# Klaviyo Email Flow Strategy In 2026: The Full System

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_M0VZRudzM

[00:00] Every single year, we help e-commerce brands generate over $100 million using their Clavio account.
[00:05] And a big part of this is making sure that their email flows and their customer journey is dialed in and generating as much revenue and converting as many customers as possible.
[00:13] In this video, we're going to show you how we handle the entire process right from planning all the way to building and executing on every single flow.
[00:19] By the end, you'll have everything you need to build these flows into your Clavio account and dial in your customer journey, too, so you can make sure that you're leaving no gaps.
[00:25] We'll start off by going through how we actually map this customer journey.
[00:28] Then through the overall philosophy you need to know when building out your flows, and then we'll do a step-by-step walkthrough on every single flow you'll need inside your account.
[00:35] If your ecom brand is doing less than 30 to 40% of its revenue from Clavio, by the end of this video, I promise you, you'll be able to change that.
[00:41] Let's get into it.
[00:42] So, we're going to start with how we think about mapping the customer journey.
[00:45] So, over the last few years, we actually found that the stages of the customer journey fall into three buckets.
[00:50] Now, we call this for our own internal planning purposes, F1, F_sub_2, and F3.
[00:56] And this is a very simple way to remember things every time you're trying to diagnose a problem or build out an email flow.
[00:59] Now, this stands for
[01:00] Function one, function two, function 3, doesn't matter, but essentially this maps out the three sticking points or the three typical bottlenecks that an ecom brand will run into on the customer journey specifically.
[01:10] Now, the first one is acquisition.
[01:12] Obviously, this is the first thing you need to do.
[01:13] You need to acquire the customer.
[01:15] The second one is first to second order conversion.
[01:18] So once you acquire a customer, how many of these are you converting into a second customer?
[01:23] And the last one is revenue from VIP or loyal customers.
[01:27] Well, VIP/loyalty.
[01:29] These are the three things we focus on.
[01:30] And whenever you're building an email flow, they'll roughly tie back to one of these goals.
[01:33] And every single flow should be tied back to a specific goal in general.
[01:36] So when you're actually building the flows, F1, the goal is to improve acquisition efficiency specifically.
[01:42] So, how efficient are we at acquiring new customers in the most profitable way with the highest AOV, the highest gross profit, whatever you're measuring for?
[01:48] We want to be improving first to second order conversion.
[01:50] And we want to be making sure that our revenue from our VIP and loyalty is sitting at around what we like to say 50% from our top 20% of customers.
[01:58] Now, for ecom brands, this is surprisingly common.
[02:00] 80% of your lifetime gross profit, in fact.
[02:02] Will probably come from your top 20% of customers alone.
[02:04] That's because your best customers, they come back more often.
[02:05] They spend more.
[02:06] They don't use discounts.
[02:08] They buy your best products.
[02:09] That, you know, they don't need to shop during sale periods like a lot of your customers will.
[02:14] On the other hand, for most ecom brands, 80% of their customers are first-time customers only, which presents a massive bottleneck and something we need to be solving for within our email flows specifically.
[02:22] Now, why this is important is because most brands will just build email flows without a goal in mind outside of attributed revenue.
[02:29] So, you know, they'll look at their email flows or they'll look at their Claio and everything is just optimized to the attributed revenue within the platform.
[02:35] But optimizing for attributed revenue means the only thing you're improving is attributed revenue and you're not actually improving the customer journey and unlocking bottlenecks.
[02:43] Now this is something Horoszi puts very well and is popularized and it's the theory of constraints.
[02:48] Essentially every business always has one main constraint that you need to unlock to lead to the next level of growth and the same is true with your customer retention.
[02:55] There's no point say sitting in an abandoned cart or an abandoned checkout flow and AB testing a subject line when your constraint is first to second order conversion.
[03:02] That's what we need to be solving for.
[03:03] Functions or this F1, F2, F3 framework will allow you to actually split your email flows into core goals that you need to solve for.
[03:10] And then you can actually identify which of these does your bottleneck lie in so you can go and make improvements in the right places.
[03:16] Now what are the metrics we actually want to be looking for here when we're identifying our constraints?
[03:21] Because it's all well and good to be solving for these, but if you don't know what good looks like, it's going to make it very hard to identify or find the bottleneck in the first place.
[03:28] So we still got these functions F1, F2, F3.
[03:31] We already spoke about this one.
[03:32] This is 50% of revenue from top 20% of customers.
[03:35] But what about F2?
[03:37] This is a very common sticking point.
[03:38] How do we actually judge whether we're converting a good amount of first-time customers into second time customers?
[03:43] The first way is just general improvement.
[03:44] So you can measure your first to second order conversion before you start focusing on this.
[03:47] And as you make improvements over time, you can just judge how this grows with every cohort you acquire from here on.
[03:52] The second one is some benchmarks we like to set.
[03:54] So we actually look at our 90-day and 365-day LTV lift.
[03:59] So that's essentially measuring the lift in lifetime value on every single customer we acquire.
[04:03] So say you acquire a
[04:05] Customer today at $100 on day zero.
[04:07] What are they worth at day 90 and what are they worth at day 365?
[04:12] This lift essentially tells you how your retention is going in a monetary sense in a dollar value.
[04:17] Like repeat purchase rates, they're good.
[04:19] Retention rates, they're good.
[04:20] All of that is fine, but they're just percentages at the end of the day.
[04:21] We need to be looking at how many dollars are we getting from every single customer because that's how you go and you set CAC targets and you can inform better decisions in acquisition and you know scale faster and harder.
[04:31] That's what all the big brands are looking at.
[04:32] So for example, say you're acquiring a customer at $100 on day zero.
[04:35] By day 90 we roughly want this customer to be worth about $130.
[04:40] We want a 30% lift.
[04:41] This will be more achievable in industries like CPG, but even the best fashion, active wear, furniture brands that we see, the ones that scale to 9 figures and beyond, they're still getting 30% lift in this time period, day 0 to 90.
[04:51] Now, over day 365, you actually want to see a much bigger lift.
[04:54] We want to be approaching nearly 80 to 100% lift, which means each of these customers is worth a minimum of $180.
[05:00] So, these brands know for every customer they acquire on day zero, they're going to have an extra 80% or an extra $80 of
[05:06] Profit over day 365.
[05:09] Now, $80 just in this example where you're acquiring a customer for $100 in the first place.
[05:12] And the reason we focus on these time periods is from a lot of our research, we found these are the sticking points.
[05:17] Most customers who do come back will come back within 90 days.
[05:20] And this is also a pretty common window for brands to set their payback period.
[05:24] Day 365, this is where a second or third order usually needs to fall in.
[05:27] If a customer is going to have 80 to 100% LTV lift over the course of a year, they're going to have to place more than one order most of the time, unless they're just a really big spender who comes back once or twice a year.
[05:37] So this is a good sign of our F3 and this actually correlates to our F1, F2 and F3.
[05:42] F1 is essentially how much are we getting on day zero and is this within our CAC targets.
[05:45] F2 is essentially well how much are we getting by about day 90 which is a good reflection of our second order conversion.
[05:51] And then F3 is usually correlated to well how good are we at retaining customers over the course of a year bringing them back for a second and third order.
[05:57] Now most brands don't study these numbers at all let alone actually use these to strategize and build out their email flows.
[06:02] All of your building within your Clavio account needs to be informed by real data points you're trying to influence.
[06:06] Like I said, this
[06:07] Is way better to optimize for than an attribute of revenue figure or a click rate figure or an open rate figure.
[06:12] None of that leads to dollars in your bank account, but this does.
[06:16] Customer LTV and LTV growth specifically does lead to dollars in your bank account and a better bottom line.
[06:20] If you want to run these numbers for your brand, it might seem hard to get a hold of, but just export a net sales over time report from Shopify, throw it through Claude, ask it to look at how many customers you're converting into a second time customer.
[06:29] Ask her for your LTV lift.
[06:31] You just ask Claude for all those numbers.
[06:32] It'll be able to give it to you in a nice visual format.
[06:33] Ask it for a graph or something.
[06:35] Now, that's the functions out of the way.
[06:36] We know how we want to map our customer journey.
[06:37] Then, each flow needs to pertain to one of those three functions.
[06:40] And we'll get to that again when we go into building the flows.
[06:43] But what are the philosophies we need to be upholding as we're actually starting to build our flows, too.
[06:48] Firstly, and the reason for making this video, flows are the lifeblood of your Clavio account.
