How To Audit Email Flows in Klaviyo To Boost Conversion Rate
Before diving in to audit email flows, understand what it is that you’re trying to find (it’s more than just conversion rate).
- Performance: Discover where your flows may be losing subscribers or failing to convert (high unsubscribe rates, or low placed order rates – specific metrics are shared below).
- Relevance: Keep your content, offers, and messaging up to date with your brand’s current goals and customer expectations. This might involve replacing old, outdated emails in the flow.
- Compliance: Ensure your flows comply with current regulations and best practices. Check you’re only sending to people who have explicitly subscribed to your email list. Learn more about implicit and explicit email consent here.
Step 1: Review Flow Goals and Objectives
Start by revisiting the original goals and objectives of each flow.
Ask yourself:
- What is the primary purpose of this flow? (e.g., increase conversions, nurture new subscribers, re-engage inactive customers) – hint: not every email in a flow is designed to convert sales.
- Are the goals of this flow still aligned with my current business objectives?
- Have my target audience’s needs or behaviors changed since the flow was first set up?
Understanding the goals will help you evaluate whether the flow is still relevant and performing as expected.
Step 2: Analyze various conversion rate Metrics
The next step is to dive into the metrics for each flow. Key metrics to review include:
- Open Rate: How many recipients are opening your emails? Low open rates may indicate issues with subject lines or timing.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): Are recipients engaging with your content? Low CTRs suggest that your content or CTAs may not be compelling.
- Conversion Rate: Are recipients taking the desired action (e.g., making a purchase)? Low conversion rates may point to a disconnect between the email content and the offer.
- Unsubscribe Rate: Are people opting out after receiving these emails? High unsubscribe rates could indicate that the content is not resonating with your audience.
Use these benchmark metrics to find those that need improvement.
Here’s a general rule of thumb for each metric, but you can see the accurate data depending on your industry on your accounts “Deliverability” section:
Open rates: minimum 30%
Click rates: minimum 1%
Conversion rate: heavily dependent on list size, bare minimum 0.1% for campaigns, and 1% for flows.
Unsubscribe rate: 0.5% maximum
Spam Rate: 0.01% maximum
Step 3: Examine Flow Timing and Frequency
Audit email flows timing and frequency to see if you’re sending at the right times.
Consider the following:
- Frequency: Ensure that you are not overwhelming subscribers with too many emails.
Conversely, check that you are not sending too few emails, which could result in missed opportunities.
Typically, the higher intent the flow the more emails you can send (so send more for your abandoned checkout flow versus your site abandonment flow)
- Specific Send Times: see if sending your emails at set points in the day makes a difference, such as 9am in the morning, versus 6pm at night.
- Time Delays: Review the time delays between each email in the flow. Are they too short or too long? Test different time delays to find the optimal interval for engagement.
You can create conditional splits to see how something performs with a time delay of 1 day versus 3 days for example, by using the “random sample” feature (see image below).
Step 4: review your Email Content
Next, review the content of each email in the flow. Focus on:
- Subject Lines: Are your subject lines attention-grabbing and relevant? Consider A/B testing different subject lines to improve open rates. This is the easiest split test you can run.
- Copy: Is the email copy clear, concise, and aligned with your brand’s voice? Ensure that your messaging is relevant and compelling. Again, split test different offers, headlines, body copy etc.
- Design: Review the email design for visual appeal, readability, and mobile responsiveness. A poorly designed email can hurt engagement. Try changing creative, test lifestyle vs product, see what you can improve.
- Calls to Action (CTAs): Are your CTAs clear and easy to follow? Test different CTAs to see which ones drive the most conversions.
Step 5: check your Segmentation and Targeting
Segmentation is key to delivering relevant content to the right audience.
When auditing email flows, review:
- Segmentation Criteria: Are the criteria used to segment your audience still relevant? Update segments based on current customer behavior, demographics, or preferences.
- Dynamic Content: Ensure that your emails are personalized based on the recipient’s behavior, preferences, or purchase history. Personalization can significantly boost engagement.
- Exclusion Lists: Check that you’re excluding the right segments to avoid over-saturating your audience with emails. Such as blocking people who’ve received an “abandoned checkout” email recently, don’t send them a “browse abandonment” email too soon as well. You can set this in the flow filters.
Step 6: Review Automation Triggers and Logic
The final step to audit email flows is to review the automation triggers and logic that power your flows:
- Triggers: Are the triggers for each flow still relevant? For example, if a flow is triggered by a customer viewing a product, ensure that the follow-up emails are still aligned with that behavior.
- Conditional Splits: Check that any conditional splits in your flows are serving you, or your customers. Whether it’s gathering more data on successful split tests, or filtering out irrelevant information for your subscribers.
- Flow Pathways: Ensure that each pathway within a flow leads to a logical and effective conclusion, whether it’s a sale, sign-up, updating a profile property, or other desired action.