How to increase email revenue on Shopify
Nine steps to grow email revenue for a Shopify store: the flows to set up first, monthly campaign planning, segments, one-variable tests and measurement.
What this is for
Email revenue on Shopify comes from two places. Flows send automatically when someone does something in your store: signs up, starts a checkout, places an order. Campaigns are the emails you send to your list on a date you choose. Most stores leave money in both, usually because a core flow was never switched on or because every campaign goes to everyone with the same message.
This guide goes through nine changes in the order they tend to pay off, using Klaviyo as the example because its help center documents each setting. The ideas carry over to other email tools. When you are done you will have the core flows live, a monthly plan, a few segments and a way to tell which emails earn money.
Time needed and what you need
Time needed: about 4 hours to set up, then an hour a week. Most of the setup is writing and checking the three core flows; the weekly hour goes on the next campaign and reading last week's numbers.
- Klaviyo connected to your Shopify store
- Your reviews and customer emails, to find the worries that stop people buying
- A list of the dates, launches and restocks coming up in the next month
- Your last 90 days of email results, if you have them
The steps
Flows first, because they keep earning without more work. Then the campaigns, then the measuring that tells you what to change.
1. Get the three core flows live
In Klaviyo, flows can start from things customers do in your store. Start with three: a welcome series for new subscribers, an abandoned cart flow for people who started checkout, and a post-purchase flow for people who just bought. Klaviyo's own list of common examples pairs the abandoned cart flow with the Started Checkout metric and post-purchase with Placed Order. source, checked 1 October 2026
Start each one from the pre-built flow in Klaviyo's library rather than from a blank flow, then edit the copy. For the welcome series, Klaviyo's pre-built version is three emails over about a week. For the abandoned cart flow, keep the first email free of discounts; Klaviyo warns that a coupon there can teach people to abandon carts on purpose. source, checked 1 October 2026
2. Add the second set of flows
Once the core three are earning, add browse abandonment for people who viewed a product and left, winback for customers who have gone quiet, a review request, and replenishment if your products run out. Browse abandonment starts from the Viewed Product metric. Note that opens and clicks cannot start a flow in Klaviyo, so a flow for people who opened but did not buy has to be built another way, usually from a segment. source, checked 1 October 2026
3. Answer the worry, not just the product
A welcome email that only offers a discount ignores why people hesitate. Read your reviews and customer emails for sentences like "I was worried that…" and answer the most common worry in the second email: will it fit, will it irritate my skin, will it arrive in time. Show the proof, such as the materials, the returns policy or a review from someone who had the same doubt. How personas surface those worries.
4. Plan campaigns a month at a time
Plan around the dates that matter in the countries you sell to, plus your own launches and restocks. Mix the kinds of email so the list does not only hear about sales: education, a product spotlight, social proof, a note from the founder. Cap offers so your list does not learn to wait for a discount. The email calendar has the dates by month.
Leave Smart Sending on for campaigns. It skips anyone who already got an email from you within the window, which protects your list when a flow and a campaign land on the same day. The email window is 16 hours unless you change it. source, checked 1 October 2026
5. Write each email for one person and one reason
Before writing, finish this sentence: this email is for a first-time buyer who is unsure about sizing, and it gives them one reason to order today. An email aimed at everyone persuades no one. One audience, one reason and one button make the email shorter and the result easier to read afterwards.
- Subject line: the reason, not the brand name
- First line: the worry or the benefit, in the reader's words
- One button, pointing at one product or collection
6. Segment by what people bought
First-time buyers, repeat buyers, lapsed customers and your best customers need different emails. Even two or three segments beat one list. In Klaviyo, a repeat buyer segment is a single condition, and raising the number turns it into a VIP segment. source, checked 1 October 2026
7. Test one thing at a time
Subject line, opening line, offer or send time: pick one, test it, and keep everything else the same. Klaviyo's own guidance is to change a single factor and to stick to two variations. With a small list, test the things that change opens or clicks before the things that need orders to show a difference. How Tilly calls winners. source, checked 1 October 2026
8. Measure each email, not just the channel
Open each flow with analytics shown on the canvas and look at revenue email by email, not only the flow total. Klaviyo shows each message's attributed revenue for the last 30 days, and lets you compare messages side by side. If one email in a flow earns far less than the ones around it, rewrite that one first. source, checked 1 October 2026
Know what the revenue number means before you act on it. Klaviyo credits an order to an email when it follows an open or a click within its attribution window, which is five days by default. Compare emails using the same window, and do not add flow revenue to ad revenue as if they never overlap. source, checked 1 October 2026
9. Carry what you learn into the next send
Keep a short log: what you tested, what won, and by how much. If an angle wins in a campaign, use it in the next campaign, in the flow email that covers the same moment, and in your ads. This is the step most stores skip, and it is the one that makes the next month better than the last.
