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Best approach for multiple languages

  • 30 April 2024
  • 8 replies
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Hi there!

I’ve read through some posts from 2 years ago on how best set up your klaviyo flows when you serve customers of different languages. 


Like the user in this post:

  said: 

-”Add Conditional Splits to Each Flows Based on Language Variable... would add complexity to the Flow with lots of branches to manage ….  at 5 languages, flows could have 10s of elements in a flow, just to maintain the similar logic for different languages... it honestly just sounds like a support nightmare…. “ I currently have 3 languages but am planning to add more (since my store is located in europe, there are many more languages spoken here) 


Therefore I was thinking of creating one list per language as one user suggested in this post: 

To me this sounds like the simplest solution to me. Since I am still at the beginning of building my email list, I would not have to worry about moving current subscribers from one list to another.

But, in these posts there was also mentioned that Klaviyo is working on new features/ systems for users like us who manage customers in different languages, so I was wondering if in the meantime there is a better and simpler solution for my problem? 

Thanks in advance for your suggestions :) 

8 replies

retention
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Hi @Lucia937, welcome back to the community.

This is a great topic! Frankly, I was hoping others would share so I can learn too. I’m not aware of any other features that are specific to localization, aside perhaps the recent launch of Portfolios (today!) which only applies if you have separate Klaviyo accounts for each region.

But I’ve done this for my clients with both using Segments or Lists due to their setup or constraints. There are some tradeoffs with each approach, so maybe I can list a few of my experience here to see what works for you since you get to start from scratch.

 

Using One List, Segmenting by Language Preference

This is the method of using just one List (or the main List), and segmenting that List into multiple Segments one for each language via a custom property you set in their profiles.  This can be done through a Signup Form, or through the preference page (or perhaps via the API).

 

Pros

  • You have one clean and consistent List for all your subscribers (regardless of language) and can make future segmentation and profile management a lot easier. 
  • You can use conditional branches in Flows, or use Flow Filters to have separate Flows for each Segment.  
  • The user language preference can be changed easily from one to another at any time since it’s just a custom property value.
  • Aggregating reporting are all in one, example List Growth, Engagement Reports, Custom Reports, etc.  

Cons

  • The single List settings will apply to everyone.  This includes double-optin (or single-optin) consent settings.  As well as List based default sender Contact Name / Email (you have to change it manually if you have different email addresses for each language).  
  • Though you can add language preferences in the Preference page, the Klaviyo hosted (default) preference page itself can’t be multi-lingual unless you use hosted pages or your own solution with the API.  
  • Some aggregated reports might not be ideal if you can’t break them out by language. (e.g. English vs Spanish, etc).


Using Many Lists, One for Each Language

This is the method where you have different Lists for each language.  This also means there are typically separate Sign Up Forms for each language (one form, one List) or through the API (or third party tools)

Pros

  • Finer control of settings and configuration for each language.  For example, for the EU, you may need double-optin for GDPR compliancy, but perhaps in North America, you only want Single Optin.  You can also set default Sender Names / Email Address for each List (from: support@brand.com, support@eu.brand.com, etc) 
  • Your consent/preference pages (on the List level) can be customized for each language.
  • You can run separate reports for each List so you can see how they behave comparatively. 
  • Any List triggered Flows (Specific to each Language) runs faster than a Segment Triggered Flows. (e.g. Welcome Series).  

Cons

  • Some reports are better aggregated, so combining separate reports in some use cases can be tedious.
  • It can sometimes be difficult to switch people from one language to another, you will have to add them to a List, and remove them from the other.  Otherwise, they may be getting campaign/flow messages from both languages.   This may require API or some front-end to do this programmatically.  
  • You will need to manage how to show different Signup Forms on the site for the appropriate language.  Most sites have some sort of sitewide “switch” or “change language” feature, at which you have some way to change the Klaviyo Signup Form in accordance.  This depends highly on how you have your site setup and can be a technical blocker.

In either method, you can decide if you want to have a Flows with Conditional Branches (either by the custom property language value, or being a member of a List) or completely separate Flows (with a Flow Filter) based on their custom property language value. or which List they belong to.

You can read about this post I did between the Branching vs Flows here: 

Hope this helps, and I’m glad you brought it up. I look forward to see any other ways to do localization here.

Joseph Hsieh // retentioncommerce.com // twitter: @retention
Lucia937
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I’d like to express my gratitude for this in depth reply and for listing all the pros and cons. 
I thought about which option would be better for me but haven’t come to a decision yet. But at least thanks to your reply I won’t run into surprises once I do choose one.
 

Thanks again for taking the time to reply I will also make sure to check out the linked post!

T
Rank

Thank you everyone for showing interest in this topic. Based in Europe and selling in all EU countries we also have the same problem. We’re not interested in switching to a multiple Klaviyo account setup, complicated logic inside the form also seems less than ideal. 

 

What we’ve tried is having multiple unique sign up forms, one for each country. 

We make a copy of each flow and newsletter for each country. We divide the recipients by what country they are in - though we should probably get a language preference soon…

 

I hope Klaviyo focuses on this feature. I agree that going from Shopify’s great handling of multi-language to Klaviyo’s limited support is clunky and presents problems!

Lucia937
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HI @thomas at augment I have started creating my set-up the same way … -made a copy of each flow and newsletter for each country. 

Quick question: do you have separate lists, one for each country/language? Or do you have one single list only?
I wanted to go for the single list-option (&then use filters, conditional splits etc to make sure the customers get the right emails)  but unsure how to handle the preferences, subscribe, and unsubscribe pages. The way I understand it I can only have them one preference subscribe, and unsubscribe page per list. 
Would love to hear how you decided to handle this

T
Rank

HI @thomas at augment I have started creating my set-up the same way … -made a copy of each flow and newsletter for each country. 

Quick question: do you have separate lists, one for each country/language? Or do you have one single list only?
I wanted to go for the single list-option (&then use filters, conditional splits etc to make sure the customers get the right emails)  but unsure how to handle the preferences, subscribe, and unsubscribe pages. The way I understand it I can only have them one preference subscribe, and unsubscribe page per list. 
Would love to hear how you decided to handle this

Hi Lucia, thanks for your message! We are maintaining one list, but then we make segments for each country. And based on where the subscriber’s country indicates they will get the newsletter for the language of that country. Ex: subscribers in Spain get a newsletter in Spanish. I believe this keeps us in the “one list” mode, but kind of cheats, and perhaps we are sending newsletters to non-spanish speakers because we didn’t give them a chance to share their preference. That’s certainly a new step. Hope that helps! 

Lucia937
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@thomas at augment thanks for your reply. Yes I almost completely satisfied with this solution as well. If only Klaviyo would allow us to have multiple manage preferences and subscribe etc pages, that’d be great!

T
Rank

@thomas at augment thanks for your reply. Yes I almost completely satisfied with this solution as well. If only Klaviyo would allow us to have multiple manage preferences and subscribe etc pages, that’d be great!

Well at least you can make multiple signup forms and make the content of the forms in the local language where the form is embedded..

Lucia937
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Userlevel 2
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@thomas at augment yes that is true.

Do you send people to sign-up forms to update / share their personal details like birthday for example? (stuff that can’t be update with a simple button click?)

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