance rather than chasing an industry average.
Look at which subject lines get opened, which content gets clicked and, most importantly, which emails actually generate sales.
Consistency also matters here. The more regularly you send, the more you build a consistent sending history, which can support deliverability.
10. How do I stop my Klaviyo emails being clipped?
Email clipping can happen when an email becomes too large.
To keep the size down:
- Compress images
- Remove unnecessary spacer blocks and use padding instead
- Reduce the number of sections
- Be aware that product feeds can add weight too
You can actually go all the way up to around 100KB total and still be fine. It doesn't need to be drastically smaller than that. Just avoid adding sections for the sake of filling space.
11. When is the best time to send an email?
There isn't a universal best time, as it genuinely depends on your business and your audience. What member feedback consistently shows, though, is that consistency builds audience expectations and boosts open rates over time.
The best approach is to experiment and look at your own sales data to find what actually works for your specific list, rather than copying someone else's "perfect" send time.
12. How often should I be emailing my subscriber list?
Klaviyo's research into top-performing brands has found twice a week to be an effective frequency, but that doesn't mean it's right for every brand all year round.
If you're already seeing good results from your current frequency, try upping it gradually and keep an eye on which segments you're sending to.
If you haven't emailed your list in a while, don't jump straight to multiple emails a week. Start with one, build from there, and make sure your content is varied rather than sell, sell, sell.
13. How do I reduce my Klaviyo bill?
Klaviyo charges based on your number of active profiles, not just people actually subscribed to your newsletter. That means you could be paying for thousands of profiles who will never open an email.
To bring the cost down:
- Create a "Deadweight" segment and suppress people no longer engaging with your emails
- Set up a Sunset Flow to give inactive subscribers one last chance to re-engage before suppressing them
- Remove ghost profiles - people who've never actually subscribed or interacted with your brand
- Suppress bots or fake sign-ups if you spot a spike of suspicious profiles
- Review your active profiles regularly, especially if Klaviyo prompts you to upgrade your plan
Worth knowing: suppressing a profile doesn't delete it. It just removes it from active billing and stops marketing emails going to it, so you can always unsuppress someone later if they re-engage.
14. How do I set up a sunset flow?
A Sunset Flow gives subscribers who've stopped engaging with your emails one last chance to re-engage before you suppress them. It's a useful way to protect your deliverability and keep your Klaviyo costs down.
The basic process:
- Create a "Ready for Sunset" segment of subscribers who haven't engaged for a set period (around 180 days is a common starting point, though this can vary depending on how often you email)
- Trigger a flow from that segment sending 2–3 friendly emails asking whether they'd still like to hear from you, and reminding them what they'll miss if they unsubscribe
- Create a "Ready to Suppress" segment for anyone who completes the flow but still hasn't engaged
- Suppress those profiles to remove them from active billing. You can always unsuppress someone later if they get back in touch
If it's your first time setting this up, exclude recent subscribers and recent customers as they simply haven't had enough time to engage yet.
15. Which Klaviyo segments do I need?
Unlike your subscriber list, segments are dynamic groups built from conditions such as location, behaviour, or values, for example. Broadly, you can build three types:
- Demographic (location, age, etc.)
- Behavioural (e.g. first-time buyers)
- Psychographic (based on customer values and beliefs)
Even with a small list, setting up your key segments from day one means you're ready to tailor campaigns as your list grows, rather than scrambling to build them later.
Useful segments might include:
- Engaged subscribers
- Unengaged subscribers
- Customers
- Non-customers
- Repeat purchasers
- VIP customers
- Recent purchasers
- Recent subscribers
16. I haven't emailed my list in months. How do I start again?
This happens to lots of small businesses. Life gets busy, so don't panic if email marketing has slipped down the list. Here's how to come back from it:
- Acknowledge the absence. Be upfront about it. Maybe you've been heads-down working on something exciting or you've simply been focused on running the business.
- Keep it personal. Open with a genuine update on what's been happening behind the scenes before easing back into talking about products.
- Don't jump straight into sales. If the first email after months of silence is purely promotional, you risk losing subscribers. A personal message feels far more relatable and keeps people interested.
Think about it from the receiving end: if you got an email from someone you hadn't heard from in ages, you'd appreciate a genuine update far more than being hit with an offer straight away.
17. Should I send order confirmation emails through Klaviyo instead of Shopify?
I'd stick with Shopify for transactional emails, like order confirmations and shipping notifications.
They're built specifically to do one job well: give customers a clear receipt or shipping update, and Shopify handles that reliably.
You can still customise Shopify's order confirmation emails with your branding and colours while keeping them simple and functional. If you want more design flexibility, an app like Orderly can help you create a more polished, fully branded version.
18. What should I include in an abandoned checkout email?
Keep it simple. The job of an abandoned checkout email is to help someone finish the purchase they've already started.
- Include a product image near the top so people instantly recognise what they left behind
- Tailor the subject line to reflect where they are in the buying journey
- Keep the layout simple and distraction-free, with one clear call to action
- Follow up with a second email highlighting your USPs, or what they'll miss out on by not completing the purchase
19. Can I add customer reviews to Klaviyo emails?
Yes. Reviews don't automatically pull into Klaviyo in every setup, but you can manually add your favourite customer reviews to campaigns and flows.
If you're using Judge.me, you can add featured reviews to your Klaviyo emails by creating a feed in Judge.me and connecting it to Klaviyo. This allows you to pull selected reviews into your email templates and choose which reviews you want to feature.
Judge.me has a step-by-step guide showing you how to set this up:
Adding Featured Reviews in Klaviyo Marketing Emails
20. How do I stop emails going into spam?
There's no magic switch that guarantees you'll never land in spam, but good email housekeeping helps.
- Set up a custom sending domain rather than relying on a shared one
- Avoid overly spammy subject lines. Using words like "free" won't automatically send you to spam, but excessive capitals, punctuation and misleading or overly promotional wording won't help.
- Limit image-only emails. A healthy mix of text and images reads better to spam filters
- Keep your list clean by removing bots or invalid addresses regularly
Your sending habits matter as well, which is another reason I'd rather see you email a healthy, engaged list consistently than send sporadically to thousands of people who haven't opened an email from you in a year.
Got More Klaviyo Questions?
You don't need every flow, hundreds of segments or a complicated email strategy to make Klaviyo work for your business. Start with the basics, get your key flows working properly, send campaigns consistently and learn from what your customers are actually clicking and buying.
If you found this helpful and want ongoing Klaviyo support, I'd love to welcome you inside Ecomm BFF. You'll get practical Shopify and Klaviyo training, live workshops, personalised feedback and a brilliant community of ecommerce business owners who are all working towards the same goal.
Whether you're stuck setting up a flow, wondering what to send this week or want someone to look at what you've already got, you can bring your questions along and get the help you need.
