Winback Flow Klaviyo manual

Overview

A winback flow is a series of emails sent to customers who previously engaged with your brand but have not interacted with you for a certain period of time. This flow is an essential part of customer retention and lifecycle marketing, and if you don’t have one, you’re leaving money on the table. It is, on average, five times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain existing customers and stimulate repeat orders.

One of the key points to consider when setting up a winback flow is when to send the first email. Most customers wait between purchases, but the length of a typical purchase cycle depends on your industry and the products you sell. For example, a company that sells sofas will have a much longer purchase cycle than a company that sells shampoo. The flow should only target those who have not been engaged for longer than your business's average purchase cycle.

In this guide, we’ll discuss best practices for creating a winback flow.
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Understanding Your Products and Customers

Before you start creating the winback flow, you need to understand the typical purchase cycle for your customers. With Klaviyo's predictive analytics feature, you can easily obtain this information for customer segments.

To view predictive analytics for customer profiles, you need to meet several conditions:

• You have an e-commerce integration.
• You have 500 or more customers who have placed an order.
• You have at least 180 days of order history from your current integration and received an order in the last 30 days.
• Some of your customers have placed at least three orders.

Create a segment of everyone who has made a purchase in the past two years. Then export this segment to a CSV file and calculate the average of the "Average Time Between Orders" column. This way, you can get the average purchase cycle for all your customers, which you can use for the winback flow.

If predictive analytics are not yet available for your customer profiles, start getting into the mindset of your customers by asking yourself the following questions:

• When would you want to order again?
• When do you need more of the product?

For example, would you want more of the item before it runs out, or could you go without it for a certain period of time? If conditioner is the product, you probably want more as soon as the product starts running low, and you would need it very quickly when it’s gone.

By answering these questions, you can determine your customers' purchasing timeframe.
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Setting Up Your Winback Flow

If you have an e-commerce integration, a winback flow will automatically populate in your account. You can use this flow or delete it if you prefer to use one of the standard winback flows from the Flow Library.

It’s also quite easy to build your own winback flow. In your Klaviyo account, go to the Flows tab on the left side. Click on the Create Flow button and select Create from Scratch.

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A pop-up window will appear where you can name the flow and select any tags you want. When you’re ready, select Create Flow.

For the flow trigger, click on Metric > Placed Order. Add a flow filter with the description: Placed Order zero times since starting this flow. Drag your initial delay in and set it to slightly longer than your business's average purchase cycle to give your customers some playtime.

After adding that initial delay, create your email content. Below, we discuss practical tips on what to include (and what not to include).

Creating Winback Content

Winback flow emails encourage less engaged customers to reconnect with your brand. Offering discounts is one way to achieve this, but the email text should also have the right tone and provide the appropriate content.

Best practices include:

• Let customers know you’ve noticed they’ve left.
• Make it personal using template tags.
• Inform customers about the latest updates (e.g., new products).
• Include an incentive or discount.
• Create a sense of urgency (for example, set a deadline for the incentive you’re offering).
• Ask anyone who isn’t interested to unsubscribe/change their preferences.
• Avoid overwhelming customers with too many emails.
• Make each email as engaging as possible.
• Create an interesting subject line and customize your preview text.
• Ensure the content looks visually appealing.

We recommend limiting your winback flow to three emails per recipient and considering the following best-practice pattern:

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E-mail #1

The first email in this series should be a light touchpoint and the shortest of the bunch. Include a select number of products, three to six of your best-selling items or the latest releases. Additionally, it’s a good idea to offer your less engaged customers an incentive.

Below is an example of using a Product Block component to display four of the best-selling products. You can change the number of displayed items, as well as the rows and columns on the left side.

Additionally, you can choose to include products from a specific feed or select specific products from your catalog by going to Select from Catalog > Browse for Products. For the latter approach, select your products and then click Add Products. You can also choose to link the product name.

E-mail #2

The second email should serve as a reminder to your customers about the incentive from the first email and create a sense of urgency (for example, by setting a deadline for the discount). Include different products in this email from those in your first email—if you featured some of your best-selling products earlier, add some of your latest releases here.

This email can also be longer than the first, allowing you to provide more details. Make yourself and the email as engaging as possible. To capture the reader's attention, you can include a photo of your team to make the company feel more human and the message more personal. Another option is to design the email so that the information is presented in an easy-to-read and visually interesting way. This email from Ballard Designs serves as an example.

E-mail #3

For the third email, you want to make a final call to action for customers to reconnect, update their email preferences, or unsubscribe. Remind your audience that this is their last chance to take advantage of your offer.

Additionally, include a prominent unsubscribe link. This link is both a legal requirement and the best way to prevent disengaged subscribers from harming deliverability—it's always better for someone to unsubscribe than to not engage with your messages or mark them as spam.

Optimizing the Flow

You might find it helpful to create different winback flows for various types of customers. For example, you may want to have a special winback flow for your VIP customers or for those who have spent a certain amount in your store.

Additionally, you can create separate branches within the same flow using one of the following properties in a trigger split. Here are a few extra filters you can add:

• Customers who have spent a certain amount over a specified time period.
• Customers who have made a certain number of purchases over a specified time period.
• Customers who have been active on your website a certain number of days ago.
• Customers who opened an email a certain number of days ago.

Another option is to split your flow or create separate flows for different product categories, as shown in the example below. If one of the items can be replenished within a fixed purchase cycle, you may want to exclude them from your winback flow and instead create a separate replenishment flow for these customers.
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To find the best timing, subject lines, and content, it’s important to test these factors one at a time. Conditional splits and A/B testing allow you to optimize these elements and personalize the flow for the specific audience.

For example, try splitting the flow based on whether recipients have recently opened and clicked on an email or SMS. You can then adjust the timing between emails or the email content based on this information. For instance, you might shorten the intervals between emails for those who have recently engaged, comparing their performance with the rest of your flow recipients. You can also test whether sending fewer messages is more effective for subscribers who have opened or clicked an email in the past 30 days compared to sending all three.

Another option is to adjust the messaging based on the number of orders the subscriber has placed previously. For example, if someone has made three or more purchases, you might want to highlight how your best products perform compared to newcomers in the first and second emails.

As the winback flow continues to run, you can test other aspects to improve and tailor the flow to your audience.

Additional Resources

• More information about A/B-testing of a flow
  
  

• Guide on how to create a abandoned Cart flow
• Guide on how to create a post-purchase-flow

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