Klaviyo email marketing

Klaviyo email marketing is the work of setting up, connecting and running Klaviyo for an online store so that the right message reaches each shopper at the right moment: a welcome for a new subscriber, a reminder for an abandoned cart, a thank you after an order and a campaign when a new collection lands. This page is for store owners and ecommerce managers who sell through Shopify or WooCommerce, have a Klaviyo account that is new, half built or drifting, and want flows that fire correctly, segments built on what people actually buy and someone to plan and send campaigns. Canada Create is a Toronto agency at 126 Willowdale Avenue serving online stores across Canada; we do the setup, configuration, migration, training and ongoing management inside the Klaviyo account you own.

Contents

• What store owners usually ask for
• Account setup, sending domain and store connection
• Lists, consent records and signup forms
• The core flows a store needs
• Segments built on purchase behaviour
• A campaign calendar and campaign design
• Reporting attributed revenue with honest caveats
• Auditing an existing account or moving to Klaviyo
• How Klaviyo fits the rest of the store
• SMS, consent and privacy rules
• How we work on your account
• What Klaviyo management costs
• How to choose who runs your Klaviyo account
• Your next step

What store owners usually ask for

When a store owner looks for Klaviyo setup or someone to manage Klaviyo flows, the request almost always falls into one of four situations. The store just moved to Klaviyo and nobody has built more than a welcome email. The account was set up a while ago by a freelancer who left, and now nobody knows which flows are live, which are drafts and why a cart reminder went to someone who already paid. The flows work, but every campaign goes to the whole list, so unsubscribes creep up after each sale. Or the owner simply has no time: the product team is busy with sourcing and fulfilment, and the campaign calendar is the first thing to slip.

How owners judge the result

Store owners rarely care about the number of emails sent. They look at three things in the account: whether the flows that should be running are live and firing on the right store events, whether campaign revenue holds up without blasting discounts, and whether the list is growing with real buyers rather than contest entries who never order. A good engagement makes those three things visible in plain reports and keeps the store owner in control of discount decisions, brand voice and what gets promised in the inbox.

Questions to settle before any build

Before building anything we ask how the store sells: one flagship product or a large catalogue, repeat consumables or one time purchases, full price or a promotion heavy calendar, one language or English and French. A coffee roaster whose customers reorder beans every few weeks needs a replenishment reminder and a subscription nudge. A furniture store whose average customer buys once every few years needs a slower nurture, care guides and a review request timed after delivery, not after the order is placed.

Account setup, sending domain and store connection

A new Klaviyo account is only as good as its foundations. We set up the account settings, sender name and reply address so replies reach a person, and the branded sending domain in your DNS so mail is authenticated with your own domain rather than a shared one. That means SPF, DKIM and a DMARC record that matches what the rest of your company sends, checked so the store’s newsletters do not break the invoices and staff mail sent from the same domain.

Connecting Shopify or WooCommerce

The store connection is what makes Klaviyo useful for ecommerce: it brings in products, orders, customer profiles and on site events such as viewed product and started checkout. We connect your Shopify or WooCommerce store, confirm that the events arrive with the details a flow needs (product name, image, price shown in the store currency, variant, order value), turn on onsite tracking where you approve it and check that the product catalogue syncs, so product blocks in emails show what is actually in stock.

Deliverability care from the first send

A brand new sending domain that suddenly mails tens of thousands of old addresses looks suspicious to inbox providers. We plan the first weeks of sending so the most engaged subscribers receive mail first and older, colder contacts are added gradually. We watch bounces, spam complaints and unsubscribes on every send and suppress addresses that hard bounce. Deliverability is ongoing care, not a one time switch: an account can lose inbox placement months later if campaigns keep going to people who stopped opening long ago.

Lists, consent records and signup forms

Every subscriber who enters Klaviyo should arrive with a record of how and when they agreed to hear from you. For an import, that means the date of consent, where it was collected (checkout box, popup, in store tablet, a giveaway) and whether it was express or implied. We map those fields into profile properties so the record lives beside the contact and survives any later move. Contacts with no clear basis for consent are kept out of marketing sends until the owner decides what to do with them.

Signup forms and popups that respect shoppers

We design Klaviyo signup forms in the formats the platform offers, such as a popup, a flyout and a form embedded in the footer or a landing page. Each form is styled to the store, shows one clear offer, states what the subscriber will receive and links to the privacy policy. We set display rules so returning subscribers do not see the popup again, mobile shoppers get a form that does not cover the add to cart button, and the form waits until a visitor has shown some interest instead of appearing on the first second of the first page.

Collecting the data segments need later

A second step in the form can ask one useful question, such as whether the shopper buys for themselves or as a gift, their preferred category, or their birthday month for a birthday email. We keep it to one or two questions, because each extra field lowers signups, and we only ask for data the store will actually use in a flow or segment.

The core flows a store needs

Flows are the automated sequences that start when a shopper does something or meets a condition. They do the steady, quiet work of a Klaviyo account while campaigns get the attention. We build them in the order that matters most for a typical store and keep each one simple enough that the owner can read it at a glance.

