Email Automation Guide
Email flows generate 50-70% of your email revenue. Most stores have them broken or missing.
Here's a stat that should make you uncomfortable: automated email flows — welcome series, abandoned cart, post-purchase — typically generate more revenue than all your campaigns combined. They run 24/7 without you touching them. And most Shopify stores either don't have them set up, or have flows that were built once and never updated.
We audit Klaviyo accounts every week. The pattern is always the same: a welcome flow with one email, an abandoned cart flow with the wrong timing, and no post-purchase or win-back flows at all. That's tens of thousands of dollars per year just evaporating.
Below are the seven flows every eCommerce store needs, with the exact timing, number of emails, and content structure we use for our clients. You can build these yourself — and you should.
50-70%
Email Revenue from Flows
7
Core Flows Every Store Needs
24/7
Revenue While You Sleep
$23M+
Revenue Driven by Our Flows
How to fix this — step by step
Build your Welcome Series (3-5 emails over 7 days)
Triggered when someone joins your email list. Email 1 (immediate): deliver the signup offer (discount code, freebie) and introduce your brand in 2-3 sentences. Email 2 (day 2): tell your brand story — why you started, what makes you different. Email 3 (day 4): social proof — best reviews, user-generated content, press mentions. Email 4 (day 6): bestseller showcase with product images and direct links. Email 5 (day 7): last chance for the signup offer with urgency. This flow should convert 8-15% of new subscribers into first-time buyers.
Set up Abandoned Cart recovery (3 emails over 72 hours)
Triggered 1 hour after someone adds to cart but doesn't complete checkout. Not 4 hours. Not 24. One hour — the data is clear on this. Email 1 (1 hour): simple reminder with the cart contents, product image, and one-click return link. No discount. Email 2 (24 hours): add social proof — reviews of the product they left behind, a "customers love this" angle. Email 3 (48-72 hours): final push with a small incentive if your margins allow — 10% off or free shipping. This flow alone recovers 5-15% of abandoned carts.
Create a Browse Abandonment flow (2 emails over 48 hours)
Triggered when someone views a product 2+ times but doesn't add to cart. Email 1 (4 hours): "Still thinking about [product name]?" with the product image, price, and CTA. Email 2 (24 hours): alternative product recommendations based on what they browsed. This flow catches the people who are interested but not ready to commit. It's less aggressive than abandoned cart — you're nudging, not pushing. Typically drives 2-5% of total email revenue.
Build a Post-Purchase flow (4 emails over 21 days)
Triggered after a first-time purchase. Email 1 (immediate): order confirmation with a genuine thank-you, not just a receipt. Email 2 (day 3): shipping notification with helpful content — how to use the product, care instructions. Email 3 (day 14): ask for a review. Time this after they've had the product long enough to form an opinion. Email 4 (day 21): cross-sell recommendation based on what they bought. This flow turns one-time buyers into repeat customers — and repeat customers spend 67% more on average.
Set up a Win-Back flow (3 emails over 14 days)
Triggered when a previous customer hasn't purchased in 60-90 days (depends on your typical reorder cycle). Email 1: "We miss you" with a curated selection of what's new since their last purchase. Email 2 (day 5): highlight a specific product they'd love based on purchase history. Email 3 (day 14): final incentive — a meaningful offer to bring them back. Win-back flows recover 3-8% of lapsed customers. That's pure profit since you already paid to acquire them.
Add a Sunset flow for truly disengaged subscribers
Triggered when someone hasn't opened or clicked in 150+ days. This isn't about winning them back — it's about protecting your sender reputation. Send 2 emails asking if they want to stay subscribed. Anyone who doesn't engage gets suppressed. Running this flow continuously keeps your list clean and your deliverability high. Most brands resist this because they don't want to "lose subscribers." But keeping dead weight on your list hurts everyone else's inbox placement.
Add conditional splits and A/B tests to every flow
This is where flows go from good to great — and where most brands need help. Add conditional splits based on purchase history (first-time vs. repeat buyer), cart value (high AOV gets a different message than low AOV), and engagement level. A/B test subject lines on every flow email. Test send times. Test content — long-form vs. short-form, product images vs. lifestyle images. The brands that treat flows as living systems instead of set-and-forget templates are the ones driving 40%+ of total revenue from email.
Want us to handle this?
Flows 1 through 5 are things you can build this week using Klaviyo's templates as a starting point. Seriously — go do it. Even basic versions of these flows will start generating revenue immediately.
But flow 7 — the optimization layer — is where the real money is. And it never stops. Conditional splits, A/B tests, dynamic content, cross-flow coordination, seasonal adjustments. The brands we manage see their flow revenue increase 20-30% every quarter because we're constantly testing and improving. If you want us to audit your current flows and build you a roadmap, we'll do it for free.
Questions our best clients asked first
Want to know exactly how your flows stack up?
We'll audit every flow in your Klaviyo account — timing, content, conditional logic, and performance — then give you a prioritized improvement plan with projected revenue impact.
Pick a Time15 minutes. No pitch deck. Just your data and our honest take.
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