Klaviyo Welcome flow

What is a welcome (email) campaign?

A welcome series, welcome series, or welcome flow is a sequence of email messages that start sending immediately after someone signs up for your newsletter. By signing up, they indicate that they would like to hear more from your brand/company. This is one of the most important moments in the customer lifecycle because it’s an opportunity to introduce new, interested individuals to your business and product offerings. For the welcome series, you need to strike while the iron is hot and respond directly to this expressed interest. In short, a (good) welcome series is crucial in email automation.

At Polaris Growth, we use Klaviyo as a tool for all email marketing automation.

A standard welcome series consists of a sequence of 3 to 5 emails that tell more about your brand, your products, and your story. Essentially, it's where you welcome them.

A welcome series is often one of the first interactions with your brand, so it’s important to put your best foot forward. A welcome series can have various goals, so keep these goals in mind when working on the content for the different welcome emails.

For example, you might have a "brand/story" welcome series specifically designed to introduce new subscribers to your company's mission and/or vision, rather than a highly targeted series aimed at convincing them to make that first purchase. In such a case, you could make the series longer and more personal by including messages where the founder(s) or owners share stories about why they started the business or add humor by recounting funny experiences or moments they’ve had.

On the other hand, if you’re encouraging sign-ups with a special offer, you’ll want to ensure that the offer is included right in the first email. If the goal is to convert subscribers into customers, it might be beneficial to showcase the best, most appealing products.
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Why a welcome series?

In addition to taking immediate action on the expressed interest of a new subscriber, which leads to high open rates, a welcome series has several other benefits.

Good welcome series emails have an average open rate of 51%, making them the highest among all types of emails, along with a higher click rate and conversions. High open rates also mean that your reputation with email providers improves, reducing the likelihood of being marked as SPAM, which can enhance open rates for all your emails. Additionally, it leads to a longer subscription duration; people remain subscribed to your newsletter for longer and tend to have an average of 33% higher engagement.

In summary, a welcome series can lead to:

• High open and click rates
• Better reputation
• More conversions (and revenue)
• Higher long-term engagement from your subscribers & customers

Moreover, it’s a way to introduce a new subscriber to your company, brand, culture, products, etc.
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Types of Welcome Campaigns

There are various types of welcome campaigns possible. These depend on the industry you’re in and the goal you have with your campaign. This ultimately determines how many emails are in the series, how many branches there are, and how complex or straightforward the setup is.

So before you start writing and creating the welcome campaign, it’s good to ask yourself:

• Who am I sending these emails to?
• Why does someone sign up? Is there a reason (or promise) that you need to fulfill?
• What is the goal of my campaign?

This will ultimately dictate both the content and the length of the campaign.

Example: An online shop offers a discount as a welcome bonus (it could also be a lookbook or a downloadable item) to everyone who signed up through an Instagram campaign. The goal is for them to place an order. The number of emails could be four, with two reminder emails about the expiring discount.

Another example: An online shop has a standard sign-up form, and after someone signs up, they receive a standard email flow with four emails that tell more about the company, the products, an overview of the best-selling items, and perhaps reviews. However, this shop aims to convert people into buyers. In such a case, it would be a good idea to add a few emails that offer a unique, one-time, and limited-time discount or promotion exclusively to people who have never purchased anything.

In summary, by knowing who you are sending the emails to, why they are signing up, and what goal you have for your campaign, you can determine the content and the number of emails.
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When to Send?

Regardless of whether you use double or single opt-in, the first welcome email should always be sent immediately after signup. This is the moment when a new subscriber is most engaged and indicates through their actions that they want more information.

Klaviyo conducted research on the open rates of the best-performing welcome series of their clients, which showed that all of the top 10 welcome series sent the first email immediately after signup. According to research from GetResponse, welcome emails with valuable content have an average open rate exceeding 82%. The research: (https://www.getresponse.com/resources/reports/email-marketing-benchmarks#welcome-emails)

Since a welcome series is designed to greet new subscribers, it's advisable to space out the series of emails over a few days. Start with 3 to 5 emails within a period of three to seven days, depending on the goal of your email series.

The timing of your welcome series depends on three factors:

• How many emails are in the series
• The industry you are in
• The type of campaign

We recommend that e-commerce companies start with a welcome series of 3 to 5 emails, but for non-e-commerce businesses, three emails may not be sufficient to convey the full story. To determine the optimal number of welcome emails, you can A/B test this. You can also test the timing of your welcome emails to see what performs best.

First Email

The first email should be sent immediately after someone signs up, regardless of the industry. For single opt-ins, this can be sent right after signup, but for double opt-ins, it should be sent only after they confirm their signup. The reason for sending immediately is simple: you need to strike while the iron is hot. A new subscriber has signed up for a reason; you are top-of-mind, and you want to reward them immediately. This is the time when they are most likely to open, read, and take action on your email. Therefore, it’s important to include all relevant information that can persuade the new subscriber to take action.

Second Email

The second email can be sent one day after the signup. This balances the number of emails someone receives, the timing, and how much you remain top-of-mind with a subscriber.

Depending on the type of welcome campaign you are sending and the importance of the welcome series, you may choose to stop the rest of the email series if a subscriber has performed a desired action, such as making a purchase in your webshop. This prevents a subscriber from receiving too many emails at once, especially if you also have other email flows running, such as a post-purchase flow (after a purchase), daily newsletters, or cross- or up-sells. If onboarding through a welcome series is important, you might want to ensure that they do not receive daily newsletters during that period.