Welcome series

The welcome series introduces the brand to a new subscriber: who you are, what you make, why people buy from you and, if the store offers one, the signup incentive. We split it so subscribers who buy after the first email stop receiving the sales messages and move to the post purchase path instead.

Browse abandonment and cart abandonment

Browse abandonment reaches a known subscriber who looked at a product and left; cart abandonment and checkout abandonment reach shoppers who added items or started checking out. We set clear exit conditions so anyone who places an order leaves the flow at once, add a wait that feels natural for the product, and decide with the owner whether a discount ever appears or whether the reminder, reviews and shipping details do the work.

Post purchase and review requests

After the order, a short series thanks the customer, sets expectations for shipping, shares care or usage tips and, once the product has arrived, asks for a review. Review requests go to every buyer, not only to customers you expect to be happy, and they never offer a reward in exchange for a positive review, which keeps the store inside review platform rules.

Win back and back in stock

A win back flow reaches customers who have not ordered for longer than your usual buying cycle, with a reminder of what is new rather than an automatic discount. Back in stock alerts let shoppers ask to be told when a sold out size or colour returns, where the store connection supports it. For a store with seasonal drops or limited runs, this flow often turns a sold out page into a list of buyers waiting for the restock.

Segments built on purchase behaviour

Klaviyo segments update on their own as shoppers buy, browse and open, so a well built set of segments becomes the backbone of every campaign. We build segments around purchase behaviour rather than demographics: first time buyers, repeat buyers, customers who bought a specific category, high spending customers by your own threshold, shoppers who have browsed but never purchased, and engaged subscribers who opened or clicked recently.

Engagement segments protect the account

Not every campaign should go to everyone on the list. An engaged segment for most sends, a wider segment for major sale days and a sunset path for people who stopped engaging long ago keep complaint rates low and inbox placement healthy. Profiles that stay silent after a final check in are suppressed from marketing rather than mailed forever.

Segments the owner can read

Each segment gets a plain name and a one line description, such as “bought skincare twice, no order in the last season”, so the owner and any future staff member can tell what it does. A tidy segment library is one of the first things that slips in an account that has passed through several hands.

A campaign calendar and campaign design

Campaigns are the one off sends: a product launch, a seasonal edit, a restock, a story about how a product is made. We build a campaign calendar around your merchandising plan, Canadian retail moments that matter to your shoppers (back to school, Thanksgiving, Black Friday weekend, Boxing Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, summer) and the content you can actually produce, then plan which segment receives each send.

Design that matches the store

We design a set of Klaviyo templates and reusable blocks that match the storefront: your type, colours, buttons and product cards. Product blocks pull from the synced catalogue, images are sized for phones and every key message is live text, not baked into an image. For a deeper template system shared with other email work, see our newsletter template design service.

Sending, testing and the subject line

Each campaign gets a subject line and preview text that work together, a test send checked on phones and desktop, and, where the list is large enough to learn from, a split test on one thing at a time. If your team prefers to hand over the whole calendar, our email campaign planning and sending service covers the planning, writing and sending for any platform; on this page the focus is the Klaviyo account itself.

Reporting attributed revenue with honest caveats

Klaviyo reports revenue it attributes to an email or flow when a recipient places an order within the attribution window set in the account. That number is useful, but it is not the same as revenue caused by email: some of those customers would have ordered anyway. We explain this in every report and show the figures that help a store owner decide what to do next.

What a monthly report shows

• Revenue attributed to flows and to campaigns, shown separately, with the attribution window stated.
• Each core flow’s recipients, clicks, orders and unsubscribes, so a flow that stopped firing stands out.
• List growth by signup source and the share of new subscribers who become first time buyers.
• Deliverability signals: bounces, spam complaints and the size of the engaged segment.
• Next month’s planned campaigns and the flow changes we recommend.

Why open rates are a weak signal

Some mail apps load images automatically for privacy reasons, which records an open whether or not the person read the email. We treat opens as a rough signal and lean on clicks, orders and placed order value, so a subject line test is not judged on numbers the inbox itself inflated.

Auditing an existing account or moving to Klaviyo

Many store owners come to us with a Klaviyo account that already exists. A Klaviyo account audit looks at what is live and what is broken before anything is rebuilt: the sending domain and authentication, the store connection and its events, every flow and its trigger, filters and exit conditions, the segment library, signup forms, consent fields, suppressed profiles, template quality and recent campaign performance. You receive a written summary in plain language with the fixes ranked by impact.

Common findings

Typical issues include a cart flow with no exit condition that reminds customers who already paid, two welcome flows firing at the same time from two different forms, flows left in draft after a theme change, segments nobody can explain, and campaigns sent to every profile including people who have not opened in a very long time. Each one is fixable, and most are quicker to fix than to rebuild.

Migrating from another email platform

When a store moves to Klaviyo from another email platform, we export subscribers with their consent status and dates, map them into Klaviyo profile properties, keep unsubscribed and bounced addresses suppressed so they are never mailed again, rebuild the flows that matter and recreate the templates. The old platform stays connected only until the new flows are live and tested, so no shopper falls into a gap between the two.

