the difference between two email-related segments in Klaviyo

Also want to know the difference between this metrics with blue marked.

 

​@teachateau, good questions. 

Segment 1 (If someone can receive email marketing) will match all profiles in your account who have an email address who can receive marketing either because they explicitly opted in (consent status = subscribed) or because they haven’t explicitly opted out or been suppressesd in some way. This includes people who never explicitly subscribed if you’re collecting their emails in some way (I.e. consent status = never subscribed). 

Segment 2 (Person has subscribed to email marketing at least once over all time) will match all profiles in your account who have explicitly subscribed to email marketing at least once over all time. This doesn’t have anything to do with their current consent status. It’s possible these profiles haven’t changed their consent status since the event or that they have bounced, unsubscribed, or been suppressed. 

Regarding your specific follow-up questions 

• What exact criteria are used for “can receive email marketing”?

  • Does this only check the current email consent status (e.g. subscribed, not suppressed, not bounced), or does it also depend on historical subscription behavior?

    • This will return all profiles who are currently subscribed or never subscribed. It will not return anyone whose email has bounced or who is currently suppressed or unsubscribed.

• For “has subscribed to email marketing at least once over all time”, does this include profiles who:

  • Previously subscribed but later unsubscribed?

    • Yes, exactly.

  • Are currently suppressed, bounced, or marked as non-emailable?

    • Yes.

• Is this difference caused due to “double opt-in”?

  • No. Double opt-in is a different concept. This has to do with whether a profile is required to confirm their subscription before getting added to a list / subscribed. More details here: https://help.klaviyo.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005251108 

• Is it expected that the profile count in these two segments would be different? If so, could you explain the most common reasons that cause the difference?

  • Yes, it’s expected. As I described above these are very different segments, so it’s expected their membership and counts will be quite different. 

If your goal = to send email to only the people who explicitly subscribed to your marketing, you’ll want to take segment 1 and add one sub-condition to better target the right set 

Regarding your screenshot in your comment, the “Accepts Marketing” field is one set by Shopify.  The status of “Never subscribed” marks Klaviyo’s understanding of this profile’s consent status. This community post might be helpful to you - 

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Question 1: 
Why would “haven’t explicitly opted out or been suppressesd in some way. This includes people who never explicitly subscribed if you’re collecting their emails in some way (I.e. consent status = never subscribed). “ these people would be in segment 1 “If someone can receive email marketing”

It’s that only mean the email is normal and can send receive email, instead of meaning that customer have accecpt to receive our email?

Question 2:
For the “The status of “Never subscribed” marks Klaviyo’s understanding of this profile’s consent status.” statement, what kind of situation would be marked as subscribed in Klaviyo’ system?
Why in Shopify system the email is marked as “Accepts Marketing” but in Klaviyo still no? Does that mean only email which were subscribed through Klaviyo can be tag as Subscribed?

Question 1: 

Why would “haven’t explicitly opted out or been suppressesd in some way. This includes people who never explicitly subscribed if you’re collecting their emails in some way (I.e. consent status = never subscribed). “ these people would be in segment 1 “If someone can receive email marketing”

It’s that only mean the email is normal and can send receive email, instead of meaning that customer have accecpt to receive our email?

Kind of. Put another way: it means that Klaviyo would try to send an email to these profiles if they were included as part of a campaign’s targeting, or going through a flow. It does not mean that the customer has explicitly accepted / consented to receive email marketing from your brand. One update from your message — it’s possible the emails are bad and will bounce if you try to send. 
 

Question 2:
For the “The status of “Never subscribed” marks Klaviyo’s understanding of this profile’s consent status.” statement, what kind of situation would be marked as subscribed in Klaviyo’ system?
Why in Shopify system the email is marked as “Accepts Marketing” but in Klaviyo still no? Does that mean only email which were subscribed through Klaviyo can be tag as Subscribed?

It suggests that your Shopify integration is likely not configured to port “Accepts Marketing” to “Subscribed to Marketing” in Klaviyo. This is outlined in the Getting Started with Shopify help doc : https://help.klaviyo.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005080407. 

Specifically step 9 from that guide is important for your use case: 

Check the Sync your Shopify email subscribers to Klaviyo box to automatically add customers who accept email marketing at checkout, or sign up to any Shopify sign-up form, to the list you select from the dropdown.