[06:51] Every single day of the week, flows are going to be more important than campaigns.
[06:55] Now, that's not to say campaigns aren't extremely vital for generating revenue and driving people through your flows, but having the flows in place actually makes your campaigns way more effective.
[07:04] Say you send a campaign and you get 100 people click hypothetically and you get three people
[07:09] Purchase.
[07:10] 3% conversion on that campaign.
[07:12] Not that great, but you're going to have 97 people then go through flows provided you actually have your flows set up properly and comprehensively.
[07:18] So, sending your campaign, yes, it generated three sales.
[07:20] Woo, that's great.
[07:22] But you actually sent 97 people through your flows in which a considerable amount more will convert over time.
[07:25] So we need the flows.
[07:26] That's principle number one here.
[07:28] Secondly, the next principle is probably our order of hierarchy with the flows.
[07:31] What do we actually need to be building in in what order?
[07:34] For us, there's really five flows we want to focus on getting done straight away is the highest importance and then we can move on to the secondary ones later.
[07:40] In this, I'm going to loop in a pop-up form as that feeds your flows.
[07:43] Then we'll be looking at the welcome flow.
[07:44] We pretty much need this simultaneously to the pop-up form.
[07:47] Then we want cart and checkout.
[07:49] These are our order recovery.
[07:51] Super important and we want post-purchase.
[07:53] If you do nothing else but build these out, you're going to have a much better flow system than most people who use Clavio who actually just build out all the random flows for the sake of it, but don't actually hone in on building them properly.
[08:02] Now, when we're building this flow, we want to have one thing in mind.
[08:05] We always want to nurture and educate over sale.
[08:08] Sales will come if everything is done.
[08:09] Properly.
[08:11] But remember, you're building a customer journey.
[08:12] If someone has just placed their first order, there's no need to be shoving them into a loyalty program.
[08:17] If someone's just viewed a product, there's no need to be throwing discounts at them straight away and going for the hard sale.
[08:21] We want to be nurturing and educating people so they can actually go through the customer journey step by step.
[08:25] It's called a journey for a reason.
[08:27] Someone's going to enter your business knowing nothing about you.
[08:29] And by the time they're a loyal customer, if we're going to get them to that point, we're going to need to educate and nurture them.
[08:33] So, we always want to be prioritizing nurturing and education within our flows before we rely on discounts.
[08:39] The last thing here is how we think about AB testing.
[08:41] One thing that a lot of people do with their email flows is they just AB test things for the sake of it.
[08:46] We want to focus on AB tests that are high leverage.
[08:48] I audit accounts all the time where I'll go into the account and there's just 100 AB tests running and they're on things like subject lines or time delays, but they've been running for, you know, 6 months and no one's actually concluded that flow or learned anything from it.
[08:59] Or they'll be testing, you know, button colors or where they put the CTA or just tiny little changes throughout the email which really make no difference.
[09:05] We want to be focused on high leverage AB testing.
[09:09] So when I talk high leverage, I'm talking offers, timing and
[09:10] Structure.
[09:12] Yes, time delays can be good to test and the structure of the flows is very important to test, which I'll get to.
[09:15] And messaging.
[09:17] So, what are we actually tackling in our flows?
[09:18] What's the messaging we're using?
[09:20] What are the headlines we're using?
[09:21] What are the angles we're using?
[09:22] We should be AB testing these three things.
[09:24] So, when it comes to building our flows, I'm always focused on these four things, these four principles that are going to guide us as we build them.
[09:31] So, flows over campaigns.
[09:32] They're super important.
[09:33] We need to get them in place.
[09:33] That's a no-brainer.
[09:35] Secondly, your pop-up form, your welcome, your cart, check out, and post purchase.
[09:37] These are the big five in my opinion and what you want to get done in the account straight away.
[09:41] Thirdly, when we're building the content in the flows, we want to be nurturing and educating before relying on discounts.
[09:45] And lastly, if we're going to AB test our flows, which we should be doing, focus on high leverage tests, not just testing subject lines and random for the sake of it, when we should be testing offers, timing, and structure, and messaging.
[09:56] Now, everything we've talked about so far is just getting you in the right place to actually start building the flows.
[09:59] You're not going to build good flows if you don't know what goes into building a good flow.
[10:02] So, we have our three functions, F1, F2, F3, and we have these four principles that are going to guide us while we're building them.
[10:07] So, let's get stuck into it.
[10:08] Now, we're going to start with the pop-up form and then we'll go from there and work.
[10:11] Through all the flows in order step by step exactly how you need to build them.
[10:15] So, firstly, our pop-up form.
[10:17] This is the lifeblood of our list.
[10:18] This is how we're going to grow it.
[10:20] And this falls into F1, function one, acquisition efficiency.
[10:22] Now, the goal of your pop-up form is to convert more traffic or to convert more customers into first-time purchases.
[10:29] But where a lot of people go wrong with a pop-up form is they fixate on opt-in rate.
[10:33] You've probably heard email marketers all over the internet say this all the time like, "Oh, we need to get 5% opt-in.
[10:36] We need to get 10% opt-in rate."
[10:40] But realistically, that does not mean anything.
[10:42] Like, opt-in rate just tells you how fast your list is growing.
[10:44] But we're here to make money.
[10:46] So, the best thing you can be measuring is your conversion and your revenue per submission and ultimately your revenue.
[10:52] Or if you want to go one step further, what we will actually measure for is gross profit.
[10:55] This is a much more comprehensive way to look at your pop-up form than just look at it as a function of list growth.
[10:59] Because when you're just measuring list growth, you're fundamentally not measuring for gross profit because they're not always correlated.
[11:04] You could have a really good offer.
[11:06] Or maybe you even run one of the really common mystery discounts which get super high opt-in because everyone's so intrigued.
[11:10] Oh, what discount am I
[11:11] Going to get?
[11:13] Is it going to be 100% off?
[11:14] And then they go into the email and you give them $5 away.
[11:16] And yes, opt-in looked amazing, but your conversion, your revenue, your gross profit in your bank account suffered because you just increased your list size and you didn't look at conversion whatsoever.
[11:24] So, when we're building our pop-up form, we want to optimize for gross profit.
[11:27] Now, a lot of our data actually shows customers who do convert on a pop-up form, even with a discount, actually end up being more profitable long-term for an e-commerce brand.
[11:37] This sounds very counterintuitive, and I actually tested this across 50 stores.
[11:40] And before I looked at this, I didn't believe it, which is why I tested it so many times.
[11:43] But customers who come in, they use a discount from the pop-up form.
[11:46] It's framed as an offer.
[11:48] It's not framed as like a flash sale or a discount.
[11:49] It's framed as an offer for first-time customers.
[11:52] Make these customers more profitable in terms of gross profit generated long-term.
[11:56] Now, the reason for that is to do with AOV, or at least that's what a lot of our data says.
[11:59] Customers who come in through a pop-up form, say you're offering 10% off or $10 off or something, you want to make sure you tie this to some sort of minimum spend with the goal in mind of actually increasing your AOV.
[12:10] And the brands we actually see who become more profitable because of a pop-up form.
[12:11] Their discount
[12:13] Makes customers spend enough more money and increase their AOV enough that it actually covers the discount they're giving away, and they actually generate more gross profit on the first order from these customers who use the code.
[12:23] And then if you're getting a higher value customer up front, higher value customers often return at much higher rates.
[12:30] When it actually comes to creating your pop-up form, like you really don't need to think about it too much.
[12:33] It's a lot of the arbitrage is not in the creative whatsoever.
[12:37] Yes, creative can make a big difference.
[12:38] It's why you're seeing a lot of brands and a lot of our brands even use platforms like Alia Learn where you can create really gamified pop-up forms.
[12:44] A lot of that stuff really good for opt-in.
[12:47] So if you're going to go out of your way and make really creative pop-up forms, that's great.
[12:50] You just need to make sure that it is correlated to improve conversion and improve revenue off the back of it and it's not just inflating your opt-in.
[12:57] But otherwise, don't overthink your pop-up form.
[12:59] You pretty much, you know, if you have a pop-up form here and this is your submission field for your email or to say this is your button, you want people to put in their email address, XYZ@gmail, you pretty much just want the whole top half of the pop-up form here to be the offer.
[13:11] Get 10% off.
[13:13] I guarantee if you
[13:14] Do this and you have some little by lines here on minimum spend and you just make people put in their email and you just have a button that's probably going to convert best.
