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The Klaviyo flows every Shopify store should run first, and in what order

Flows are the emails and texts Klaviyo sends on its own when a shopper signs up, browses, leaves a checkout, buys or goes quiet. These are the ones I would build first for a Shopify store, in order, with what goes in each, how to measure them and where SMS fits in Canada and the US.

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The order I build them in

I build flows before any campaign calendar, because they run on every new contact from day one. This is the order, from the widest reach and highest intent to the flows that need months of data:

  1. Welcome series. Every new subscriber gets it.
  2. Abandoned checkout. These shoppers already typed in their details.
  3. Abandoned cart and browse abandonment. More people, lighter messages.
  4. Post-purchase and review request. A second order, and reviews.
  5. Back in stock. Once products start selling out.
  6. Winback. Once you know how often customers reorder.
  7. Sunset. After about six months, when Klaviyo’s sunset segment can fill.

Check two settings first: Klaviyo’s app embed in Shopify enables Viewed Product tracking, and the Track behavioral events setting enables Added to Cart. Klaviyo also says to turn off your platform’s default abandoned cart messages, so nobody gets two reminders.

Welcome series: what every subscriber sees first

Trigger it with Added to list on your main newsletter list, the one every signup form should feed. Klaviyo recommends three emails over about a week: one right away, one three days later and one four days after that. A discount promised on the signup form belongs in the first email.

What I put in them: the offer and who you are, then answers to what stops a first order, such as shipping, returns and sizing, then best sellers with real reviews. Any extra discount goes on a split for people who still haven’t ordered.

Keep the SMS welcome as a separate flow, as Klaviyo advises: someone can only receive messages in a list-triggered flow once.

Browse, cart and checkout abandonment

Klaviyo recommends separate cart and checkout flows. Browse abandonment covers people who only looked.

  • Abandoned checkout triggers on Started Checkout, which fires when someone enters their information at checkout and moves to the next step. Klaviyo suggests two or three messages, the first two to four hours after the checkout starts and the second 20 to 48 hours later, showing the exact items and a link back to checkout.
  • Abandoned cart triggers on Added to Cart, with the filter Started Checkout zero times since starting this flow, so shoppers who reach checkout move to that flow.
  • Browse abandonment triggers on Viewed Product, waits at least an hour and should be a lighter touch. It only reaches browsers Klaviyo can identify, such as people who filled in one of your forms.

Give all three the filter Placed Order zero times since starting this flow. Klaviyo checks profile filters before each email, so buyers drop out. Keep coupons out of the first email, as Klaviyo suggests, so customers don’t learn to wait for one.

Post-purchase, reviews and back in stock

Trigger post-purchase on Placed Order and split first-time from repeat buyers. A first order gets a thank-you, care or setup tips and what happens next. A repeat customer gets thanks and something new.

Time the review request to delivery, not to the order. Klaviyo Reviews can time requests after delivery for Shopify online orders. With another reviews app, Klaviyo says to trigger on Fulfilled Order and wait longer than your average delivery time, because fulfillment does not confirm delivery.

Back in stock triggers on Subscribed to Back in Stock, which Klaviyo logs when a shopper asks for a restock alert. Klaviyo says to add no trigger or profile filters and to turn Smart Sending off, so everyone who asked gets the alert. By default, all subscribers are notified at once. For small restocks of popular items, set how many to notify per unit and how long to wait between batches.

Winback and sunset

Winback also starts on Placed Order, waits a little longer than your average buying cycle and exits anyone who orders again. To find the cycle, Klaviyo suggests a segment of customers with at least two orders in the last two years: export it and average the Average Time Between Orders column. Send three emails: best sellers with an incentive, a reminder before it expires, and a last chance with a clear unsubscribe link.

Sunset says goodbye to people who never engage. Klaviyo’s recommended segment holds profiles created at least 180 days ago that received at least five emails in the last 72 weeks and never opened, clicked, visited, viewed a product, started a checkout or ordered. The flow triggers when someone joins that segment, sends no more than three emails and tags the silent ones with a profile property such as Unengaged. Suppress them before every campaign, because Klaviyo can’t suppress profiles from inside a flow.

Sending only to people who engage protects your deliverability at Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook.

Segment by behavior, not by guesswork

Flows already know what people did, so most splits answer three questions. Have they bought before? Discounts go only to people who haven’t. How big was the order? Large orders can get a VIP path. Are they engaged? Judge by clicks, visits and orders, because Klaviyo warns that Apple Mail Privacy Protection can inflate open rates.

One multi-branch split handles all of this, with up to 20 paths built from activity, profile properties, location, list membership, order value in metric-triggered flows and, if your account qualifies, predicted lifetime value or churn risk.

Measure with attribution and a holdout

By default, new Klaviyo accounts use last-touch attribution: an order goes to the most recent message inside a lookback window of five days after an email open or click or a text click, or 12 hours after a text that was only delivered. That is attributed revenue, and it includes people who would have bought anyway.

  • Clean the inputs. Klaviyo lets you remove Apple Privacy opens and bot clicks from attribution.
  • Compare like with like. Klaviyo’s flow email benchmarks, updated October 8, 2026, give 25th and 75th percentile revenue per recipient by store revenue and average order value. For a store with $1M to $5M in yearly revenue and an average order of $83 to $112, the 25th and 75th percentiles were $2.39 and $5.86 for abandoned cart emails, $0.51 and $3.93 for welcome emails and $0.24 and $0.72 for post-purchase emails, all attributed revenue.
  • Run a holdout. Put a multi-branch split right after the trigger, send a 10% random sample down a path with no messages and tag both paths with a profile property. After a month or more, compare the share of each group that ordered. The gap is what the flow adds. Never hold back what someone asked for, like a promised signup code or a restock alert.

It is the rule I apply to ad spend at Glass Railing Store, where budget decisions start from real Shopify orders rather than what each platform reports, as in my Google Ads and Meta Ads management.

Where SMS fits under CASL and US rules

Add SMS once the email flows work, and only where speed matters: the welcome offer, abandoned checkout and restock alerts. Klaviyo’s compliance guide says every text needs express consent, and SMS opt-in must be separate from email: no shared checkbox, and email consent doesn’t count. Show disclosure language wherever you collect numbers, and name your brand in every text.

  • Canada. CASL, Canada’s anti-spam law, covers commercial texts as well as email, and express consent needs a positive action, so a pre-checked box doesn’t count. The CRTC says an abandoned cart is not a purchase and does not start the two-year implied consent period, and it recommends getting express consent when an email address or phone number is collected at checkout. That affects abandoned checkout emails as much as texts. Unsubscribes must be processed within 10 business days, and Klaviyo recommends HELP and STOP instructions in Canadian texts.
  • United States. Klaviyo notes that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act allows texts from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and that some states, such as Florida, stop at 8 p.m., so set quiet hours to match. For abandoned cart texts, its US guidance is double opt-in, one text per recipient, sent within 48 hours, or wireless carriers may audit or block your program.

More on consent for Canadian visitors is in privacy, consent and tracking in Canada. If you want these flows built and measured for your store, it is what I do in email marketing and CRM automation.

Sources

Bugrahan Unsal is a B2B and B2C marketing director in Toronto. He leads marketing for Glass Railing Store and RF Transparent and builds AI tools and websites. More about Bugrahan.

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