• As a best practice for collecting consent, you should customize the Accepts marketing checkbox label in Shopify within your checkout settings. 

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hi Klaviyo, we still very confused about the definition/properties meaning between Klaviyo & Shopify, here is the points that we were confused:

1. If the customer is marked as “Accepted Email Marketing” in Shopify backend, then the properties about someone accepts Marketing is True. But why the “Email Marketing Consent” in Klaviyo is “Never_subscribed”?
 

2.If the customer was sign up from form. In Klaviyo side, the “Email Marketing Consent” in Klaviyo is “Subscribed”, but in Shopify side, the “Accepted Email Marketing” is “No”.
 

3.What is the recommend setting that if we would like to create a segment that indentified people who are accecpted to receive email from Shopify or Klaviyo side.? 

4. For this segment “Because person subscribed”, is the subscribed status equal to the Property “email marketing consent” when we export the list from Klaviyo? and also equal to the status in subscription details?

5. For those customers who were from subscribed to “email list from sign-up forms”, why the “Email Marketing Consent” still have “subscribed”, “unscribed”? And why would some email not in the list of “Person can receive email marketing”?

​@teachateau, can you post a screenshot of your Klaviyo’s Shopify integration settings? It seems like you are not syncing consent properly between the platforms which is leading to the discrepancies you’re seeing and questions you have here. 

Specifically, you want to make sure: 
1. the box is checked to sync your subscribers from Shopify to Klaviyo
AND 
2. you’re syncing data back to Shopify. Specifically you need to make sure the “Email subscription status” (at a minimum) checkbox is checked 

See this guide for the details 

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Hi ​@teachateau,

I think this help article about Shopify’s Accepts Marketing property will help answer your questions!

To summarize, “Accepts Marketing” is an old Shopify property that has since been deprecated, and should no longer be considered a source of truth. It’s expected that your Klaviyo subscribers won’t all have the “Accepts Marketing” property set to true, and that not everybody with this property as “true” will be subscribed in Klaviyo. This is because the property was phased out in 2022, and at this point, functions more as a reference to their Shopify subscription status at some point in the past.

To answer each question individually:

1.  If the customer is marked as “Accepted Email Marketing” in Shopify backend, then the properties about someone accepts Marketing is True. But why the “Email Marketing Consent” in Klaviyo is “Never_subscribed”?

• Somebody may have historically accepted marketing at some point in Shopify, before you started with Klaviyo, but never actually subscribed via a Klaviyo form, or on the checkout page after you checked the “Sync your Shopify email subscribers to Klaviyo” box.

2. If the customer was sign up from form. In Klaviyo side, the “Email Marketing Consent” in Klaviyo is “Subscribed”, but in Shopify side, the “Accepted Email Marketing” is “No”.

• They likely were not subscribed in Shopify back in 2022 or earlier, and then subscribed via Klaviyo after 2022, once this property was already deprecated.

3. What is the recommend setting that if we would like to create a segment that indentified people who are accecpted to receive email from Shopify or Klaviyo side.? 

• If you want to create a segment of everybody in your Klaviyo account who subscribed to emails, and that you can be 100% confident consented to email marketing, you should make a segment with the definition, “Person can receive email marketing because person subscribed.” This will also include all of your Shopify subscribers that subscribed after you checked the box to sync Shopify email subscribers to Klaviyo.

4. For this segment “Because person subscribed”, is the subscribed status equal to the Property “email marketing consent” when we export the list from Klaviyo? and also equal to the status in subscription details?

• Yes. Everyone in the segment “Person can receive email marketing because person subscribed” will have a green “Subscribed” label in their Email marketing consent box on their profile, and are all marked as SUBSCRIBE when exporting a list form Klaviyo in their Email marketing consent column.

5. For those customers who were from subscribed to “email list from sign-up forms”, why the “Email Marketing Consent” still have “subscribed”, “unscribed”? And why would some email not in the list of “Person can receive email marketing”?

• People can remain in a list after they unsubscribe. They stay in the list, but it won’t be possible for them to receive any emails. Those people who unsubscribe will just be skipped automatically if you try to send campaigns to that list. Additionally, some people can receive email marketing without being in a list. They might not be subscribed, but if at any point, they provided you with their email and never explicitly unsubscribed, or were suppressed, they can technically receive email marketing.

Hope the above answers help clear things up! Happy to clarify the above/explain some more if needed.