[13:21] Yes, you can go to Alia.
[13:23] All of this stuff is going to be incremental improvements on your opt-in.
[13:24] But if you're starting from scratch, just lead with a really good offer.
[13:27] Your offer and your timing is going to be a much more important lever for your pop-up form than stressing about, you know, how it looks or how gamified it is.
[13:35] It really doesn't make much of a difference long term.
[13:36] Secondly is our welcome flow.
[13:38] Now, this is probably the next most important thing after the pop-up form for our function one, which is improving acquisition efficiency.
[13:43] Here, when you're building the welcome flow, you want to set a trigger which has not placed order.
[13:47] You don't want anyone coming through this flow, which has placed an order overall time.
[13:50] If you're finding a lot of people get skipped because you're getting returning customers fill out your pop-up form because the targeting is not working correctly.
[13:57] You can have a separate welcome flow which is for returning customers who are filling out the flow for a second time, but ideally, we don't want to be giving them that first order discount.
[14:04] I just like to exclude them.
[14:06] Let your customer support judges.
[14:07] So, if you're getting a lot of returning customers come through and say, "Oh, hey, I didn't get my, you know, discount code from the pop-up form or it's not working."
[14:12] Then we can go and solve that later.
[14:14] But for now, non problem.
[14:14] We want to be adding this trigger has not placed.
[14:15] An order.
[14:17] And we pretty much want to be triggering this on our newsletter list.
[14:19] We want to trigger this on a list, not a segment, as it'll trigger much faster.
[14:22] And we want to make sure that we have single opt-in on.
[14:25] So, you can go into your list in Clavio and make sure you're filtering by single opt-in.
[14:28] But when we're actually building the flow, we want it to be very simple.
[14:31] Trigger, instant email.
[14:33] I would even go an instant SMS if you can or maybe like a 5 minute delay.
[14:37] Something like that.
[14:38] Instant or 5 minutes is a good AB testing opportunity.
[14:40] Now the important thing to know after you send your first email and SMS is the thing that leads to the most improvements in a welcome flow is the first 72 hours.
[14:47] A lot of people give the advice where they're like, "Oh, we're going to build an 8 9 10 email welcome flow when realistically most of the most of the conversion is done in the first 72 hours."
[14:56] You can go pull up data right now, connect your Clavio to Claude or get Hyro, some sort of analytic software where you'll see that 99% of people who join your email list will convert within the first 72 hours.
[15:05] And if they don't convert within the first 72 hours, the likelihood that they do becomes exponentially lower.
[15:09] So what you'll see brands do is they'll build this 10 12 email welcome flow which is spread over 2 weeks, but realistically everything after the 72-hour mark is
[15:17] Just going to the people who are never going to convert anyway and it's pretty much getting no traffic.
[15:22] So instead 90% of our focus should be going into optimizing this window.
[15:25] So, what you can do after you send this initial touch point, I would split out anyone who hasn't interacted yet, 12 hours later, we want to send them another email.
[15:32] We want to get on the front foot, two emails in one day.
[15:34] Nothing wrong with that.
[15:35] If they're not going to buy, we don't care about them anyway.
[15:36] At least in my opinion.
[15:38] After this, you just want to send daily content to everyone else.
[15:40] That's the way the flow should be structured.
[15:43] You trigger it based on the list inclusion.
[15:45] Send an email, send an SMS within 5 minutes of each other.
[15:46] If they did open one day later, we start sending emails daily until they purchase.
[15:51] If they didn't open, we just wait 12 hours and make sure we get back in front of them again.
[15:54] And remember, we have this has not placed order filter on the welcome flow.
[15:57] So, as soon as someone placed an order, they get removed from the welcome flow altogether.
[15:59] Now, how do we actually want to structure the welcome flow in terms of content?
[16:03] Well, like I said, the first 72-hour window matters.
[16:06] We want to be introducing people to the brand, but we also want to make sure we're converting them.
[16:08] So, we don't want to be too soft within this period.
[16:12] Email one, I'm literally giving the discount.
[16:13] Like, I'm giving the incentive from the pop-up form.
[16:15] I lead with that tiny bit of brand story.
[16:17] Then we want to push to bestselling or highest converting collections.
[16:20] Email two, we're going to go plain text email.
[16:23] Found a story.
[16:25] Now, where you can improve this email and where most brands go wrong is we add the urgency here as well.
[16:31] So, we have a founder story with urgency.
[16:32] So, we can tell the whole story about the brand.
[16:34] We want to be personal.
[16:35] We want to be authentic here.
[16:36] But, we actually still want to convert with urgency at the end.
[16:37] So, remind people about that discount code.
[16:39] Make sure they click through.
[16:41] From email 3 onwards, we just want to rotate between USPS, best sellers, social proof.
[16:45] But we still want to make sure in this first 72 hours we're prioritizing urgency as much as we can because after that the likelihood they purchase is so low.
[16:52] So don't wait until day seven or eight to tell people their code is expiring.
[16:55] Let's get them across the line in that first 72 hours.
[16:57] Now that's welcome flow done.
[16:59] Let's move on to our cart and checkout flows.
[17:01] Now the thing about cart and checkout flows is it's not black and white one particular function.
[17:05] Like it can be function one acquiring new customers but it can also be function two and it can also be function three.
[17:09] You're going to have all sorts of customers abandon a cart or abandon a checkout.
[17:12] And let's just jump straight into how we structure this.
[17:15] So, for example, if someone abandons a cart, that's our trigger.
[17:17] What we actually want to do straight away is split by new, first time, and loyal customers.
[17:19] For most brands, you can actually get away with just splitting by new and first time.
[17:25] You don't need to split out by loyal customers.
[17:28] This is just a bonus for bigger brands who maybe have a really good loyalty program or maybe you have a subscription program where this can sort of be your third tier of customer, your loyal or your subs.
[17:36] But, let's just cut this.
[17:37] And this is here for the brands who need it.
[17:39] If you have a good loyalty, good subscription program.
[17:40] Otherwise, let's just focus on doing the fundamentals right here, which is great flows for new customers, great flow for returning customers.
[17:47] Let's go slash return.
[17:49] So, for our new customers, we want to lead with incentive.
[17:52] Remember, we just gave these customers an incentive in our pop-up form and discount code.
[17:56] And so many brands make the mistake of they'll then have an abandoned cart and checkout flow, and they'll go on and they'll start being all fluffy about you left all these products behind when we should just be saying, "Hey, remember you still got this code.
[18:05] Let's apply it to the product you just looked at."
[18:07] For first-time and returning customers, we want to be softer.
[18:08] Ideally, we don't want to be relying incentives here, but we don't want to be as aggressive as we are with new customers.
[18:14] And by design, we want to be softer for the first 2 to 3 days with the returning customer.
[18:16] And then by
[18:18] About email three or four that we send them, then we can offer a discount if they're still not converting.
[18:23] Remember, for most brands, 80% of customers don't convert into a second time customer.
[18:26] So, if someone's abandoned a card or checkout and then 3 to 4 days later they still haven't converted, we're better off offering a discount and still converting them than leaving them to go to die with the other 80% of customers who are never going to convert.
[18:37] Now, for our loyal and subscription customers, we just want to give relevant information.
[18:40] So, that if they're in a loyalty program, we want to make sure we're giving them updates on how many points they have.
[18:45] If they're in a subscription program, we probably don't want to be aggressive whatsoever because they've got an active subscription.
[18:49] You can maybe just send them some information on how they can swap products or add new products to their order, but we definitely don't want to be really aggressive and force them to churn.
[18:56] This is one of the biggest mistakes I see.
[18:57] Brands have people in a loyalty in a subscription program who trigger these flows and they just treat them like they would every other customer.
[19:03] What you'll see here with this structuring is this is the most important way to do things from the top.
[19:08] Now, there's plenty of other split-offs we can get to, but one of the big mistakes I'll see is rather than splitting by new, returning, and loyal and subscription customers, people will start splitting by things like product or category or collection.
[19:18] This is where you start making fundamental mistakes with your messaging.
[19:22] Now, what you can see by the logic I just said is we need to be offering and talking to new customers, new customers, returning customers, and our loyal or subscription or VIP customers all differently.
[19:31] Whereas so many brands, for example, will trigger an abandoned cart flow.
[19:32] They'll go and say, "Okay, well, who was looking at uh denim products?
[19:36] Who was looking at dresses?
[19:38] Who was looking at uh t-shirts?"
