What email flows should every ecommerce brand have?

The five core flows are welcome (triggers on new subscriber), abandoned cart (triggers on cart without purchase), post-purchase (triggers on confirmed order), browse abandonment (triggers on product view without cart), and win-back (triggers on 90 to 120 days of inactivity). These five flows account for the majority of automated email revenue in a healthy Klaviyo account. Build them in this order: abandoned cart, welcome, post-purchase, browse abandonment, win-back.

How much revenue should email flows generate?

For a brand with all five core flows active and a healthy list, automated flows should generate 30 to 40 percent of total email revenue. If total email revenue is 15 to 20 percent of store revenue (a healthy benchmark for brands with active email programs), flows should represent 5 to 8 percent of total store revenue on their own. A brand doing $100,000 per month with a complete flow library should see $5,000 to $8,000 per month in flow-generated revenue as a floor.

How long does it take to set up email flows in Klaviyo?

A complete 5-flow library can be built in 20 to 30 hours of focused Klaviyo work. The abandoned cart flow is the fastest to build well (2 to 3 hours for a 3-email sequence). The welcome flow takes longest to do right (8 to 12 hours for a 5 to 7 email sequence with proper brand voice and conversion logic). Most brands that delay building flows do so because the task feels large. Breaking it into one flow per week produces a complete library in 5 weeks with 4 to 6 hours of work per week.

What is the difference between Klaviyo flows and campaigns?

Flows are automated sequences triggered by customer behavior or time conditions. They run continuously without manual intervention. Campaigns are one-time emails sent to a list on a specific date, typically promotions, newsletters, or announcements. A healthy email program needs both. Flows capture revenue from individual customer moments (a cart abandon, a lapse, a new subscriber). Campaigns capture revenue from time-sensitive events (a product launch, a seasonal promotion, a brand story). Most ecommerce brands over-invest in campaigns and under-invest in flows, which is why their email revenue is lower than it should be.

Signal E1: Email & Retention

Part of the Email & Retention signal group

Email Flows Missing: Why Most Ecommerce Brands Leave 30 Percent of Email Revenue on the Table

Klaviyo's own benchmark data shows that automated flows account for 30 to 40 percent of total email revenue for brands with a complete flow library. For brands with only one or two flows active, that number drops to 8 to 12 percent. Signal E1 is the revenue sitting in an unbuilt Klaviyo account, running on a welcome email and an abandoned cart sequence while the other three or four flows that should exist are either off or were never created.

What Are Ecommerce Email Flows?

Email flows are automated sequences in Klaviyo that trigger based on a customer action or a time condition. They are different from campaigns, which are one-time broadcasts sent manually to a list. Flows run continuously in the background: every time a customer triggers the condition, the sequence starts. The brand does not have to do anything after the flow is built. It earns revenue every day without additional work.

Chase Dimond, who has managed Klaviyo programs generating over $100 million in email revenue across multiple DTC brands, consistently identifies missing flows as the single largest untapped opportunity in most ecommerce email programs. Most brands he audits have between one and three flows active when they should have six to eight. The flows that are missing are not the complex ones. They are the foundational ones that should have been built at launch.

The Five Core Flows Every Ecommerce Brand Needs

These are the flows that drive the majority of automated email revenue. Every brand should have all five active before building anything more sophisticated.

Abandoned cart flow

Triggers when a customer adds an item to their cart and does not complete the purchase within a defined window, typically 1 to 4 hours. Cart abandonment flows recover 5 to 15 percent of abandoned carts when configured correctly. The industry average cart abandonment rate is 70 percent. A brand doing 500 add-to-carts per month with a 70 percent abandonment rate has 350 recoverable cart sessions. At a 10 percent recovery rate and $80 AOV, that is $2,800 per month from one flow.

