I run a Shopify store and Klaviyo has been our home for email and SMS for a while. Lately I keep hearing that WhatsApp is a big channel for ecommerce, especially outside the US, but I will be honest: I do not really understand how it works yet, and I would rather learn from people who are already doing it than make expensive rookie mistakes.
So before I commit to anything, I would love to hear from you:
Are you currently using WhatsApp through Klaviyo at all? If yes, what for: flows, campaigns, abandoned cart, back in stock, order updates?
How did you get started, and what does the setup actually involve in practice (opt-ins, message templates, the WhatsApp Business account side of things)?
What are the real dos and don'ts? I have heard the rules around opt-ins and message content are strict, and that you can get your number flagged or blocked if you get it wrong. How true is that, and how do you stay on the safe side?
Where does WhatsApp inside Klaviyo fall short for you? Anything you find clunky, missing, or that you wish worked better?
And the big one: is it worth running WhatsApp through Klaviyo directly, or do most of you use a dedicated WhatsApp provider and connect it back? What has worked, and what has not?
I am mainly trying to figure out whether the juice is worth the squeeze, and to avoid the mistakes that cost people time or deliverability early on. Any war stories, recommendations, or "I wish someone had told me this" tips would be hugely appreciated.
Thanks in advance. Happy to report back what I learn once I actually get going.
Best answer by StefanUE
Hey @keazfounder, welcome to the Community and thanks for a great question. You piqued my interest, and I’ll try and get to all of your questions. I’m discussing this as an active Whatsapp user on Klaviyo, and a third year Klaviyo Community Champion!
First thing to understand is Whatsapp, at least for now, seems to be the most effective with audiences outside of the US (which you’ve mentioned), much like SMS is the most effective inside of the US (effective = cost / returns). If your audience is predominantly US-based, I would make sure other channels are set up first (have you looked into RCS at all?) before giving Whatsapp a trial run. I’ve seen the biggest success in LATAM, Germany (and to an extent EU) and the UK, for what it’s worth.
To your questions:
Are you currently using WhatsApp through Klaviyo at all? If yes, what for: flows, campaigns, abandoned cart, back in stock, order updates? Yes, for all of the above except order updates.
How did you get started, and what does the setup actually involve in practice (opt-ins, message templates, the WhatsApp Business account side of things)? Most important thing to note is that all templates need to be approved before they can go live. The opt in is separate to email and SMS, so you need to rebuild your Whatsapp list from scratch. Template quality and account quality play a big role (Klaviyo will display these as options in the Deliverability tab). Apply the same email warmup principles to Whatsapp (flows first, small scale campaigns, keep engagement high, for a few weeks). In terms of the setup, Klaviyo will guide you through the process, so all you need to do is follow the steps in-platform.
What are the real dos and don'ts? I have heard the rules around opt-ins and message content are strict, and that you can get your number flagged or blocked if you get it wrong. How true is that, and how do you stay on the safe side? As mentioned above, all templates need to be approved before they go live. If it doesn’t get approved, it neither can be used nor would it be safe to use it. Klaviyo will supply default optin language if you build your signup form there, and you are definitely good to use that as a starting point to stay safe. Don’t import a huge list of Whatsapp opted in phone numbers from some other place and start blasting templates to it. Build everything in Klaviyo and warm up slowly. Templates can get blocked, causing your send to skip profiles once Meta blocks your template. Templates will be blocked if the click rate is too low, and the unsubs + spam reports are too high. Once blocked, a template will need to be revised and resubmitted for approval. Not sure about flagging or blocking the phone number, I haven’t seen that happen yet.
Where does WhatsApp inside Klaviyo fall short for you? Anything you find clunky, missing, or that you wish worked better? For now it does almost everything good enough. We’ve been using it for about 6 months actively across a few accounts and it does whatever we need from it with minimum fuss. I’m sure there are specific use cases where it falls a little bit short, but none popped up just yet for us.
