Strategic advice

How to prep Klaviyo flows for BFCM, from date logic to content swaps and sale cutoffs.The year the cleanup tripped us up Start with the sale window, not the flow Do you need faster flow timing? Probably not Swap in BFCM messaging without rebuilding everything Don’t forget the people already waiting in the queue Which flows should change? Then the sale ends, and the real test begins Turning first-time buyers into second-time buyers What changes when you plan this way Over to youEvery October, someone asks whether we can just drop a countdown timer into the abandoned cart flow. Adding urgency is the easy part. What decides whether BFCM goes smoothly is taking it back out.The year the cleanup tripped us upI learned this the unglamorous way. The day after BFCM, my team was tired. We switched every flow back correctly, but left the BFCM versions sitting inside the live flows with names that only made sense to whoever built them. One evergreen email also had a label that didn’t match the bra

How to run early access that actually feels exclusiveMost "early access" during BFCM is just a regular sale sent a few hours early to a bigger list, and customers can tell. It's not early access. It's just an earlier send, and that gap is exactly where it stops working.What does fake early access actually cost you?Here's what happens when "early access" goes out to 80% of your list: nothing. There's no urgency, because there's no real exclusivity behind it, and customers can tell. It's the same email at the same price, just a few hours ahead of everyone else.The real damage isn't the flat sale itself. It's what it teaches your customers. Do this enough times and you train people to stop paying attention when you say something is exclusive. The word stops meaning anything, so the next time you actually do have something worth being first for, they've already learned to tune you out.If everyone's a VIP, nobody is. That's the whole problem, and it's an easy one to walk into, because a big

Here are the pre-BFCM experiments I run (and why), how to run them as holdouts, the metrics that decide whether a cohort goes live on the big send, and how I leverage Klaviyo features and Composer.Why is deliverability the real BFCM testing filter? Test 1: how deep into the list can you safely send? Test 2: will your newest subscribers still be sendable in November? Test 3: average order value (AOV) mechanics, and what you really can't test beforehand What I don't test The result that changed my approach How does list size change what you should test? What carries forward and what doesn't A test I got wrong How I use this in my own workflow Share your experienceMost pre-BFCM advice covers subject lines, send times, and offer copy. None of that tells you what to actually do on Black Friday.Not because testing the above doesn't matter, but because leading into a compressed window like Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM), every test costs a send you can't get back, and those 3 don't change w

How can premium brands drive Black Friday sales without training customers to wait for discounts?Brands that protect their margins during Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) usually don't win with the deepest discount. They build demand early, keep the offer simple, and give shoppers reasons to click that have nothing to do with price.That idea ran through a recent Champion Coaching session led by two Klaviyo Community Champions: Shannon Jorgenfelt from Tatcha and Taylor Almond from Far Niente Wine Estates. Here's what any brand can apply this season.Should you send a save the date before your BFCM sale?Yes, even though it can soften sales in the days before the event. Tatcha finds that the dip evens out once the sale opens. Pair your save the date with build-your-bag or wishlist prompts so shoppers browse before the sale starts. Then use that browse and wishlist activity to personalize your first sale emails.How do you make early access feel exclusive without a deeper discount?Limit earl

My framework for building a smarter messaging calendar across email, SMS, RCS, and WhatsApp TL;DREmail carries anything that needs depth or story for us, and the real job there is segmentation and content, not more sending. SMS is for speed, like abandoned cart or welcome flows, and for hard promotional pushes, not day-to-day chatter. RCS only beats plain SMS when you're actually using the branding and the buttons, not just because the format exists. WhatsApp depends entirely on what's allowed in your market.  The real skill isn't adding channels. It's deciding, on purpose, when to go quiet on one.In DTC, retention lives on a thin line: you need the revenue now, but you also need the customer to come back, and every email, SMS, or WhatsApp message you send either builds that relationship or burns a little of it down. Adding channels doesn't fix this on its own, because being on email, SMS, and WhatsApp just means you have three places to send the same promo instead of one. A connected

