Klaviyo Marketing Automation for Email Marketing
When social media took center stage in advertising a few years ago, brands raced to funnel their marketing dollars into it as if it were the only marketing channel that worked. While many thrived, others did not. Those who failed admitted to making one significant mistake: they overlooked a key component of the digital marketing mix—email marketing.
A recent study by Emarsys suggests that email marketing ranks as one of the top channels for acquiring new customers and retaining existing ones, second only to social media. Excluding it from your marketing strategy is akin to ignoring the 4 billion people who exchange over 347 billion emails daily. Moreover, data from the Data & Marketing Association indicates that email marketing offers an average return of $42 for every $1 spent. ROI doesn’t get much better than that.
Still, email marketing is no easy feat. It requires consistency and a knack for crafting compelling and engaging messages. However, as your email list grows, managing it becomes a hard row to hoe. You need the power of automation to keep up with the growing demand for high-conversion emails. This is where email marketing software like Klaviyo comes in.
In this guide, we'll explore Klaviyo Software’s capabilities and the A to Z of its integration with Shopify. We'll also provide expert tips on optimizing email marketing using this software’s full potential, including automating email flows and campaigns, personalizing messages, and integrating with other tools.
What does Klaviyo do?
Klaviyo is a digital platform that automates SMS and email marketing. It allows users to create, send, and analyze email campaigns to more effectively engage their customer base. The platform simplifies audience segmentation based on behaviors, demographics, and other criteria to tailor marketing efforts.
Brands using Klaviyo can automate workflows to send targeted messages to their customers and prospects, triggered by specific actions such as cart abandonment or purchase completion. They also gain access to detailed analytics, which are crucial for tracking performance and optimizing marketing strategies.
If your online store is on Shopify, Magento, or BigCommerce, you can easily integrate Klaviyo to leverage customer data for personalized marketing. This integration allows you to target customers with specific products, offers, and recommendations based on their past shopping behavior, thus improving engagement and conversion rates.
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Why is Klaviyo better than other email marketing software?
Over 100,000 brands trust Klaviyo, each experiencing a significant boost in subscriptions and sales after using the software. They particularly appreciate its focus on quality over quantity when it comes to batching and blasting email lists, although it can easily handle large-scale messaging needs. It allows you to create an email flow for every opportunity, from discovery and cart abandonment to upselling and expressing gratitude.
Unlike other email marketing software, Klaviyo uses powerful AI, predictive analytics, and a recommendation engine to craft personalized, high-conversion copy and emails. The software also provides intuitively designed templates to help beginners write professional and compelling emails right from the start. These templates can be edited on mobile devices to ensure you have control over your emails even on the go.
You also have access to templates for other content types, such as newsletters, promos, and individual holidays. The best part is that you can attach or separately send product recommendations, including the newest, most viewed, best-selling, or random products, all based on data-driven analytics to avoid spamming your email lists.
How to Integrate Klaviyo with Your Shopify Store
Integrating Klaviyo with your Shopify store is a straightforward process that can significantly enhance your email marketing efforts by leveraging the customer data from your Shopify account. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you set it up.
Step 1: Create a Klaviyo Account
Go to Klaviyo.com and click “Sign Up.” Enter your email address, password, company name, website, and phone number. You also have to tell Klaviyo how you plan to use the software. Then, confirm you’re not a robot and click “Create Account.”
Step 2: Connect Your Shopify Store
Click your profile at the bottom left-hand side of your dashboard and select “Integrations.” You’ll see all e-commerce platforms that Klaviyo can integrate with. For this guide, we’ll focus on Shopify because it is the most popular e-commerce platform and Klaviyo is known as a Shopify-first marketing automation tool.
Search for Shopify in the search bar and, once Shopify pops up, click “View Settings” on its right. Then, scroll down and click “Update Settings.” You’ll see a Shopify prompt that asks you to choose an account to integrate. Then, you’ll return to the integration page on Klaviyo.
Under Onsite Tracking, click the link that says “view your Shopify App Embed setting” to see what types of tracking are enabled on your store. On the right side of the dashboard, you’ll see several tracking elements, but all you need is the Klaviyo Onsite Javascript. Enable it and click “Save.”
Return to the integration page and check every tracker you want to enable. For instance, select “Add Viewed Product Tracking to my site” and “Collect SMS subscribers.” You’ll notice that “Collect Email Subscribers” has already been checked, and that’s because it’s a default feature on Klaviyo. Of course, you can choose to uncheck this if you don’t intend to collect email data.
