A step-by-step guide to growing faster with email marketing in 2025

Collect email consent at checkout on your website

This is a key piece of the integration process. If you’ve already integrated your website with Klaviyo using a pre-built integration, this will be taken care of. Syncing email subscribers from your ecommerce store to Klaviyo is one of the key steps in our getting started guides for every ecommerce platform integration. If you need to verify that you’ve set this up correctly, check out the getting started guide for your specific platform integration.

Launch a teaser-first form to target non-consented customers

You probably have a subset of customers who have placed orders in the past but did not consent to email marketing. If they’ve clicked on a transactional message (like an order confirmation) that you sent from Klaviyo, they may be cookied, which means you can identify them on your site.

Target these profiles with a more subtle on-site form that leads with a form teaser. A form teaser appears as a small, unobtrusive widget in the corner of your site with a call to action like Save 10% or Sign up. It allows visitors to open up a sign-up form once they’re ready to subscribe.

In Klaviyo, the consent status of unconsented profiles is marked as Never subscribed. In order to target these profiles with a form, group them together by building a segment with the following criteria: If someone can or cannot receive marketing > Person can receive email marketing > Because person never subscribed

Then, build a new sign-up form that has a teaser as the first step in the sequence:

Set the teaser to display Before displaying form.In the next form step, set the timing of your form to be Based on rules: after visiting a certain number of pages. Start with a 2-page threshold.Under Targeting > Visitors, choose Show to profiles in a specific list or segment. 4. Choose the segment you just built that contains your unconsented active profiles.Publish your form.

Deliver personalized recommendations to new subscribers faster

Think about all the window shoppers who visit your site. They click around, they lurk, they read product reviews, and they may do this several times before they decide to give you their email address.

That browsing activity is valuable data that you could be using to make personalized product recommendations as soon as someone subscribes to email. You can achieve this instant personalization by turning on anonymous visitor tracking in Klaviyo. To do this:

1. Log in to your Klaviyo account.
2. Go to Settings > Data.
3. Click the checkbox to Enable anonymous visitor tracking.

Email list growth best practices for over 20K subscribers

Use Facebook Lead Ads to find more potential customers

Investing in lead ads on social media can significantly accelerate your audience growth. The Meta Ad network enables you to run ads across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp, exposing your brand to a vast global audience.

With the Klaviyo Facebooks Ads integration, you can sync segments from Klaviyo into the Meta Ad Network, then use those segments for ad targeting.

Identify qualified prospects through lookalike audiences

The concept of a Facebook lookalike audience is simple: build a segment of current customers, and then let Meta identify a cohort of people who are not yet customers, but who share similar interests, demographics, and characteristics. For best results, Meta recommends using a base segment that contains between 1K and 5K profiles.

In order to identify qualified prospects, build a segment in Klaviyo that identifies the type of customers you want to attract (your high-value customers).

Predictive analytics are AI-powered calculations that you can use to segment customers based on their lifetime value. Customer lifetime value (CLV) simply means the total amount of money someone spends with your brand over their lifetime, and it’s helpful for identifying who your best customers are. Start with this suggested segment criteria:

– What someone has or has not done > Placed Order > at least once in the last 365 days
 – AND Predictive analytics about someone > Historic lifetime value > is at least $100

Your value threshold for what makes a “good” customer will vary based on the types of products you sell and the average CLV of your customer base. You should use the dollar value threshold that reflects what you would consider a “valuable” customer. This will be different for every brand using Klaviyo.

Regularly A/B test your forms to increase your submit rate

To figure out how your audience responds to different offerings and which form experiences lead to the best outcomes, run an A/B test on your sign-up form at least once a quarter.

Here are some recommendations for what to test:

Test the sign-up incentive.

Test a percentage off vs. a fixed dollar amount.Test a discount vs. free shipping (or other non-discount perk).Test early access to new products vs. free digital content download.

Test the behavior of the form.

Test showing the form after scrolling 50% of the page vs. exit intent pop-up behavior.Test a fixed time delay (e.g., 5 second delay) vs. showing immediately.

Test the design of the form.

Test whether single-step or multi-step works better for collecting customer data using radio buttons.

