Hi @Nermine, glad to see you back in the community!

I’ll answer the technical parts of your question first, but then I’m going to zoom out a bit so you can further consider this flow as part of your overall flow ecosystem for this brand. 

Profile Consent Impact on Welcome Series Flow Triggers

IF a profile is marked as "never subscribed" in Klaviyo because they provided their email during checkout only, their profile does not yet have a “Subscribed to List” event AND they are not part of your Newsletter list. So if they place an order, and your cart page doesn’t have a checkbox where they can indicate marketing consent and optin to emails, they will not trigger a Welcome Series flow. 

IF they subscribe later through the signup form that’s linked to your Newsletter list, THEN that action is what will trigger the Welcome Series flow. See the orange annotation I’ve added to your example screenshot here…

The flow trigger is dependent on that optin event, so only profiles with the “subscribed” status will enter your Welcome Series flow. See the example screenshot below…

It’s also worth noting that any flow triggered by a List or Segment is a one-time-only flow. People will not enter the queue of that flow multiple times in the way they do for an Event-triggered flow, even if they subscribe to your list more than once. 

Considering the Welcome Series within your flow ecosystem

Now let’s circle back to the purple annotation I made on the flow trigger screenshot above. It’s a nice touch you made to address existing customers differently than prospects who’ve just subscribed.

It would be helpful to know now, what kind of Customer Thank You flow(s) do you have in place? One thing to consider (if you haven’t already) is how different flows will interact with each other. 

So IF someone places an order, they should be entered into a Customer Thank You flow that’s triggered by the Placed Order event. An important factor in your customer retention will be taking care to not overwhelm people with emails within 48 hours of placing an order. 

Prioritize your Customer Thank You flow(s), even if a customer has recently subscribed to your newsletter list. One way to do this is to add a filter to the “Welcome Email #1: Existing...” so that IF someone has Placed Order within the last 2 days, they are skipped from receiving the Welcome Series email. 

It’s more important they receive post-purchase emails, especially if you’re sending things like instructions on how to care for their new product, tips on how best to use it, etc. 

AND IF this customer is a new subscriber, your Customer Thank You flow will support the intention of orienting them to your brand, and warming them up by sending emails to build up open and click activity on their profile. Similar to the function of a Welcome Series… 

My agency will often add a variation of a Welcome Series “brand story” email to a New Customer Thank You flow, so that the brand ethos and values behind the products can be affirmed to the new customer. That helps build trust, and give them confidence in their purchase decision, as a means of preventing buyer’s remorse. 

I hope this helps! Happy to answer any follow-up questions you have too…

Warmly,

Gabrielle

Klaviyo Champion & Marketing Lead at ebusiness pros

Hi @ebusiness pros , that was really insightful and helpful thank you!

I have a follow-up question. During a call with support, they suggested transferring all profiles labeled as "never subscribed" to a segment and then converting that segment into a list. This list now is the main list and includes also all non-subscribed profiles. My query is, if these profiles checked the box to receive marketing emails during checkout or subscribed via the signup form, will they still trigger the flow that activates upon signing up for this specific list?

You’re quite welcome @Nermine! 

Can you help me clarify how many lists you have in your account now? It seems like you might have two?

I’m a little confused, but it sounds like you’re saying you originally had one Newsletter list that all profiles were added to when subscribing, and now you have the Newsletter list and then a second “never subscribed” list that was originally a segment.

Generally, based on your screenshot flow trigger, here’s what I’d personally check on:

1. The flow trigger your screenshot shows is when someone “when someone is added to Newsletter” (your original email list)
   1b. That Welcome Series flow should be the primary destination for a new subscriber IF they have not subscribed while placing an order, and should correspond to your “master” Newsletter list. This relates back to my earlier points about your overall flow system… 
    
2. What ecommerce platform are you using? Do a quick check on your cart page email optin settings (where they check the box to receive marketing emails) and make sure those optins are synced to your Newsletter list.
   2b. My understanding of Klaviyo is that it functions best when you have a single “master” list that people optin to, and then you segment people to break them up into smaller groups. So the “master” list becomes your source of truth/ main holding space for all opted-in subscribers.
    
3. Double check your signup form settings (for all applicable forms) and ensure the specified list those optins are syncing to is your Newsletter list that’s triggering the Welcome Series flow. 
   
   As long as those 3 pieces are configured correctly, and it’s someone’s first time subscribing to the Newsletter list, people should trigger the flow and enter the queue as you expect!

Does that answer your question? Or are you trying to understand what will happen to your recently made list of “never subscribed” people?

Hi @ebusiness pros,
 

Sorry for the late reply. You're right; I've got two lists now as suggested by Klaviyo support. And yeah, I'm trying to figure out what happens with the "never subscribed" folks. Will they automatically become subscribed after doing something specific? Or should I set up a signup form for them to join the main list?

Hey @Nermine no worries!

There are a couple different ways to approach this, and the simplest is to just leave your list of “never subscribed” people alone.

When those people trigger order-related flow emails like your Abandoned Cart and/ or Abandoned Checkout flow, or a Customer Thank you flow, Klaviyo will enter them into the queue and send them emails. It’s a transactional email kind of gray area, where explicit “is subscribed” consent isn’t required to send those emails even though they have somewhat marketing-oriented content.

So those people will not receive a Welcome Series flow because they’re not subscribing to your list, and generally it’s best practice to NOT send those “nonsubscribed” people your campaign emails. Since they haven’t opted in, they tend to have a low level of engagement, and increase the risk of your emails being marked as spam. 

One thing I’ve seen work really well with my clients is putting an optin form on the cart/ checkout page and have it triggered by exit intent.  Then if you prompt people to save their cart, or offer them a discount on their order, that can be a way to capture explicit “is subscribed” consent for that segment of people. You could also set up a display rule on that optin form so it doesn’t show up for people who are already subscribed to your Newsletter (master) list.

An alternative solution that’s easier to implement consistently for every profile is to add a section to at least one email in your Customer Thank You and Abandoned Cart/ Checkout flows where you explicitly prompt people to subscribe to your newsletters. You could forecast specific perks of being on the list like early access to sales (if you do those), styling tips, etc. Then embed a signup form on a dedicated page of your website and give people that link so they can subscribe. This is an elaborate brand ambassador example, but you can see the embedded Klaviyo signup form here https://www.kulanikinis.com/pages/brand-ambassador

The short version, is unless you want to export the “never subscribed” list and merge that with your Newsletter list, there’s not a compelling benefit from maintaining that as a separate list. It’s better for you to track those “never subscribed” people as a segment, that will dynamically update as people subscribe over time. IF you were to merge them into your Newsletter list, you technically can do this, but it’s a gray area since they haven’t given explicit consent to receiving marketing emails. I’d tread lightly here.

I’d say the best place for you to start is create that “newsletter signup” page so you have a link you can send people to. Then find opportunities (really great ‘P.S.’ material) to give people a link to that signup page in the flow emails they will already be receiving. As long as that signup form is synced to your Newsletter list, people will then enter the queue of your Welcome Series!