Klaviyo flows are the automated side of Klaviyo: sequences of emails, texts and logic that run on their own when a shopper does something, such as signing up, viewing a product, starting checkout or buying. Campaigns are the one-off sends you schedule for launches and sales. Flows are built once, run every day, and on a well-run store they produce a steady share of email revenue with no extra work per send.
The catch is that flows are easy to create and easy to get wrong. Overlapping flows, missing filters and years-old copy are the most common problems we find when we audit an account. This guide explains how flows work, which ones to build first, how to structure a Klaviyo welcome series and how to keep everything healthy.
What Are Flows in Klaviyo?
Flows in Klaviyo are automated sequences of emails, texts and actions that each person moves through on their own after a trigger, such as joining a list or starting checkout. They are often called Klaviyo email flows or simply Klaviyo automations, although a single flow can mix email and SMS. Every flow has four building blocks:
- Trigger. What puts someone into the flow. Klaviyo supports list triggers (joined a list), segment triggers (entered a segment), metric triggers (an event such as Started Checkout or Placed Order), date triggers (a profile date such as a birthday) and price drop triggers based on your catalog.
- Filters. Trigger filters narrow who enters, for example only checkouts above a certain value. Flow filters are checked before every step and remove people who no longer qualify, such as anyone who has placed an order since entering.
- Time delays and splits. Delays set the gap between messages. Conditional splits branch on profile data, like whether someone has bought before. Trigger splits branch on details of the triggering event, like the product category in a cart.
- Actions. Emails, SMS, profile updates, internal notifications and webhooks.
Each message in a flow can be set to Draft, Manual or Live, which lets you build and test before anything reaches customers. Smart Sending, when on, skips a message if the person was recently sent another one, which stops a busy shopper getting three emails in an hour from different flows.
The Best Klaviyo Flows to Build First
| Flow | Trigger | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Welcome series | Joined your newsletter list | Turn new subscribers into first-time buyers |
| 2. Abandoned checkout | Started Checkout | Recover shoppers who left at checkout |
| 3. Abandoned cart | Added to Cart | Recover known visitors who added items but did not check out |
| 4. Browse abandonment | Viewed Product | A light reminder about products viewed |
| 5. Post-purchase | Placed Order or Fulfilled Order | Thank, set expectations, ask for a review, suggest a second product |
| 6. Winback | Placed Order, with a long delay | Bring back customers who have not reordered in their usual cycle |
| 7. Sunset | Segment of long-term unengaged profiles | Confirm interest or suppress, to protect deliverability and cost |
The abandonment flows are covered in depth in our abandoned cart email guide, so here we focus on setup, the welcome series and the post-purchase side.
How to Set Up Klaviyo Flows
To set up a Klaviyo flow, open Flows, start from the flows library or a blank flow, choose the trigger, add filters, then add messages and time delays, keeping every message in Manual until you have tested it. In practice:
- Start from the library, then edit. The Klaviyo flows library has prebuilt versions of every core flow. These Klaviyo flow templates save time, but their default delays, filters and copy are generic, so review each one.
- Set the trigger and filters. Confirm the trigger event is actually recorded on profiles, and add a "placed order zero times since starting this flow" filter to every revenue flow.
- Add messages and delays. Build the emails, add SMS steps only behind a consent split, and decide per message whether Smart Sending should be on.
- Add UTM tracking. Turn on UTM parameters so GA4 can report flow traffic and revenue alongside Klaviyo's own attribution.
- Test, then go Live. Follow the testing steps below before switching any message to Live.
How to Test Klaviyo Flows
Test a Klaviyo flow by keeping its messages in Manual, previewing each email against real profiles, sending test emails, and then walking through the real trigger yourself before switching to Live. Previewing as a specific profile shows whether dynamic product blocks, names and discount codes render correctly. Then trigger the flow for real, for example by starting a checkout with your own address, and check your profile's activity feed to confirm the event arrived and you entered the flow. Messages in Manual status wait in a queue instead of sending, so you can see exactly who would have received them.