And the big one: is it worth running WhatsApp through Klaviyo directly, or do most of you use a dedicated WhatsApp provider and connect it back? What has worked, and what has not? Definitely worth running through Klaviyo directly, especially when it comes to synchronizing flows between email, SMS and Whatsapp. The ability to do this easily can’t be overstated, otherwise you risk people getting several messages triggered by the same event at the same time, which is messy and increases churn. We’ve used external providers before, but haven’t looked back since Klaviyo made Whatsapp GA.
The template approval and blocks, and the warmup are firmly in the “I wish someone told me this before I started” category for me. Everything else is fairly intuitive and doesn’t take long to get it calibrated to your particular needs.
Hey @keazfounder, welcome to the Community and thanks for a great question. You piqued my interest, and I’ll try and get to all of your questions. I’m discussing this as an active Whatsapp user on Klaviyo, and a third year Klaviyo Community Champion!
First thing to understand is Whatsapp, at least for now, seems to be the most effective with audiences outside of the US (which you’ve mentioned), much like SMS is the most effective inside of the US (effective = cost / returns). If your audience is predominantly US-based, I would make sure other channels are set up first (have you looked into RCS at all?) before giving Whatsapp a trial run. I’ve seen the biggest success in LATAM, Germany (and to an extent EU) and the UK, for what it’s worth.
To your questions:
Are you currently using WhatsApp through Klaviyo at all? If yes, what for: flows, campaigns, abandoned cart, back in stock, order updates? Yes, for all of the above except order updates.
How did you get started, and what does the setup actually involve in practice (opt-ins, message templates, the WhatsApp Business account side of things)? Most important thing to note is that all templates need to be approved before they can go live. The opt in is separate to email and SMS, so you need to rebuild your Whatsapp list from scratch. Template quality and account quality play a big role (Klaviyo will display these as options in the Deliverability tab). Apply the same email warmup principles to Whatsapp (flows first, small scale campaigns, keep engagement high, for a few weeks). In terms of the setup, Klaviyo will guide you through the process, so all you need to do is follow the steps in-platform.
What are the real dos and don'ts? I have heard the rules around opt-ins and message content are strict, and that you can get your number flagged or blocked if you get it wrong. How true is that, and how do you stay on the safe side? As mentioned above, all templates need to be approved before they go live. If it doesn’t get approved, it neither can be used nor would it be safe to use it. Klaviyo will supply default optin language if you build your signup form there, and you are definitely good to use that as a starting point to stay safe. Don’t import a huge list of Whatsapp opted in phone numbers from some other place and start blasting templates to it. Build everything in Klaviyo and warm up slowly. Templates can get blocked, causing your send to skip profiles once Meta blocks your template. Templates will be blocked if the click rate is too low, and the unsubs + spam reports are too high. Once blocked, a template will need to be revised and resubmitted for approval. Not sure about flagging or blocking the phone number, I haven’t seen that happen yet.
Where does WhatsApp inside Klaviyo fall short for you? Anything you find clunky, missing, or that you wish worked better? For now it does almost everything good enough. We’ve been using it for about 6 months actively across a few accounts and it does whatever we need from it with minimum fuss. I’m sure there are specific use cases where it falls a little bit short, but none popped up just yet for us.
And the big one: is it worth running WhatsApp through Klaviyo directly, or do most of you use a dedicated WhatsApp provider and connect it back? What has worked, and what has not? Definitely worth running through Klaviyo directly, especially when it comes to synchronizing flows between email, SMS and Whatsapp. The ability to do this easily can’t be overstated, otherwise you risk people getting several messages triggered by the same event at the same time, which is messy and increases churn. We’ve used external providers before, but haven’t looked back since Klaviyo made Whatsapp GA.
The template approval and blocks, and the warmup are firmly in the “I wish someone told me this before I started” category for me. Everything else is fairly intuitive and doesn’t take long to get it calibrated to your particular needs.