Does an omnichannel strategy improve your Klaviyo pricing? Quick answer: Combining email and SMS into one Klaviyo omnichannel strategy makes your pricing plan more efficient because unified automations let you target sends by subscriber intent, cut waste on inactive contacts, and unlock advanced features like smart dynamic segmentation and Klaviyo's Marketing Analytics (funnel analysis, cohort analysis, and custom CLV/RFM churn metrics). Reserve SMS for your highest-intent moments—abandoned carts, VIP flash sales, back-in-stock alerts—and let email carry the fuller message with images and detail. Consolidating both channels in Klaviyo also means one data source, simpler attribution, and no juggling separate platforms or logins. The bigger cost lever, though, is list hygiene: cleaning inactive contacts every 3-6 months and suppressing non-responders does more for plan efficiency than any single flow tweak. Many brands don’t realize they’re only scratching the surface of what Klaviyo can

Email marketing is an effective tool for businesses. While social media and influencer marketing are growing in popularity, email still provides a great return on investment (ROI).To optimize your email marketing strategy, you first need to understand how your competitors are engaging with your shared audience. Competitor analysis helps you uncover opportunities to improve your own approach.Here's a quick guide on how to conduct effective competitor research for email marketing.Identify top competitorsKnow exactly who your main competitors are. These are typically businesses that offer similar products or services and target the same audience as you.Direct competitors should be your focus, here. Their strategies may offer relevant insights to support your email marketing efforts.Look at:Competitors with a similar target audience Competitors that have a strong presence in your industry Those who might not be direct competitors, but are known for their exceptional email marketing efforts

7 ideas for using segmentation, AI, reviews, and SMS in Klaviyo to build up your brand voice, not lose it.Quick answer: As AI-generated marketing gets cheaper and more common, brands that stand out are the ones deciding on purpose where a human voice still shows up. In Klaviyo, that means using segmentation around customer behavior (not just data volume), treating Composer as a drafting tool that adapts your voice rather than invents it, surfacing real customer reviews and photos at the moments they're most persuasive, using SMS Conversations to actually listen instead of only broadcast, and protecting at least one customer interaction a month from full automation. The goal isn't choosing between efficient and human, it's deciding which parts of the customer experience should always feel like there's a real person behind them.Have you noticed how much marketing sounds the same lately? Same 3 adjectives. Same “here’s what’s new” structure. Same slightly-too-polished tone. It’s not your

BFCM planning can easily become a race to add more campaigns, more segments, and more messages to the calendar. The strongest advice from our latest Office Hours with Klaviyo Community Champions was focused on: using customer signals to decide who gets what, when they get it, and what will help create the next purchase.Courtney Wallace, Head of Ecommerce at Dermalogica, and Marina Carroll, Head of CRM Strategy at New Standard Co., shared practical lessons from working across different business models, product categories, and customer journeys.How should you choose a BFCM segment – behavior or a default window?A 30-, 60-, or 90-day engaged segment can be a useful starting point, but it should not become a permanent rule. The right audience depends on the product, the purchase cycle, and the behavior you want to influence.For a premium brand with a long repurchase cycle, Courtney recommended starting with questions such as:How long does it typically take a customer to make another purcha

Learn how to clean up your Klaviyo account this summer for a more successful BFCM. Nothing says summer like long weekends, OOO replies, and a Klaviyo account full of disengaged profiles.Every summer I have a version of the same conversation with clients. Someone notices their open rates are softer than usual, clicks have flattened, and they're not sure if it's seasonal or something they should actually worry about. Most of the time, it's both.Summer is when engagement quietly softens. The list you've built over the past year starts carrying more weight than it should, and the fixes that would have taken a weekend in July turn into a scramble in October. The good news: a slower summer period is the right time to get ahead of it. Why does list hygiene matter before Black Friday Cyber Monday?Inbox providers use engagement signals to decide where your email lands. When a meaningful chunk of your list stops engaging, those providers start treating you like a sender they're less sure about.

Key lessons from our first Klaviyo Community Office Hours sessionFor our inaugural Klaviyo Community Office Hours session, digital marketers brought real-world questions about email and SMS segmentation, engagement, testing, and seasonal planning. Champions Eve Karon, Director of Retention at Boarderie, and Tabish Bhimani, Founder of Mastrat Digital, shared practical advice grounded in the realities of growing lists, changing inbox behavior, and balancing short-term performance with long-term customer value.Here are the biggest takeaways from the conversation.1. Let your data inform the calendar, but take a step back and use human judgment, tooThe strongest send calendar starts with the customer, not a generic benchmark.Eve recommended working backward from key events and holidays to map announcement timing, urgency, and reminders. From there, use Klaviyo’s Claude MCP integration to analyze historical performance by day of week and time of day.But historical data needs a sanity check.