[19:41] And then let's send them relevant content about that.
[19:43] But think about it.
[19:45] The reason that someone abandons cart or abandoned checkout is almost never to do with the individual product features for most niches, but it's all to do with different messaging or their objections to things like trust, price, shipping, or maybe they're just not ready.
[19:58] You know, maybe they left their wallet downstairs and they'll do it tomorrow.
[20:01] Maybe they're waiting for payday.
[20:02] Maybe they're shopping around and looking at other competitors.
[20:03] And again, that's probably going to come down to price.
[20:05] Most of your objections in this flow is going to come down to these things, which is why we split out by new, returning, and loyal customers because they all know our brand on different levels.
[20:14] New customers, we need to heavily overcome the trust and the price objection.
[20:17] Returning customers, yes, to a degree, but we also want to
[20:19] make sure we're giving them space
[20:20] because they already know our brand and
[20:22] we don't need to be going and forcing
[20:23] ourselves down their throat. For loyal
[20:24] customers, you don't really need to
[20:25] focus on these things at all. You just
[20:27] want to make sure you remind them of
[20:28] relevant information they have, perks,
[20:29] points, subscription portals, things
[20:31] like that. Whereas, if you go split out
[20:32] by product category or product
[20:34] collection, the reason people do that is
[20:35] because they go, "Oh, well, it's, you
[20:36] know, a different avatar or, you know,
[20:38] people they respond differently to
[20:39] different products." It makes it very
[20:41] hard to overcome these messages because
[20:42] you end up just talking about the
[20:44] product features. Whereas, the reason
[20:45] someone abandoned a cart isn't because
[20:46] they're like, "Oh, I'm worried about,
[20:48] you know, how many counts of denim or
[20:50] how many threads of cotton are in my
[20:51] t-shirt compared to your competitor."
[20:53] They're looking at trust, price,
[20:54] shipping, or they're simply not ready.
[20:56] Now, there's definitely a time and place
[20:57] to split by collection. Don't get me
[20:59] wrong, but the place isn't at the
[21:01] fundamental structure of the flow. The
[21:03] fundamental structure of the flow has to
[21:04] be split by customer. Has to be split by
[21:07] where they're at in their customer
[21:08] journey. So, we can get an understanding
[21:09] of who they are and what they know about
[21:11] our brand and where they might be in
[21:12] terms of awareness level and prior
[21:14] experience with us. Once you've split by
[21:16] new, returning or loyal and subscription
[21:18] customers, then you can split more
[21:20] niche. The common ones here are high or
[21:22] low cart value or it is collection.
[21:25] Maybe you are a brand like you know
[21:26] supplements or something that does have
[21:28] lots of different avatars that we need
[21:29] to appease. But I would only split by
[21:31] these once you've split by new and
[21:33] returning customers. Don't do this at
[21:34] the top of your flow because then you're
[21:36] just talking to people about the wrong
[21:37] things before you even know who they are
[21:39] or where they're at in their customer
[21:40] journey and you risk giving completely
[21:42] wrong incentives. You risk, you know,
[21:43] forgetting to remind them of really key
[21:45] perks that they have and overall you
[21:46] just ruin synergy in your customer
[21:48] journey. Someone might have just got a
[21:49] post-purchase flow thanking them for
[21:51] their third order and thanking them for
[21:52] their loyalty and then they come back
[21:53] and you start, you know, telling them
[21:54] about how many threads are in their
[21:56] denim or, you know, talking to them like
[21:57] they're a first-time customer because
[21:58] you're not splitting this out from the
[22:00] start. So remember the key objections we
[22:02] need to overcome. Trust price. Those are
[22:04] the two main buckets. Within that
[22:06] obviously comes shipping, straight cost,
[22:08] discounts, competitors. There's so many
[22:12] things at influencer, but the way that
[22:13] we overcome it is by handling the
[22:14] objection for trust and price. So, our
[22:16] event card and check out flow should be
[22:17] littered with social proof, littered
[22:19] with trust badges, news articles if we
[22:21] have them, just proof that our product
[22:22] works, but also give incentives, gives
[22:24] discounts at the right time to the right
[22:26] customers. Look, now that we've squared
[22:27] away cart and checkout, we can actually
[22:29] go and move on to active on site and
[22:31] browse abandonment. We'll group these
[22:32] together because we actually don't need
[22:34] to spend that much time talking about
[22:35] these because the fundamental structure
[22:37] is so similar to what we just spoke
[22:38] about. But we have our site and we have
[22:40] our browse. Pretty much as soon as you
[22:42] trigger these flows, you just want to do
[22:43] the exact same thing we did in cart and
[22:45] checkout. For all these pre- purchase
[22:46] flows, we should just be splitting by
[22:48] who the customer is. Are they new? Are
[22:50] they returning? Are they loyal? That
[22:52] allows us to cater that messaging
[22:53] exactly what we just spoke about. And
[22:54] you still do that in your site and
[22:56] browse abandonment. I will always split
[22:57] out by who the customer is in our flows
[22:59] so we can talk to them with that
[23:00] relevant messaging. Now, a massive
[23:02] mistake that people make in the browse
[23:03] abandonment flow is making assumptions.
[23:05] What we don't want to do in the browse
[23:06] abandonment flow, similar to cart and
[23:07] checkout, is assume what they're after.
[23:10] People will see someone trigger a
[23:11] browser venom inflow and maybe they
[23:12] looked at your denim jeans and they'll
[23:14] assume that that customer is in the
[23:15] market for denim straight away when
[23:16] realistically a lot of people's
[23:18] purchasing behavior when they're on
[23:19] site. They're going to go and view
[23:21] product A, then they might go and view
[23:23] product B. Then they might go and view
[23:24] product C. Then they might go and view
[23:26] product D. But you just triggered the
[23:28] flow on one of these products. You just
[23:29] saw the customer view product A and go
[23:31] bang. I'm going to send them a full flow
[23:32] about product A. Now, what about product
[23:34] B, C, and D they looked at? Because when
[23:35] people shop, they look around your site,
[23:37] especially new customers. Maybe they've
[23:39] just seen an ad for the first time and
[23:40] they're going and they're viewing your
[23:41] supplements catalog or they're viewing
[23:42] your fashion catalog or your skincare
[23:44] catalog. They're scrolling through
[23:45] collection pages. They're looking at
[23:46] products and we need to be very
[23:47] cognizant of that in the customer
[23:48] journey. We can't be making assumptions.
[23:50] Whereas I guarantee if you're watching
[23:51] this video, your browse abandonment flow
[23:53] is just going to be trigger. It's going
[23:55] to be email, email, email, and it's just
[23:58] going to be something like, oh, the
[23:59] product you looked at is waiting for
[24:00] you. Or, oh, why don't you add it to
[24:02] cart? And it's all just going to be
[24:03] really simple reminders of the product
[24:04] they looked at. But realistically,
[24:06] again, we split by new, we split by
[24:08] returning, and we split by loyal
[24:09] customers. This flow especially
[24:11] important for new customers because
[24:12] realistically, when they viewed your
[24:14] product for the first time, they still
[24:15] have no idea what they want to purchase.
[24:17] So, this is where we educate and
[24:18] nurture. I prefer to use dynamic blocks
[24:20] focusing on bestsellers in these emails.
[24:22] Essentially, the goal of the browse
[24:23] abandonment flow is to get someone to
[24:25] add to cart. Remember, I was talking
[24:26] about this is like a customer journey.
