Flows versus campaigns: What's the difference?

  • 27 November 2020
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Campaigns and flows are Klaviyo’s bread and butter. If you find yourself getting a bit confused between the two, don’t worry!

A campaign is a one-time email or SMS send to a pre-determined list or segment. These must be manually scheduled to be sent at a fixed point in time. A few examples of campaigns are sales promotions, educational blog content, or new product launches.

A flow is an automated sequence that is set in motion by a specific trigger and then includes one or more steps. Flows can be built to send timely emails or SMS messages, or they can simply apply certain actions, like updating a specific field on a profile. These are usually a series of messages that are constantly running in the background hitting your customers at the right point in time with the right message. Two examples of high revenue generating flows are the welcome series or the abandoned cart.

Happy sending!


1 reply

I want to send my customer list series of emails that are triggered by an initial email I send. How do I do this. It seems like I’d setup a campaign for the initial email and then a flow such that the first campaign email would trigger the flow which contains the additional 4 to 5 emails (that are sent in the 2 weeks post launch of the campaign.

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