Strategic advice

Stefan's AI QA checklist and Composer promptsOne designer. Two strategists. Eleven Klaviyo accounts. Eighteen language and currency variants. Zero QA incidents in six months.That's what Stefan Milicevic, Strategy Director at Underground Ecom, shared during our latest Klaviyo Community Customer Showcase.His team manages CRM operations for a large global brand, where a single campaign can involve 20–30 variations across different markets. Manually reviewing every version would take approximately nine hours per campaign.Instead of hiring more people or sacrificing quality, the team built an AI-assisted workflow using Claude for email quality assurance (QA) and Klaviyo Composer for performance analysis.In this recap, we're sharing how it works, the results, and resources you can use to try it yourself.Resources from Stefan:Download Stefan's email QA checklist View the presentation slides Copy the three example AI prompts below, adapted from Stefan's demonstrations.The results: More output,

Our hero product sold out during a major sale. Here's how we used customer click data, inventory checks, and Klaviyo Composer to adapt our next email in minutes instead of losing a trading day.There's a particular kind of panic that comes with watching your bestselling product sell out while a major sale is still running. You've spent weeks planning the campaign. The emails are out, customers are clicking, and everything is working. Maybe a little too well. Then your hero product sells out.That was the situation we found ourselves in across our Australian fashion brands, JAG, Sportscraft, and SABA.The obvious next step was to promote something else. The problem? Making that change wasn't nearly as simple as deciding what to feature instead. Historically, even a small email update meant going through the full production process: briefing, design, revisions, building, and QA. By the time we had a replacement ready, we could lose most of a trading day. And during a major sale, a day is a

How to build a post-purchase journey that drives repeat ordersWhat I’ve learned as a lifecycle leader at CPG brands about using customer data to personalize messages, time follow-ups, and avoid over-discounting.Most post-purchase journeys make the same mistake: they ask for the next sale before the customer has even succeeded with the first one. Here’s the reframe that changed how I build these journeys: help the customer succeed first, then ask for the next purchase. The sale isn’t the finish line: it’s where the relationship actually starts.As Head of Subscription Growth and LTV at Truly Free Home, a plant-based home-care brand, I own the full subscriber lifecycle — the entry offers and trials that bring people in, the communication and membership experience that keeps them, and the cancel-flow and winback work that decides whether a goodbye is permanent. Keep reading to learn how I personalize the post-purchase journey in Klaviyo using customer behavior, purchase history, and timing

Have you ever opened a test email in dark mode and thought, "That looks nothing like the version I designed"?I know I have.One minute, everything looks perfect in the email editor, and the next, your logo disappears into the background, your carefully chosen brand colors look completely different, and your CTA button suddenly blends into the rest of the email.The frustrating part is that you didn't necessarily do anything wrong.Dark mode has become a standard viewing preference for many subscribers, but inbox providers still handle it very differently, and that variation is the root of most dark mode frustration. Some invert colors aggressively, some partially adjust elements, and others ignore certain styling altogether.Over the years, I've spent more time than I'd like troubleshooting dark mode issues, and I've learned that success isn't about making every email look identical everywhere. It's about making sure your message stays readable, recognizable, and trustworthy, no matter how

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 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

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

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