[24:27] The next step after browse is to get
[24:29] someone to add to cart. And to get
[24:30] someone to add something to cart, they
[24:32] need to find what they're looking for
[24:33] and they need to find something they
[24:34] like. So, we split by new customers. We
[24:35] educate them first and foremost about
[24:37] our collections, about the problems we
[24:38] solve. And then we show dynamic blocks
[24:40] of bestsellers and actually get them
[24:41] closer to adding to cart because they're
[24:43] going to be more likely to find
[24:44] something that they like. So, browse
[24:45] abandonment flow inside abandonment
[24:47] flow. All you need to do make sure
[24:48] you're splitting correctly by new,
[24:49] returning, and then making sure you're
[24:50] not making assumptions and you're
[24:52] sending people content that is going to
[24:53] help them get closer to the product
[24:55] they're actually looking for. All right,
[24:56] let's move on to the fourth flow here,
[24:57] which is our post purchase flow. This is
[24:59] one of the most important flows you'll
[25:00] ever build. And the reason for that, it
[25:02] helps heavily with F2 and F3. Now,
[25:05] there's two ways you can think about
[25:06] your post-purchase flow depending on
[25:07] what type of brand you are. The first
[25:08] way is upsell. The goal is purely to go
[25:11] for upsell, increase LTV within the
[25:13] first 30 days. Now, if you're a brand
[25:15] that's more of a oneandone or a churn
[25:17] and burn, you know, drop shipping brand
[25:18] specifically, or you've got one product,
[25:20] um, or, you know, you've got one core
[25:22] product with multiple variations, you
[25:24] need to be getting the upsell within
[25:26] pretty much the first 30 seconds, let
[25:27] alone the first 30 days. like this is
[25:29] your window to boost LTV and you need to
[25:31] be going for the upsell. For brands that
[25:32] are building exactly that, a brand,
[25:34] something they're trying to build
[25:35] longterm, you've got product portfolio,
[25:37] you know, you're pretty much your
[25:38] average e-commerce store that's probably
[25:39] watching this video. You want to be
[25:40] going for the nurture. Yes, there's
[25:42] still a time and place for an upsell,
[25:43] but we're going to reserve this for if
[25:45] you're very desperate for immediate LTV.
[25:47] Otherwise, we want to play the long game
[25:49] here and focus on nurturing. The third
[25:51] point to consider here, I lied. I said
[25:53] there was two points. There's three
[25:54] there's three points. And that would be
[25:55] if you have a subscription program. If
[25:57] you have a subscription program, you're
[25:58] going to have a different flow
[25:59] altogether for your new subscribers. So,
[26:01] how do we split this out? Well, surprise
[26:03] surprise follows a very similar
[26:05] philosophy to the other cards. Follows a
[26:06] very similar philosophy to the other
[26:08] flows I just showed you. Essentially,
[26:09] this triggers once someone places an
[26:10] order. We want to send immediate emails.
[26:12] Don't put a time delay here. People go,
[26:14] "Oh, but my customer is getting the
[26:16] shipping confirmation or the order
[26:17] confirmation from Shopify, so I'm going
[26:18] to wait one day before I send them a
[26:19] thank you email." No, the order
[26:21] confirmation that serves as the receipt.
[26:23] You know, people's confirmation of the
[26:24] order. It has all the details, their
[26:25] address, the price, what they bought,
[26:27] all that stuff. We want to be using this
[26:28] as a purely brand building piece. This
[26:30] is our thank you. This is from the
[26:31] brand. And this is where we can start
[26:33] telling them information that is
[26:34] relevant to their product, their
[26:35] journey, whatever they need to know.
[26:36] Similar to the last flows, we're
[26:38] splitting out by first-time customers,
[26:39] second, third, and I'm even going as far
[26:42] for brands are getting a lot of orders.
[26:44] You know, maybe you're doing above seven
[26:45] figures a year. You're going to have
[26:46] customers placing their fourth, maybe
[26:48] even their fifth orders. We want to have
[26:50] a different split for every single
[26:52] customer. Now, do you need to go into
[26:53] crazy amount of details for all of these
[26:55] customers? No. But we still want to
[26:56] personalize it to where they're at and
[26:58] depending on what the goal is. Now, what
[27:00] you'll find with F2 and F3? If you
[27:02] remember, this is first to second order
[27:03] conversion. This is loyalty and VIP. So,
[27:06] this whole first split, this is where F2
[27:08] comes in. This is the first split here,
[27:10] F2. This is where we're nurturing
[27:11] customers to give them the best possible
[27:13] chance of retaining. This is
[27:14] particularly important in subscription
[27:16] program. I won't draw both flows here,
[27:17] but I will sort of talk about the
[27:18] differences. Whenever a customer places
[27:20] an order, this first window between
[27:22] placing the order and when they receive
[27:24] the product, this is pretty much your
[27:26] window to indoctrinate them into your
[27:27] brand. This is your window to remove
[27:28] buyers remorse, get them excited, arm
[27:30] them with all the information they
[27:31] possibly need to have the best possible
[27:33] experience with your product. So, we
[27:34] want to communicate tips, shipping info,
[27:37] anything community related, blogs,
[27:40] encouragement, anything we need to be
[27:42] doing to make sure the customer has the
[27:44] best possible experience with their
[27:45] product once it arrives. This is the
[27:47] window where we're communicating with
[27:48] them. This is their onboarding with our
[27:50] brand. And the exact same principle
[27:51] applies for subscription customers. It's
[27:53] just for first-time customers who aren't
[27:55] on a subscription. The goal is to bridge
[27:56] this gap and get them to place a second
[27:58] order. Whereas for subscription
[27:59] customers, the goal is to reduce churn.
[28:01] We're not actually trying to actively
[28:02] sell to them after they've placed an
[28:03] order. Again, so many people make the
[28:05] mistake of a customer places an order.
[28:06] Like I said, first I'll put a time
[28:07] delay, but then they'll just send one or
[28:09] two little thank you emails after here
[28:10] and then just, you know, the customer
[28:12] gets the order and that's it. But
[28:13] realistically, if you're going to
[28:14] improve your first or second order
[28:16] conversion, we need to be forcing this
[28:17] journey. We need to be holding the
[28:18] customer's hand and encouraging them to
[28:20] come back. Look, if you're in CPG or
[28:22] skincare or supplements, there's going
[28:23] to be a natural replenishment window. If
[28:25] we do our job in the post-purchase flow,
[28:26] the product is good and there's other
[28:28] stuff for them to buy, this is going to
[28:29] be a very natural window in CPG. And we
[28:32] don't need to force this too hard
[28:33] because, you know, we'll have product
[28:35] usage and then when people start getting
[28:36] to the point where they should be
[28:37] replenishing, we can nudge them and
[28:39] essentially move them towards this
[28:40] pathway. But if you're not in CPG or you
[28:42] don't have a natural replenishment
[28:43] window, maybe you're fashion or
[28:44] something, we need to be grabbing the
[28:46] customer, holding their hand, and
[28:47] walking them to their second order and
[28:49] showing them exactly what they should be
[28:51] looking at or buying next. If you leave
[28:52] it up to the customer and you know, you
[28:54] send one thank you email and you never
[28:55] talk to them again. They're going to
[28:56] forget about you. They're going to shop
[28:57] around. They're going to be getting
[28:58] targeted with other brands ads. You need
[29:00] to control the customer journey. You
[29:01] need to be in control and you need to
[29:03] guide the customer to buying with you
[29:05] again. Now, you'll notice I haven't put
[29:07] in any cross sales, upsells, sort of win
[29:08] backs here because we'll get to that.
[29:10] The goal of the post-purchase journey is
[29:12] to nurture, it's to educate, it's to
[29:13] provide the best possible customer
[29:15] experience. Like I said, the only caveat
[29:16] to that is if you're a brand that needs
[29:18] to do an immediate upsell, like you
[29:20] know, your one-stop shop, drop shipping
[29:22] brand, one product, then you would
[29:23] pretty much scrap all of this right at
[29:25] the top here. You would insert an upsell
[29:27] straight away. The best way to do this,
[29:29] if you're a brand that needs to boost
[29:31] LTV in the first 30 days, I like an app
[29:33] called Order Editing. It's an elite app
[29:34] where you can essentially let customers
[29:36] edit their order before it goes into
[29:38] fulfillment within your warehouse. So
[29:40] someone can place an order, you can give
[29:41] them a 1 hour window where they can add
[29:43] more. It takes them to a custom page
[29:44] with discounts applied and we can start
[29:46] boosting the AOV that way. So order
[29:47] editing on Shopify. It's an elite app
[29:49] where you can actually boost AOV after
[29:51] the fact. We actually have plenty of
[29:53] great brands that use this. Auto editing
[29:55] is really good for reducing your
[29:56] customer support tickets as well. So in
[29:58] your first thank you email, it can be
[29:59] worthwhile adding some sort of order
[30:00] editing incentive here, even if you're
[30:02] not too pushy with the upsell. But
[30:03] otherwise after that we want to be
[30:05] focusing on tips and tricks for using
[30:06] our product. You know encouragement and
[30:08] building a routine and sticking to a
[30:09] routine and stacking habits. Blogs on
[30:11] how to get the best use of out of our
[30:13] products. You know maybe recipes or or
[30:14] whatever it is based on our niche
[30:16] community. Maybe you know you've got a
[30:17] Facebook page or you've got a really
[30:19] good Instagram community or broadcast
[30:20] channel or a Discord or something. Then
[30:22] you show them the shipping timelines
[30:23] like hey this is when you're going to
[30:25] hear from us next. This is when you can
[30:26] expect to receive the product etc etc.