A worked example
For a candle store with 9,000 subscribers on Klaviyo
Worked example (an invented store, with invented numbers)
The store has a welcome series and nothing else. Over 30 days its emails bring in $6,200: $2,600 from the welcome series and $3,600 from 4 campaigns sent to the whole list.
It switches on the pre-built abandoned cart and post-purchase flows, with no discount in the first cart email. Looking at the welcome series email by email, email 1 earns $1,900, email 2 earns $250 and email 3 earns $450. Email 2 is a social media follow request, so it is rewritten to answer the most common worry in the reviews: whether the scent is strong enough for a large room.
The next 30 days bring in $8,900: $3,300 from the welcome series, with email 2 now at $800, $1,700 from the two new flows and $3,900 from 4 campaigns, one of them sent only to the 1,100 repeat buyers.
Common mistakes
Putting a discount in every first email. It trains people to wait, and in an abandoned cart flow it teaches them to leave the cart to get a code. Klaviyo suggests saving any incentive for the last email or for people who have never bought. source, checked 1 October 2026
Forgetting that flows repeat. A metric-triggered flow starts every time someone does the action, so a customer who orders twice gets the post-purchase emails twice. Add a flow filter where that would read oddly, such as a first-order thank-you. source, checked 1 October 2026
Judging a flow by its total. A flow can look healthy while one of its emails earns almost nothing and adds unsubscribes. Read it email by email and fix the weakest one.
Changing three things in one test. If the subject line, the image and the offer all change, a win tells you nothing you can reuse. Change one, keep the rest.
Doing this with Tilly
Tilly's email agent writes flows and campaigns aimed at the worries in your reviews and puts them into your Klaviyo account as drafts. A flow costs 30 credits and a campaign 10. Tilly does not send email itself, and nothing goes live until you switch it on in Klaviyo.
The email calendar plans a month of campaigns around your dates at no credit cost. For the testing step, Tilly's experiments agent plans a test and sizes it, then calls the winner from the counts you enter; it does not split the traffic itself. The free store audit shows which flows your store is missing.
Questions people ask
Which email flow should a Shopify store set up first?
Welcome, then abandoned cart, then post-purchase. Together they cover new subscribers, people about to buy and people who just bought, and all three can start from pre-built flows in Klaviyo.
How often should I send campaigns?
There is no single right number. Start with a pace you can keep up, watch unsubscribes and spam complaints per send, and adjust from your own results rather than from someone else's schedule.
How many emails should an abandoned cart flow have?
Klaviyo says two or three abandoned cart messages work best, based on its research across thousands of its ecommerce customers. source, checked 1 October 2026
Do Shopify events reach Klaviyo straight away?
Yes. Klaviyo says Shopify metrics sync in real time, so a flow set to send soon after a checkout starts will not be held up by a slow sync. source, checked 1 October 2026
Sources
- How to create a metric-triggered flow (Klaviyo Help Center), checked 1 October 2026
- How to create an email welcome series (Klaviyo Help Center), checked 1 October 2026
- Understanding Smart Sending in Klaviyo (Klaviyo Help Center), checked 1 October 2026
- How to create a repeat purchaser segment (Klaviyo Help Center), checked 1 October 2026
- How to A/B test an email campaign (Klaviyo Help Center), checked 1 October 2026
- Understanding flow analytics (Klaviyo Help Center), checked 1 October 2026
- Understanding Klaviyo message attribution (Klaviyo Help Center), checked 1 October 2026
- How to create an abandoned cart flow (Klaviyo Help Center), checked 1 October 2026
See this on your own store
Paste your store URL. The first pass takes about a minute and needs no account. Save a card (nothing is charged) and Tilly reads the whole store and works out who buys from you.