Welcome flow

Triggers when someone subscribes to the email list without making a purchase. The job of the welcome flow is to introduce the brand, establish trust, and convert a subscriber into a first buyer. A well-built welcome flow generates $1.00 to $2.50 in revenue per recipient, the highest revenue-per-send of any flow in a healthy Klaviyo account. The average welcome flow has 3 to 7 emails over 10 to 14 days. Most brands have 1 to 2 emails and stop.

Post-purchase flow

Triggers after a confirmed order and runs for 14 to 30 days. The job is to reinforce the purchase decision, deliver value through usage content or community, introduce the customer to other products, and set up the second purchase. Brands with a post-purchase flow see first-purchase churn rates 10 to 18 percentage points lower than brands without one. This is Signal R4 expressed as an email system.

Browse abandonment flow

Triggers when a customer views a product page but does not add to cart. Browse abandonment emails have lower conversion rates than cart abandonment emails (1 to 3 percent vs 5 to 15 percent), but they fire at a much higher volume because browsing is far more common than carting. A brand with meaningful website traffic can generate $800 to $2,500 per month from a browse abandonment flow at relatively low effort to build.

Win-back flow

Triggers when a customer has not purchased in 90 to 120 days. A working win-back flow recovers 8 to 15 percent of lapsed customers. For a brand with 1,000 or more lapsed customers in the database, this single flow can generate $5,000 to $15,000 per month in recovered revenue at zero acquisition cost.

"Most brands I audit have a welcome email and an abandoned cart. That is two flows. A brand their size should have six or seven. The five flows they have not built yet are not complicated. They just never got built." (Chase Dimond, email marketing operator)

What a Complete Flow Library Earns

A brand generating $120,000 per month in total revenue with a complete 5-flow Klaviyo library should be generating $36,000 to $48,000 of that from automated flows, based on the 30 to 40 percent benchmark. If the brand's automated flow revenue is $8,000 to $12,000 per month, the gap is $24,000 to $36,000 in monthly email revenue that is not being captured because the flows do not exist.

Building the missing flows does not cost the brand anything in acquisition budget. It captures revenue from customers already in the system.

The Build Order for Missing Flows

If multiple flows are missing, build in this order based on revenue impact per hour of setup time:

Step 1

Abandoned cart first

Fastest to build (2 to 3 hours in Klaviyo), immediate revenue impact, highest conversion rate of any flow. If it does not exist, build it today.

Step 2

Welcome flow second

Slightly more complex (5 to 7 emails, 8 to 12 hours to build well), but generates the highest revenue per recipient of any flow in the library. The welcome flow is also the most important retention mechanism for new subscribers.

Step 3

Post-purchase flow third

3 to 5 hours to build a basic version, critical for reducing first-purchase churn. Even a 3-email post-purchase flow is significantly better than no post-purchase contact.

Step 4

Browse abandonment fourth

1 to 2 hours to build, lower conversion rate but high send volume. Requires accurate Klaviyo tracking on the website to fire correctly.

Step 5

Win-back flow fifth

3 to 5 hours to build well (5-email sequence), does not produce immediate revenue but compounds over time as the lapsed customer list grows.

Benchmarks to Know

30-40%

Email revenue from flows for brands with full library

8-12%

Email revenue from flows for brands with 1-2 flows

5-15%

Cart recovery rate from abandoned cart flow

$1.00-2.50

Revenue per recipient from welcome flow

70%

Average ecommerce cart abandonment rate

8-15%

Lapsed customers recovered by win-back flow

Related Signals

Welcome Flow Not Converting

E1 covers whether the welcome flow exists at all. E2 covers whether the welcome flow that exists actually converts. A brand can have all five flows built and still leave revenue on the table if the welcome flow converts at 3 percent instead of 12 percent.

Email Revenue Too Low

E3 is the aggregate symptom: total email revenue below 15 percent of store revenue. E1 is one of the most common root causes: missing flows mean the automated revenue floor that should support that 15 percent benchmark simply does not exist.

Frequently Asked Questions

What to Do Next

If your Klaviyo account is missing core flows and your email revenue is below 15 percent of total store revenue, having someone audit the full email system is the right decision.

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