[30:28] All that stuff is going to contribute to
[30:30] having the best possible customer
[30:31] journey on that first order. For second
[30:33] time customers, we want to thank and
[30:35] direct them. What I mean by this is once
[30:37] someone's placed a second order, we
[30:38] should be focusing on F3. Okay, they've
[30:40] placed a second order, now the next
[30:41] hardest gap has been bridged. How do we
[30:42] ensure that they come back and have the
[30:44] best possible chance of becoming a
[30:45] third, fourth, and fifth time customer?
[30:46] We need to direct them to whatever comes
[30:48] next or how we're encouraging loyalty.
[30:50] Now, if you're a brand say doing 56
[30:51] million a year and you're still trying
[30:52] to solve for F2 constraint here, you're
[30:55] not probably thinking about F3 that
[30:56] much. You're probably not thinking about
[30:57] loyalty. Remember, we have one
[30:58] constraint at a time. And if our
[31:00] constraints first to second order,
[31:01] there's no point worrying about third,
[31:02] fourth, and fifth order. But once you've
[31:03] solved for this and you have good first
[31:05] to second order conversion, our second
[31:06] time customers, we need to be directing
[31:08] them into loyalty. So if you have a VIP
[31:10] program, a loyalty program, a
[31:12] subscription program, this is pretty
[31:13] much where we're saying, "Hey, you're a
[31:15] secondtime customer now. You obviously
[31:16] like our products. This is where you
[31:18] need to go to get the most out of your
[31:19] relationship with us as a brand." Maybe
[31:21] it's an app, maybe it's a loyalty
[31:22] program, maybe it's just saying, "Hey,
[31:23] on your next order, we're going to give
[31:25] you free shipping as a big thank you."
[31:26] Or maybe it's early access to things
[31:28] like just small perks like that. Or like
[31:29] I said, maybe it is a subscription
[31:31] program that you're saying, "Look,
[31:32] you've just placed a second order."
[31:33] They'll just jump you on subscription.
[31:35] You're going to subscribe and save and
[31:36] you're never going to have to worry
[31:36] about the hassle of coming back and
[31:38] remembering to place an order again. But
[31:40] that's the only thing we're doing
[31:41] differently here. We're thanking them,
[31:42] saying, "Thanks for your second order.
[31:43] So good to see you back." And then we're
[31:45] directing them throughout the rest of
[31:46] this flow. And then we're directing them
[31:47] into the things they're going to
[31:48] encourage loyalty. Now, you can still do
[31:51] these things, especially for a second
[31:52] time customer. You might want to double
[31:53] down on community, blogs, encouragement.
[31:55] like they're still not considered a
[31:56] super loyal customer with your brand and
[31:58] there's still going to be a churn risk.
[31:59] So, we really still want to make sure
[32:00] we're weaving this stuff in. But the
[32:02] goal is to direct them first, get them
[32:03] to the next phase, get them signing up
[32:05] to what we need them to sign up to, and
[32:06] then we can worry about that stuff
[32:07] afterwards. For third, fourth, and fifth
[32:09] time customers, this is pretty much
[32:10] where we're just customizing the
[32:11] messaging. I would be, if you have a
[32:12] loyalty program, I would be splitting
[32:14] out here by who's in loyalty, who isn't,
[32:16] and then if people who aren't in
[32:17] loyalty, making sure they definitely get
[32:18] on it and doing this for all of their
[32:20] orders until they're on the loyalty
[32:21] program. But once they're on it, you can
[32:23] pretty much just remind them of their
[32:24] points, remind them of their perks, and
[32:25] you should have loyalty flows which tell
[32:27] them when they graduate to the next
[32:28] tier. But all we want to do for all of
[32:30] these guys is customize the messaging.
[32:32] There's a psychological principle, I
[32:34] can't remember what it's called, but
[32:34] it's I think it's the labeling theory or
[32:36] something. When you label someone with
[32:37] something, they're more likely to live
[32:38] up to that, provided it's a positive
[32:40] label. So, if you call a customer loyal
[32:42] or you thank them for being loyal,
[32:43] they're going to be more likely to be
[32:44] loyal. So, you don't want to make the
[32:46] mistake of having, you know, one split
[32:47] or two splits in your thank you flow.
[32:48] You can see how comprehensive we're
[32:50] building this out. But you don't want to
[32:51] have make the mistake of having one
[32:52] split a thank you email and then every
[32:54] time someone places an order, they get
[32:55] the first thank you email. Like what if
[32:57] you have a customer who's just placed a
[32:58] fifth order, they've just spent their
[32:59] thousandth dollar with you and you're
[33:01] just sending a oh thanks for your order
[33:02] with us. We really appreciate it. No,
[33:04] you want to be sending custom messaging.
[33:06] Something we've done for a massive
[33:07] fashion brand here in Australia is we
[33:09] launched a personal thank you letter
[33:11] from the CEO to any customer who started
[33:13] placing a fifth order or who had placed
[33:15] their fifth order. We attached a small
[33:17] gift to that. Okay, it was actually in
[33:18] the frame of a gift voucher. It was a
[33:20] $15 gift voucher. And that alone made it
[33:22] exponentially more likely that fifth
[33:24] time customers became sixth time
[33:25] customers. And that's because we
[33:26] acknowledged where they were at. Oh my
[33:28] god, you've placed your fifth order. We
[33:29] can't express how grateful we are. You
[33:31] know, you're the reason that we do this.
[33:32] And you know, we're so grateful for your
[33:34] support. Um, a bit of story from the
[33:36] founder, you know, maybe a bit of a
[33:37] story of how they built the brand. It's
[33:38] a personal letter. And then look, I have
[33:40] a gift here for you to thank you. Here's
[33:41] a $15 voucher. You can use this on your
[33:43] next order or you can give it to family
[33:44] or friend, whatever you want. Thank you
[33:46] so much. And that messaging and that
[33:47] level of customization and authenticity
[33:50] encourages further loyalty. So you need
[33:51] to be baking that into the back end of
[33:53] your placed order or your post-purchase
[33:54] flows especially for third, fourth,
[33:56] fifth time customers. Now your
[33:58] post-purchase flow is also an amazing
[33:59] time to be AB testing. I'll probably do
[34:01] another video on like the real intricate
[34:02] AB testing ins and outs of these flows.
[34:04] But what you want to be doing is AB
[34:06] testing your offers at the right places.
[34:08] So if you have an offer for first to
[34:09] second time customers or an upsell
[34:11] offer, this is a really good time to be
[34:12] AB testing. Otherwise, I'd be AB testing
[34:15] upsells you might have in the second
[34:17] purchase flow for subscription or to get
[34:18] people in your loyalty program. Whenever
[34:20] you have offers throughout this flow,
[34:21] it's a great time to test, but
[34:22] otherwise, we really want to be focusing
[34:24] on the nurturing and moving people into
[34:26] subscriptions or loyalty where it makes
[34:27] sense. All right, let's move on to the
[34:28] fifth flow here. So, we'll look at the
[34:30] cross-ell flow. Now, this is a very,
[34:32] very hard flow to get right. Typically,
[34:34] this is going to focus on F2. It can
[34:36] focus on F3, but the primary goal here
[34:38] is F2. You're using your cross-ell flow
[34:41] to direct customers to place their
[34:43] second order. Now, if you cast your mind
[34:44] back 2 minutes ago to when I was talking
[34:46] about the post-purchase flow, and you'll
[34:47] notice that I said for first-time
[34:49] customers, when there's not a natural
[34:50] replenishment window like in CPG, we
[34:52] need to be directing the customers and
[34:53] holding their hand to place their second
[34:55] order. And that's exactly what the
[34:56] cross-ell flow does. This is way
[34:58] stronger than a winback flow because
[34:59] this is proactively recommending the
[35:01] next order for customers. This is a very
[35:03] hard one to get right. But now there's
[35:05] AI tools and Clavio marketing analytics
[35:07] which make this a little bit easier to
[35:09] do at scale. Now there's two ways that
[35:10] I'm going to try to build a crossell
[35:11] flow. And this is actually a very good
[35:12] AB testing opportunity. But there's
[35:14] manual. So this is where we set it up
[35:16] and make recommendations ourselves. And
[35:17] then there's AI powered. Manual
[35:19] essentially means look we're going to go
[35:20] and try optimize for the best case
[35:22] scenario for our business. So we look at
[35:24] where 80% of our orders are coming from.