How to Build a Klaviyo Welcome Series
The Klaviyo welcome series is usually the highest-earning flow because it catches people at peak interest. A structure that works for most brands:
- Email 1, immediately: deliver what the signup form promised, whether that is a code, a guide or early access. Show best sellers underneath.
- Email 2, about one day later: why the brand exists and what makes the product different. Founder voice works well here.
- Email 3, two to three days later: proof. Real customer reviews, press mentions you actually have, or user photos.
- Email 4, a few days later: answer the questions that stop first orders: sizing, shipping, returns, materials.
- Email 5, about a week in: a reminder that the signup offer expires, if it does.
Add a flow filter so anyone who places an order leaves the series, then route them into post-purchase instead. If your forms capture a preference, such as men's or women's, or the category page they signed up on, use a conditional split to show relevant products from email 1 onward.
Klaviyo Post-Purchase Flows and Winback Timing
Post-purchase flows do more than say thank you. Split first-time buyers from repeat customers: first-timers need reassurance about delivery and care instructions, while repeat customers can go straight to cross-sells. Time the review request after the product has arrived, which is why Fulfilled Order is often a better trigger than Placed Order.
For winback, base the delay on your real reorder cycle rather than a generic 90 days. A skincare brand with a six-week replenishment cycle and a furniture store need very different timing. If you have enough order history, Klaviyo's predicted next order date can drive this directly.
Klaviyo Flow Examples Beyond the Core Seven
Once the core flows are live and filtered, these are the next Klaviyo flow examples worth building if your catalog and data support them. Treat them as Klaviyo flow ideas to test one at a time, not a list to launch in a week:
- Back in stock: triggered when a shopper subscribes to an out-of-stock product and it returns.
- Price drop: triggered by a catalog price change on a product the shopper viewed.
- Replenishment: timed to your product's real usage cycle for consumables.
- Cross-sell: suggests the product most often bought second, based on the first order.
- Birthday or signup anniversary: driven by a date property on the profile.
Why Aren't My Klaviyo Flows Performing?
Klaviyo flows usually underperform because of setup rather than strategy: triggers that never fire, missing filters, overlapping flows, stale content or messages still sitting in Manual. The most common causes we find:
- No purchase filter. Customers get "still thinking about it?" after they have paid.
- Overlapping flows. The same person in cart, browse and welcome flows at once, receiving four emails in a day.
- Shopify and Klaviyo both sending. Native Shopify abandoned checkout emails left on alongside Klaviyo.
- Discounts everywhere. Codes in welcome, cart, browse and winback flows teach customers never to pay full price.
- Stale content. Discontinued products, old branding and dead links in flows nobody has opened in two years.
- No SMS consent logic. Text steps added without checking that the profile can receive SMS.
Klaviyo Flow Metrics Worth Watching
Look at each flow and each message on placed order rate, revenue per recipient, click rate and unsubscribe rate. Open rates are unreliable since Apple Mail Privacy Protection. Compare flows against each other and against the same period last year, and use Klaviyo's built-in A/B tests inside flows to test one thing at a time: subject line, send delay or offer. Let a test run until each variant has enough recipients to mean something.
Klaviyo Flow Audit Checklist
- Every core flow exists and is set to Live, not Manual or Draft.
- Every revenue flow has a "placed order since starting this flow" filter.
- Abandonment flows exclude each other so shoppers sit in only one.
- Welcome series splits buyers from non-buyers.
- Post-purchase review requests trigger after delivery, not at order.
- Sunset flow and suppression rules keep the list clean.
- All product blocks, links and discount codes tested in the last quarter.
Good flows also depend on good store data. Clean product titles and categories from the ecommerce SEO checklist make trigger splits and product blocks work properly, and our Shopify SEO checklist covers the collection structure that many splits are built on. If you are still deciding on a platform, read Klaviyo vs Mailchimp first.
We build, migrate and audit flows as part of our Klaviyo agency services. If you want a second opinion on your current setup, ask for a free audit, or browse more guides on the 95 Solutions blog.