Third Email

The third email can be sent two days after the signup. Especially if you send daily newsletters, sending one welcome email per day can help new subscribers get accustomed to the frequency of emails. In addition to timing, the content should also be logical and sequential.

Follow-Up Emails

Depending on the type of welcome campaign and the goal of your welcome campaign, you may choose to add extra emails or split the series based on behavior or the absence of behavior. For example, you could send a one-time offer only to subscribers who have never made a purchase.

Regardless of how many emails you send, it’s always important to consider how many emails a subscriber/customer receives or may receive.

Non-E-commerce

For non-e-commerce businesses, the goals of welcome campaigns may be very different from driving that first purchase. For charities or non-profits, it may be about providing new subscribers who are interested with more information to receive a donation or help. For software companies, it could be a way to familiarize new customers with a platform over time, show frequently asked questions, and onboard them onto a new platform.

In these cases, a single email may not provide enough space to convey all necessary information, and it is wiser to spread this over several days to keep it manageable. In such cases, you don’t need to stick to, for example, three emails. In terms of timing, it is wise not to send more than one email per day. If you want to go further, you could further split these flows based on behaviors or actions that customers do/don't perform to provide a person with the right information.

Subject Line

The first thing a subscriber sees in their inbox, aside from the sender's name, is the subject line. Therefore, the subject is crucial in determining whether new subscribers will open your (first) welcome email. It is important to invest time in crafting and optimizing the subject line.

According to research from Klaviyo among their clients, these were the three most common subjects along with the performance of each subject.

4o mini

As you can see, "Welcome to ___" is the most popular subject line, resulting in the highest open, click, and revenue per recipient.

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What Should You Send?

Once you know what type of campaigns you want to create, it's important to outline how many emails you plan to send, to whom you will send each message, and what the goal of each email is. Keep in mind "the story" you want to tell so that emails logically follow one another.

Take the time, before you send each email, to check your strategy. Every communication with your customers/subscribers should have one of the following:

• A Reason - Why are you sending this message?
• An Audience - To whom are you sending this email?
• A Goal - What point do you want to make?
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Optimize and Get More from Your Welcome Campaign

Once the basics are in place, or if you want to start beyond a basic setup and elevate your welcome campaign, here are some ideas you can implement or add.
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Personalization

By personalizing your messages, you ensure that you communicate more effectively with subscribers. The more targeted and personal (at scale) you can be in your communication, the more effective the campaign will be. This ensures the right message, at the right time, for the right person.

You can personalize in two ways: based on (unique) characteristics of someone or based on behavior.

• (Unique) Characteristics: These might include gender, name, location, age, etc.
• Behavior: This could be actions someone takes or doesn’t take, such as visiting a page, making a purchase, etc.
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Preferences

Another way to achieve this is to find out subscribers' preferences, such as the types of emails they like to receive. Some may only want updates about products, while others may prefer a weekly newsletter or daily emails. By asking this upfront, you prevent subscribers from receiving too many emails and keep messages relevant.

Take the time to think about what information you can use to send more targeted messages to your subscribers and customers, and then consider how to request this information. Keep in mind that the more questions you ask initially, the fewer people will sign up, and some questions may be sensitive. You can also incorporate some questions in your welcome series emails by adding response buttons or directing them to an online form.

An example for a webshop selling sports equipment could be asking for the subscriber's gender and which sports they are interested in upon signup.
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Subscribers Who Have Never Purchased

Many companies offer a one-time discount to new subscribers/customers who sign up for the newsletter. If this is also the goal of your welcome campaign, it’s important to filter this in your email tool. We use Klaviyo for flows, and it’s easy to set this up by adding a "conditional split" under the trigger with options like "Has placed order at least once over all time" or "Has placed order zero times over all time." This allows you to send a targeted message based on whether someone has made a purchase before. If someone has already purchased, they receive a thank you for signing up; if not, they receive a discount.

Subscribers Who Have Not Yet Made a Purchase After Signing Up

Offering discounts is a way to attract subscribers quickly, but you may be giving away unnecessary discounts too early. To prevent this, you can choose to offer a discount only in specific cases. In this scenario, you give a subscriber the opportunity to purchase without a discount in the first email(s) and only add a discount in the last email(s).

Tip: If you use a discount, create a unique code and ensure it expires within a certain timeframe. Don’t forget to send a reminder shortly before the discount expires.

Gender

Gender is a popular and effective way to communicate more targeted messages to subscribers. This includes aspects like form, color, tone, and especially the products and categories you do or do not show. This is crucial for a clothing brand, especially when offering apparel for men, women, and children.

If you want to implement this in Klaviyo, there are three options for a simple male/female split: Female, Male, or Unknown. This allows you to send the right information more precisely. The essence of all emails can remain the same, but you can adjust the products displayed, showing men’s products to men and women’s products to women. Below is an example of what such a flow looks like in Klaviyo.

Tip: If the gender is unknown, ask them in one of the emails which products they prefer to see (man/woman). Once you have this information, you can create a split under this row to send targeted messages.

An additional benefit is that once you have this information, you can use it to send more focused newsletters.

A/B Testing

Another way to optimize your welcome campaign is to start A/B testing. You can do this right after launching your first email. Keep in mind that for a successful A/B test, you need sufficient data to ensure that any improvement is genuinely caused by the adjustment.

When A/B testing, consider the following:

• Subject Line
• Content
• Number of Emails
• Offering a Discount or Not
• Type of Offer (% discount vs. fixed amount)