[35:26] There might be three, four products that
[35:27] are absorbing 80% of our orders and then
[35:30] offer something that makes sense for
[35:32] secondtime customers. When a lot of
[35:33] people think manual, they go to the nth
[35:34] degree with the cross-ell flow and they
[35:36] go, I've got 100 SKUs, so I need to try
[35:38] plan out 100 different possibilities.
[35:40] Like if someone bought this pink
[35:41] t-shirt, I've got to recommend them this
[35:43] one matching pair of socks. And like
[35:45] yes, that can be good, but these days
[35:47] way better to just make that AI powered.
[35:48] AI can do that with Clavio now. But for
[35:50] your manual flow, there's still a lot of
[35:52] upside in here where you're essentially
[35:53] telling customers, "No, this is the best
[35:55] thing to buy next." In fashion, I think
[35:57] it's better to go AI powered. In CPG or
[36:01] anything, you know, supplements,
[36:02] skincare, like things that are
[36:03] replenishable, I like doing manual and
[36:06] actually building a dedicated second
[36:08] customer offer, some sort of bundle or
[36:09] or just something that makes sense for
[36:11] second time customers that converts
[36:12] really highly. One thing you can do here
[36:14] is just filter by everyone who didn't
[36:16] buy your bestselling product and then in
[36:18] a cross-ell offer them your bestselling
[36:19] product. Like if you have a really clear
[36:21] say protein powder or line of skincare
[36:23] that's like your bestselling product and
[36:24] collection, you're still going to have a
[36:26] bunch of customers who don't buy this
[36:27] for the first time. So a really good
[36:28] cross-ell flow you can do is just go,
[36:30] "Hey, go buy our bestselling product."
[36:31] So let's break these down. For the AI
[36:33] flow, we essentially want to go to Claio
[36:35] marketing analytics. It's a plugin
[36:37] within Clavio. There's other apps for
[36:38] this like Reby, but if we go to Clavio
[36:40] marketing analytics, there'll be a tab
[36:42] that tells you to build the next best
[36:44] cross-ell flow. And this is essentially
[36:46] a Clavio flow where it predicts when
[36:48] they're going to buy next based on all
[36:49] the predictive analytics that Claio has.
[36:51] And then it recommends the products
[36:52] they're likely to buy next based off
[36:53] what they bought the first time. And
[36:55] that's where the AI data comes in. So,
[36:56] you know, if you're fashion or, you
[36:57] know, we have a Pilates client, some
[36:59] people buy this certain top and then
[37:01] they always buy this c this certain
[37:02] bottom to match it. 20% of clients who
[37:04] buy this top buy this bottom right after
[37:06] all or within the same cart. So, we can
[37:08] use this next best flow to find all
[37:09] those niche product recommendations and
[37:11] then do that at scale where dynamic
[37:13] blocks within the email will just
[37:15] recommend the next best flow. And this
[37:16] is a really good one that you can set up
[37:17] and have it there and monitor if it's
[37:19] working. One thing that you'll want to
[37:20] AB test here is the incentive. So, the
[37:22] AI can handle the dirty work with like
[37:24] doing all the combinations and the
[37:25] dynamic blocks, but you want to tackle
[37:27] the incentive and you want to tackle the
[37:28] messaging. This will be for your input.
[37:30] Something that the AI can't do very
[37:32] well. You handle the incentive and
[37:33] messaging. Why does someone want to buy
[37:35] the next best thing? Is it completing
[37:36] their set? Is it to buff out their
[37:38] wardrobe? Is it to complete their
[37:40] protein or their pre-workout stack?
[37:41] Like, like what is the messaging here
[37:42] that we want to go for? The incentive is
[37:44] the next thing. Do we need to be
[37:45] incentivizing customers to improve our
[37:47] function too, our first or second order
[37:49] conversion, or can we get away with, you
[37:51] know, using really good messaging,
[37:52] really good products at the right time,
[37:53] and is our product strong enough that
[37:54] people are going to come back? I would
[37:56] much prefer the latter, but in a lot of
[37:57] cases, you might need to come up with
[37:59] some sort of incentive there. However, I
[38:00] wouldn't resort to that straight away.
[38:02] The next one is the manual one. Like I
[38:04] said, now instead of splitting out by a
[38:06] thousand different possibilities, we
[38:08] just want to use the 80/20 rule here.
[38:10] Where are 80% of our customers going to
[38:11] be coming from? And then we direct them
[38:13] to some sort of second time offer. Now,
[38:15] this can be, you know, if you have
[38:16] limited SKs, this might be really
[38:18] simple, like, hey, this is the this is
[38:19] our next best product, like everyone
[38:21] buys this. What I would probably do is
[38:23] just split it simply by we'll have two
[38:25] routes here. People who bought the hero
[38:27] product and people who didn't buy the
[38:28] hero product. This is a really simple
[38:30] way to structure uh your manual
[38:32] cross-ell flow. For people who didn't
[38:34] buy the hero product, we just want to
[38:35] upsell them to the hero product. Super
[38:37] simple. You have a bestselling product.
[38:38] People didn't buy that. Hey, buy our
[38:40] bestselling product. For people who did
[38:41] buy the hero product, this is where we
[38:42] come up with maybe a more curated second
[38:44] purchase order. Like maybe we have a
[38:46] bundle we can upsell people to a
[38:47] subscription we can upsell people to, or
[38:49] you know, if we have too many
[38:50] possibilities, that's when you just go
[38:52] back and look at AI. But I really like
[38:53] coming up with manual bundles here. This
[38:55] can be really good, especially if you're
[38:56] in some sort of consumable or, you know,
[38:58] some sort of something where there's
[38:59] other natural cross cells that you can
[39:01] give to people. We can come up with a
[39:02] second bundle. So, hey, you really
[39:04] enjoyed your first order, the product,
[39:05] you loved it, blah blah blah. This is
[39:06] what we recommend buying next and this
[39:08] will sort you out for the next 6 months.
[39:09] Like, it's a really good way to frame it
[39:11] and it can be some sort of special
[39:12] discount or offer with it as well. So,
[39:14] your cross-ell flow, don't overthink it.
[39:15] This might look complex, but there's
[39:17] really only a few things we need to
[39:18] remember. There's two ways to do it,
[39:19] manual or AI powered. For AI, focus on
[39:21] Claio Marketing Analytics or apps like
[39:23] Reby. uh for the manual, split it by
[39:26] people who bought the hero, people who
[39:27] didn't buy the hero, and just go for the
[39:28] upsell based off that. Otherwise, we
[39:31] want to make sure we're using this to
[39:32] direct and measure first to second order
[39:34] conversion. When we're building or
[39:36] testing the cross-ell flow, we don't
[39:37] just want to be looking at Claio
[39:38] attributed revenue, although this will
[39:40] be a good indicator of that direct email
[39:41] is doing the selling. But as we improve
[39:43] our cross-ell journeys and our overall
[39:44] customer journey, we're measuring first
[39:46] to second order conversion percentage.
[39:48] How many of our first-time customers are
[39:50] becoming second-time customers? If
[39:51] you're building out all these flows over
[39:52] time and this percentage is increasing,
[39:54] that's a great thing and you're probably
[39:55] doing the right things in your Clavio
[39:56] account, too. Now, flow six here, this
[39:59] is our win back or reactivation. To be
[40:02] honest, this is a pretty weak flow. A
[40:03] lot of people go, "Oh, you need a win
[40:05] back flow. It's so important for
[40:06] retention." Like, you know, we know how
[40:07] to drive retention through Clavio
[40:09] because we've built a win back flow. Win
[40:11] back is when your customers are elapsed.
[40:12] They need reactivating. And if you're at
[40:14] the point where a customer is lapsed and
[40:16] needed reactivating, you didn't do a
[40:17] very good job at retaining them in the
[40:19] first place. they shouldn't be at a
[40:20] point where they need to be reactivated.
[40:22] However, this flow is still one you want
[40:23] to build. But just keep in mind this is
[40:25] for lapsed customers. And what's going
[40:27] to be very important here is essentially
[40:28] offer timing messaging. And the last
[40:32] thing we want to focus on is structure
[40:35] i.e. who we're sending what to offer
[40:37] timing messaging. So important in all
[40:39] these flows. That was the sort of AB
[40:40] testing framework I ran through earlier.