How Klaviyo fits the rest of the store

Klaviyo pays off when the store behind it converts well and the email list is not the only place customers hear from you. Our email marketing services in Toronto cover the wider plan across platforms. Stores that sell on Shopify and want an overview of email options for that platform can read our page on Shopify email marketing; when a store’s product pages and checkout need work before more traffic arrives, our Shopify conversion rate work looks at the storefront itself.

For a new store or a rebuild, our ecommerce agency team plans the whole online business, and our Shopify store builds cover the storefront that Klaviyo connects to. Brands that also sell wholesale to retailers often need a separate approach for trade buyers, which our email for companies that sell to companies covers. Product photography from our photography team makes product blocks and campaign headers look like the store, not like supplier images.

SMS, consent and privacy rules

Commercial email and text messages sent to people in Canada fall under CASL. In general terms, that means having express or implied consent and keeping a record of it, identifying the sender clearly in every message, and including a working unsubscribe that is honoured promptly. Consent records must survive any list migration, so we carry the consent date and source into Klaviyo rather than leaving them behind in the old system. This is a marketing observation, not legal advice.

Bulk sender requirements

Gmail and Yahoo require bulk senders to authenticate their sending domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC and to offer an easy way to unsubscribe. A store that sends regular campaigns should treat these as basic hygiene, which is why authentication is part of every setup and audit we do.

SMS in Klaviyo

Text messages are more personal than email and consent for them is separate. Where SMS is available for your account and audience, we set it up only with its own clear opt in, keep the consent wording and date on each profile, identify the store in every text and make the opt out instruction obvious. SMS works for a few high value moments, such as a restock alert or an order update, not as a second channel for every email.

Privacy and Quebec

PIPEDA applies in general terms to how a business collects and uses personal information, which is why the privacy policy should explain what data the store collects and why. Stores with customers in Quebec should also plan for Quebec Law 25, including clear consent and the ability to respond to requests about personal information, and should plan French versions of forms and key flows for those subscribers.

How we work on your account

We start with a free review of your store and your Klaviyo account, or of the platform you use today if you have not moved yet. You then receive a written plan and proposal that lists the setup, flows, segments, forms and campaign work in scope, with fees quoted in writing. After you approve it, we build and test inside your account, launch the flows in a careful order and send reports every month.

Training your team

Some store owners want us to run the account; others want their own staff to take over. We offer training sessions on the parts your team will touch: building a campaign from the saved templates, reading the flow reports, updating a segment and checking a form. The goal is that the account never again depends on one person who knows how it works.

Accounts in your name

The Klaviyo account, the sending domain, the store and the subscriber data always belong to the store. We work as users you add to the account, and you can see every flow, segment and campaign we touch. Where a store also wants its customer records connected to a wider sales system, we can set up and connect our CRM, CS+, through our CRM setup and connection service.

What Klaviyo management costs

For a store, the cost of Klaviyo work follows the catalogue, the number of flows and how many campaigns go out each month. We price it in a written quote after a free consultation and a look at the account. Klaviyo bills the store directly for the platform subscription, which sits apart from our invoice; we do not resell the platform.

What drives the cost

• Whether the work is a fresh setup, an audit and repair of an existing account, or a move from another email platform with consent records to carry over.
• How many flows are in scope and how many branches each needs, for example separate paths for first time and repeat buyers or for English and French subscribers.
• The size and shape of the catalogue, which affects product blocks, back in stock alerts and category segments.
• How many campaigns a month you want planned, designed and sent, and whether we write the copy or work from yours.
• Whether SMS is part of the plan, and how much training your team needs.

How to choose who runs your Klaviyo account

A store’s email account holds its most valuable customer data, so it is worth asking direct questions before giving anyone access. A good answer is specific about your store, your catalogue and your consent records rather than a promise about revenue.

• Who owns the accounts? The answer should be you: the Klaviyo account, the sending domain and the subscriber data stay in the store’s name.
• How will you carry consent records into Klaviyo if we are moving from another platform?
• Which flows will you build first for a store like ours, and why in that order?
• How do you decide when a flow or campaign includes a discount?
• How do you explain attributed revenue, and what else will the monthly report show?
• How will our team be trained so we can send a campaign without you?

Be careful with anyone who promises a fixed share of store revenue from email or who wants to send to the entire list on day one. Klaviyo rewards patient, well segmented sending, and the store owner should understand every decision made in the account.

Your next step

Book a free Klaviyo review. Tell us which store platform you use, whether you already have a Klaviyo account and what is not working, and we will look at your flows, forms and list before suggesting anything. Call our Toronto office at (416) 273-9030 or the 24/7 toll-free line at +1 (800) 808-9235, or send a note through our contact page. We reply within one business day. You are welcome to meet us at 126 Willowdale Avenue, Suite 3, Toronto. Klaviyo is a trademark of Klaviyo, Inc.; Canada Create is an independent agency and is not affiliated with Klaviyo.