Insights Guide

Klaviyo setup for Shopify: the 5 core flows and what each one earns

Five flows do most of the work in a Shopify store's Klaviyo account: welcome, abandoned checkout, browse abandonment, post-purchase and winback. Across the stores we run, flows deliver 69% of email revenue at a median $1.07 per recipient (the best accounts earn $3 to $7), against $0.20 for a campaign email. This guide gives each flow's job, its typical emails and timing, the triggers and filters that decide whether it earns, and what our one-time $1,500 Setup builds.

By Ihor Poltavtsev · Published November 7, 2026

Why flows first

A flow email is worth about 5 times a campaign email per recipient in our 2026 benchmark: $1.07 against $0.20. Flows run on behaviour, send at the right moment to one person, and keep earning without anyone pressing send. That is why a Klaviyo setup starts with flows and why the first 30 days of any program we run go there.

The five below cover 80% to 90% of flow revenue in a typical store. Category flows (back in stock, replenishment, price drop, VIP) come after.

1. Welcome

Job: turn a popup signup into a first order and teach the brand. Emails: 3 to 5 over 7 to 10 days. First email immediately with the offer (if any) and the three things to know about the brand; second with the best sellers and social proof; third with the story or the founder; fourth with the offer reminder; fifth with a reason to reply or follow. Trigger and filters: subscribed to the main list; exit on purchase; suppress anyone who bought in the last 30 days (checkout opt-ins). What decides the earn: the offer and the popup rate behind it. A first-order offer gets a 5% to 10% popup and a welcome flow that converts; “join our newsletter” gets 1% to 2% and a flow that educates. Both are valid; luxury and medical pick the second (why).

2. Abandoned checkout

Job: recover the people who started checkout and left. Emails: 3 over 48 hours. First at 1 hour (the cart, one line, one button); second at 24 hours (objections: shipping, returns, sizing, a review); third at 48 hours (last reminder, an offer only if the brand uses offers). Trigger and filters: Started Checkout; exit on Placed Order; filter out orders placed through any channel in the window. What decides the earn: the objections email. In fashion it is fit and returns; in home decor, shipping and the room shot; in medical, delivery and installation. A flow that only repeats the cart earns half of one that answers the question.

3. Browse abandonment

Job: bring back the person who viewed a product and did not add it. Emails: 2 over 24 to 48 hours. First at 2 to 4 hours with the exact product and two real alternatives; second the next day with the category and social proof. Trigger and filters: Viewed Product (from the Shopify integration, not Active on Site); once per 7 days per person; exit on Started Checkout or Placed Order; suppress if the product is out of stock, with a fallback block. What decides the earn: the alternatives and the sold-out state. In our fashion stores browse abandonment is the biggest flow by revenue; the version that shows the same item in the other colour or the same size in a sister style beats “you looked at this” by a wide margin.

4. Post-purchase

Job: make the first order the start of a relationship, and sell the second one. Emails: 4 to 6 over 30 to 60 days. Thank you with what happens next (immediately); how to use or care (at delivery); review request (7 to 21 days after delivery depending on the product); cross-sell of the complement (belt to shoes, rug pad to rug, accessory to device); a reason to come back (new arrivals in the category) at 30 to 45 days. Trigger and filters: Placed Order; branch on first order against repeat; branch on product category for the cross-sell. What decides the earn: the cross-sell logic and the timing from delivery, not from order. The rug store earns from a rug-pad email timed to delivery; the same email at order time is ignored.

5. Winback

Job: bring back customers who stopped buying. Emails: 2 to 3. First at the point where the customer is late against the store’s real repurchase cycle (not a default 60 days); second two weeks later with what is new; third with an offer, if the brand uses offers. Trigger and filters: Placed Order with a time delay equal to the category’s cycle (consumables 30 to 90 days, fashion 120 to 180, home decor 300 and more for small items); exit on Placed Order; suppress VIPs who are in a different sequence. What decides the earn: the delay. Klaviyo’s predicted next order date, where the store has enough history, beats any fixed number.

The four things that break flows

  1. Wrong trigger. Active on Site instead of Viewed Product; Checkout Started from an app that fires it on cart view.
  2. No exit conditions. The customer buys and still gets email 3. The single most common finding in audits.
  3. One email per flow. Half the revenue is in emails 2 and 3.
  4. Static product blocks. The flow shows the best sellers instead of what the person looked at.

What the Setup includes

Our one-time Setup ($1,500) builds all five flows with the logic above, a branded template, popups (welcome and winback), core segments, and deliverability (dedicated domain, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, warm-up, list hygiene), with revisions until approved. Stores that already have a working foundation skip it and start on a retainer. The free 30-minute audit tells you which of the five you have, which fire, and what each earns per recipient today.

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