If your Shopify store has been around for a while, chances are you already have customer data shared with Klaviyo. It’s best to enable “Update Shopify Customer Profiles with Klaviyo Data” to automate updating when changes to profiles are made. Then, click “Update” to complete the integration.
Step 3: Create Email Campaigns and Flows
You can send two types of emails to your prospects and customers through Klaviyo: email campaigns and email flows. Email campaigns, also known as broadcast emails or newsletters, are one-time emails that are scheduled or sent manually to a list of subscribers. Meanwhile, email flows, often referred to as automated emails or email sequences, are a series of emails automatically triggered by specific actions taken by subscribers or based on time factors.
If you’re new to email marketing and your business has just started, the general rule is to set up email flows first. Since email flows are automated, you only have to configure them once. Here are the different email flows you can set up:
- Welcome Series: Introducing new subscribers to the brand after they sign up.
- Abandoned Cart Reminders: Encouraging customers to complete a purchase they started.
- Post-Purchase Follow-ups: Enhancing the customer experience with thank-you messages, product care tips, or cross-sell recommendations.
- Re-engagement: Trying to recapture the interest of inactive subscribers.
Once you grow your email list and begin to have repeat customers, you can start sending out email campaigns. One distinct characteristic of an email campaign is that it isn’t triggered by specific user actions; it is a set of emails you send at your discretion. However, you need to discern the best opportunities to send them. These are some of the purposes of email campaigns:
- Announcements: Sharing news, product launches, or company updates.
- Promotions: Running time-limited offers, sales, or special events.
- General Communication: Engaging the audience with content such as blogs, customer stories, or holiday greetings.
How much does a Klaviyo subscription cost?
Klaviyo is a bit pricier than other software, but it is also more advanced, so you get what you pay for. Those with no more than 250 contacts can even use it for free, since the free account includes 500 monthly email sends and 150 free monthly SMS/MMS credits.
The price increases as the number of contacts grows, starting at $20/month for email marketing and $35/month for combined email and SMS marketing. Klaviyo provides a calculator to help you determine how much your subscription will cost based on your number of contacts.
How to Optimize Email Marketing with Klaviyo
Not all Klaviyo users succeed in driving sales to their stores. The reason? They fail to maximize the software’s features. Here are a few tips on how you can maximize Klaviyo to optimize your email marketing.
- Learn proper audience segmentation. Use customer behaviors, such as purchase history, browsing data, and engagement patterns, to create targeted segments. You can also segment your audience based on demographics, such as age, gender, or location. Utilize Klaviyo’s ability to track custom events, like webinar attendance or membership signups, for more nuanced segmentation.
- Personalize your messages. Incorporate dynamic content that changes based on the recipient's data, such as name, past purchases, or behavior. Integrate Klaviyo with your store to send personalized product recommendations based on past purchases or viewed products.
- Optimize your send times. Use Klaviyo’s Smart Send Time feature to automatically send emails when recipients are most likely to engage, based on historical open and click data.
- Conduct A/B testing. Test different subject lines to see which generates higher open rates. Experiment with different layouts, calls to action, and content styles to see what leads to better engagement. Test various sending times and frequencies to determine optimal engagement times for your audience.
- Use the software’s analytics for insights. Review key performance indicators such as open rates, click rates, and conversion rates regularly. Analyze how different segments interact with your emails and refine your strategies accordingly. Track how much revenue each email campaign generates, focusing on optimizing campaigns that drive the highest ROI.
- Maintain a healthy email list. Remove inactive subscribers who haven’t engaged with your emails over an extended period to maintain a high deliverability rate. Manage opt-ins and provide easy unsubscribe options to ensure you are compliant with email regulations like GDPR.
Unlock Sales Growth with Klaviyo Today!
As we've explored the dynamic capabilities of Klaviyo Software and its seamless integration with platforms like Shopify, it's clear that leveraging such advanced tools is essential for optimizing your email marketing strategy. Whether you're looking to automate your email flows, personalize your messaging, or tap into sophisticated analytics, Klaviyo provides a robust solution that caters to all these needs.
If you're ready to elevate your marketing efforts and drive meaningful engagement with your customers, consider integrating Klaviyo today. Harness the power of targeted, data-driven marketing and watch your business thrive in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.