A/B testing for marketing is just like running tests in your high school chemistry class. You should only test 1 variable at a time and hold everything else constant so you can tell if that change is actually making a difference.

Never A/B test both the sign-up incentive and display timing within a single test, for example, because you won’t be able to tell which variable impacted the submit rate. Testing frequently empowers you to rotate through a variety of test variables and constantly iterate to improve your form.

Email list growth best practices for over 400K subscribers

Use AI to automatically optimize your form

As your brand grows, you’ll need to find new ways to save time and optimize in order to stay efficient. If you have more than 400K total profiles stored in your Klaviyo account (including both active and suppressed profiles), run a form display optimization test. This AI-powered test automatically creates multiple versions of your form with different display timings, and automatically tests them against each other until it narrows down the optimal display settings.

(Accounts with less than 400K profiles stored in their accounts do not have the option to use this test because it requires a large volume of site traffic to yield statistically significant results.)

Forms display optimization takes the manual labor out of creating multiple form variations by hand, and can help you reach optimal performance faster than a traditional A/B test. Learn how to configure this test in your own account.

Goal 2

Earn more revenue with a segment-driven campaign strategy

Email campaigns give you the flexibility to reach your entire audience at once, or hone in on a specific segment with a targeted message. The more relevant your messages are to recipients, the more likely they are to drive revenue. This is why segments are a key tool for revenue growth: they allow you to reach the right groups of people with the right campaigns.

Segmentation also helps you maintain a strong email sender reputation. Put simply, brands who send every email to every single subscriber all the time tend to end up in the spam folder. Inbox providers like Gmail and Yahoo may start routing your messages to spam if you repeatedly send messages to recipients who aren’t opening or clicking on them.

Brands that see the best results from Klaviyo send at least 8 email campaigns a month targeted at a variety of different customer segments. Pairing engaging campaign content with a purposeful segmentation strategy will help you generate revenue while maintaining a strong sender reputation.

Types of email campaigns to send

Snackable editorial content

These are short, attention-grabbing blurbs or links to blog posts that reference your products, but also have novel value to your subscribers (e.g., makeup tutorials for makeup brands, styling guides for clothing brands, weekly cleaning schedules for cleaning supplies brands, weekly workout suggestions from gyms).

The purpose of this type of campaign is to keep your open and click rates strong. The call to action (CTA) for these emails is typically something like “Read our blog”, “Follow us on social”, or “Learn more”. These campaigns are not sales-heavy.

Traffic-driving content

These are marketing campaigns that drive traffic to your website by promoting products, services, or events without any form of incentive or discount (e.g., highlighting a new product or collection, showcasing bestsellers, curating specific products, or highlighting a press moment or collaboration).

The purpose of these campaigns is to drive awareness of your brand’s products and services, as well as increase revenue.

Conversion-driving content

These are marketing campaigns that use some form of time-sensitive promotion or incentive to drive conversions (e.g., highlighting clearance items, flash sales, larger promotions, limited-time discounts to specific segments, or any other deal).

The purpose of these campaigns is to drive revenue and increase sales.

Use segmentation to keep your email engagement metrics strong

Email engagement refers to how many people open, click, and convert through your emails. Most brands on Klaviyo use Placed Order to measure conversion. According to our email marketing benchmarks research, ecommerce emails earn the following stats on average:

Open rate: 39.74%

Click rate: 1.47%

Revenue per recipient: $0.11

Placed order rate: 0.09%

To meet and exceed these averages, you need a segmentation strategy. A good segmentation strategy strikes a balance between strong message engagement and maximizing revenue potential.

The type and size of segments you use will depend on your current deliverability health, as well as your list size. When we talk about engaged segments, we typically categorize them by the number of days in which subscribers were last active (e.g., 30-day engaged, 60-day engaged, etc.).

The general rule to follow is that you should send to your most engaged subscribers most often, and send to your less engaged subscribers less often. The visual below illustrates what it looks like to follow this method throughout the calendar year.

Email campaign best practices for less than 20K subscribers

Campaign sending cadence

If your team is small (or you are a team of 1), sending campaigns twice a week can be tough to manage. Start by setting the goal to send 1 campaign a week, and hold yourself accountable by creating a content calendar framework to follow month after month. Add the following campaign types to your monthly calendar:

1 newsletter/snackable campaign

1-2 traffic-driving campaigns

2 conversion-driving campaigns

As you get into the habit of proactively building your content calendar, start adding in more emails. Work toward a cadence of sending 2 campaigns per week.

Campaign segmentation strategy

If your audience is under 20K profiles, focus on trying to engage as many profiles as you can while you grow your list. When your list is on the smaller side, it’s important not to segment too narrowly because you can’t afford to miss out on potential revenue at this stage.

Match your monthly campaigns up to these segments to create your base strategy:

All email subscribers: send 1 conversion-driving email per month and 1 traffic-driving campaign per month

180-day engaged: send your second conversion-driving email per month

90-day engaged: send 1 newsletter/snackable content update per month

As you send campaigns, be sure to check your AI-powered benchmarks report in Klaviyo to see how you’re performing compared to relevant competition. If you use this strategy and your benchmarks are Excellent, widen the segments you’re using. You can afford to have some lower-performing messages in an effort to capture more revenue.

For example, if your open rate benchmark score is Excellent, try sending your newsletter to your 180-day engaged segment instead of your 90-day engaged segment, or expand your second conversion-driving email to a 365-day engaged segment.

Campaign sending cadence

You should be sending at least 2 segmented email campaigns per week. Think of every email campaign as an opportunity to get closer to your revenue goals. The more targeted campaigns you can send, the more revenue you can earn. Use segments to identify audiences of interest that are likely to convert, and build messaging that speaks specifically to their interests or buying intentions. Some brands send every day and see great results because they are diversifying the segments that they send to.

Campaign segmentation strategy

Within a given month, you should break down your segmentation strategy as follows:

Send 70% of campaigns to 30- or 60-day engaged segments, or a highly-targeted segment, featuring:

Standard snackable content

General promotions or product highlights

Send 20% of campaigns to a broader audience (90- or 180-day), featuring:

Highly relevant or unique content, such as content from a guest writer or influencer campaign content

Most promotions

Most traffic-driving events

Send 10% to all subscribers, featuring:

Large promotions

Large traffic-driving events

As your list grows and you collect more customer data, your segments should become more specific. This will allow you to focus your valuable time and effort on subscribers who are likely to buy. We recommend spending 75% of your marketing energy on these or similar segments:

Email automation best practices for all audience sizes

We know that more flows is better, but if you’re just starting out building your email program, which flows should you start with?

In the early stages of audience building, launch high-engagement flows first. These are flows that typically generate the highest open rates, click rates, and revenue per recipient.

No matter what your list size is, set up these 5 key flows in your account:

Email automation best practices for over 20K subscribers

As your customer base grows, set more flows live to automate retention and bring customers back to make more purchases. The best-performing brands on Klaviyo have 10 or more flows live, each helping to drive conversions, retention, and brand loyalty.

If you do nothing else, set these flows live in your account:

Integration-based email automations

The beauty of Klaviyo is that the more data you integrate into the platform, the more experiences you can power. As your brand grows, we strongly encourage you to explore integrations that can help you enhance the customer experience through:

Formal loyalty programs (points- or tier-based)Klaviyo Reviews (for Shopify) or product review integrationsReferral programs to help with acquisitionQuiz and survey tools to collect more customer data


Each integration you install and sync with Klaviyo comes with its own set of metrics and new data you can use to power and personalize flows. As you invest in new technologies, confirm they’re a Klaviyo tech partner to ensure that you’ll be able to activate all of your customer data in Klaviyo.

Key takeaways

Your strategy and tactics will (and should) evolve over time.

As you grow, keep these 3 focus areas top of mind to achieve your long-term revenue goals:

1. Grow your audience continuously through as many channels as possible to increase your revenue potential.
2. Use a segment-driven email campaign strategy to hit your revenue goals and keep your customers engaged.
3. Automate customer retention efforts through well-placed, intentional flows throughout the customer lifecycle.

Email marketing is your foundation for building smarter digital relationships with your customers. Use the best practices and strategies outlined in this guide to grow like the most successful brands on Klaviyo.