[40:42] But with our offer, this is going to be
[40:43] the biggest driver of laps customers.
[40:44] The better the offer, the better it's
[40:45] going to perform. For timing, we don't
[40:47] want to shoot this too early. We don't
[40:48] want to shoot it too late, but I would
[40:49] on the side of, you know, letting
[40:51] customers actually lapse first. Don't go
[40:52] sending this at bloody day 60. And then
[40:54] messaging. Avoid really soggy messaging
[40:57] like we miss you. You don't want to be
[40:58] going to a customer and just going, "Oh,
[41:00] we miss you." And that's the whole
[41:02] premise of our win back flow. I hate
[41:03] that. Like when you're coming through
[41:04] with messaging, what is the problem that
[41:06] you're solving? Why should customers be
[41:08] coming back? What is the reason they
[41:09] should be continuing to buy from your
[41:11] shop? What are they missing out on? Are
[41:12] we exaggerating pain points? We want to
[41:14] still be using really good
[41:15] copyrightiting frameworks to emphasize
[41:16] the messaging here and not just say
[41:18] random stuff like we miss you. That's
[41:19] the most selfish marketing angle on the
[41:21] planet. Wind backflows have actually had
[41:23] a bit of an improvement with Clavio
[41:24] marketing analytics and I've spoken
[41:26] about Clavio marketing analytics a bit
[41:28] and it's essentially a add-on in Claio
[41:29] for brands. I recommend for brands doing
[41:31] above 5 million a year below 5 million a
[41:33] year the upside's probably not worth the
[41:36] additional cost for you. But Claio
[41:38] marketing analytics essentially lets you
[41:39] split by RFM status. RFM is recency,
[41:43] frequency and monetary value. So it
[41:45] ranks customers based on this and it
[41:47] ranks them into groups like champion,
[41:49] loyal, recent, needs, attention, at
[41:53] risk. So with Claio marketing analytics,
[41:55] you can actually group every single
[41:56] customer into one of these stages, which
[41:58] allows you to create more personalized
[42:00] win back flows. So for example, someone
[42:02] who has really high recency, like
[42:04] they've, you know, ordered very
[42:05] recently, they order very often and they
[42:07] usually spend a lot of money, they're
[42:08] going to be a champion customer. Someone
[42:09] who buys pretty frequently, they spend a
[42:12] good amount of money, they're going to
[42:13] be a loyal customer. Someone who's
[42:14] bought recently, but they don't
[42:15] necessarily buy frequently or spend
[42:17] much, they're recent, needs attention
[42:18] and at risk, that's essentially when
[42:20] your previous customers from here are
[42:22] showing signs of falling out of their
[42:23] typical buying patterns. So someone who
[42:25] usually buys every 3 months, they've now
[42:27] taken 6 months. They're probably going
[42:28] to be at risk rather. But maybe someone
[42:30] who buys every 3 months, it's now been 3
[42:32] and 1/2 months. We should probably be
[42:34] thinking about giving them some
[42:35] attention. Using RFM analysis allows us
[42:37] to build much more custom win back flows
[42:39] and actually prioritize what we want to
[42:41] send and to who. So I take off this top
[42:43] bit here. We can build custom win back
[42:45] triggers for each of these events. So we
[42:47] can go for example, who's a champion
[42:49] customer who needs attention or who's a
[42:51] champion customer that is at risk. A
[42:54] champion customer who's at risk, that's
[42:56] going to do with a lot of tender love
[42:58] and care. We need to show these people
[42:59] some TLC, get them back on board. Maybe
[43:00] this is a really aggressive incentive.
[43:02] for a champion customer that needs
[43:04] attention, maybe we want to go with a
[43:05] soft attention or a soft nudge or remind
[43:07] them of, you know, some new products or
[43:08] new collections that we have. We sort of
[43:10] want, we just want to make sure we're
[43:11] communicating to these people. And then
[43:13] it sort of ladders down from there. Like
[43:14] you're going to have the same with loyal
[43:15] customers who are needs attention and at
[43:17] risk. They're not as vital as a champion
[43:19] customer. Then you're going to just have
[43:20] recent customers who might not have come
[43:22] back. This is like your first time
[43:23] customers and stuff who aren't
[43:24] necessarily champion or loyal. We can
[43:26] just sort of go usual win back triggers
[43:28] here. Essentially, for me, I want to be
[43:29] saving out discounts for two people in
[43:31] particular. And you know, this is going
[43:33] to be brand dependent. Maybe you really
[43:34] want to go hard on saving champion
[43:36] customers who are at risk. But the two
[43:37] people I want to be giving discounts to
[43:39] is a firsttime customers who are
[43:41] lapsing. So they've placed one order and
[43:43] they're looking like they're not going
[43:44] to place a second order. Good discount
[43:46] opportunity. And secondly is our champs
[43:48] at risk. So customers who were
[43:50] previously champion and they've now
[43:52] shown signs of being at risk. They've
[43:53] ordered every 3 months for the last 2
[43:55] years and now it's been four, five, 6
[43:57] months since their last order. That
[43:58] deserves a discount. But outside of
[44:00] these two people, I probably wouldn't
[44:01] bother too much with discounting. But
[44:02] what you can do or what you should do is
[44:04] create a different win back flow for
[44:06] each of these events and each of these
[44:08] triggers and build that out. That's
[44:09] going to be the best way to do that in
[44:10] 2026 and come up with a different
[44:12] strategy for each of these people as
[44:13] well. The way you do that is you just go
[44:15] into Claio, you unlock Clavio marketing
[44:16] analytics, you set up your RFM. It's big
[44:18] walkthroughs in the platform. Um, and
[44:20] then you just set up your segment. So
[44:21] you can set up a segment which is
[44:23] someone who used to be champion and now
[44:25] are at risk and then you've got a
[44:27] segment you can trigger the flow off
[44:28] that the old school sort of manual win
[44:30] back flows. This essentially just is
[44:31] triggered off when someone placed an
[44:33] order then we'll wait like 120 days and
[44:36] if someone hasn't placed an order then
[44:37] we'll just start sending them a series
[44:38] of emails. What you can do here is you
[44:40] can give incentives. I probably would
[44:42] split out by who's a firsttime customer
[44:44] and like who's a loyal customer for
[44:45] example. And for first- time customers
[44:47] if they haven't come back within 120
[44:49] days we probably know they're at risk of
[44:50] lapsing. So, we can lead with like a
[44:52] pretty good discount here. But again,
[44:54] this is something worth AB testing for
[44:55] you. Like your win back flow probably
[44:57] won't work without a discount. The other
[44:58] thing you can do is lead with new
[45:00] products, new collections, things that
[45:02] are going to be relevant to this user.
[45:03] For loyal customers, I don't want to be
[45:05] super pushy. Like, I don't want to just
[45:06] resort to discounts. But again, it's
[45:08] actually worth pulling a net sales over
[45:10] time report and running this Drew Claude
[45:12] and getting an analysis of how often
[45:14] customers are reordering because once
[45:15] you actually have those bands and we
[45:17] know like, hey, most customers who ever
[45:19] reorder do it every 90 days, then we
[45:20] know, okay, well, at 120 days, people
[45:22] are more likely to be lapsed. We should
[45:23] just be sending incentives to everyone.
[45:25] Like I said, the win back flow is hard
[45:26] to get right. You got to customize it
[45:27] for your brand. I would use RFM segments
[45:29] to build it properly. But otherwise,
[45:30] just do one based off the placed order
[45:32] here. Filter by first-time customers and
[45:33] loyal customers. then you can send some
[45:35] more relevant content based on how
[45:36] desperate you are to save that customer
[45:38] or how much they're worth to your
[45:39] business. Now, the final flow that I
[45:42] want to talk about today or set of flows
[45:43] is our subscription flows. Now, these
[45:45] are way more nuanced and add a whole
[45:47] another layer to everything that we've
[45:49] discussed today, but subscription flows,
[45:51] they don't necessarily fall into one
[45:52] function. Like, they're kind of just a
[45:54] function of retention in general.
[45:55] Because if you're a subscription brand,
[45:57] the difference between say first to
[45:58] second order conversion and loyalty from
[46:00] your top 20%. Yes, those bottlenecks
[46:03] exist and they still represent really
[46:05] important functions for us, but we
[46:06] actually have like 100 sub functions in
[46:09] each of this every single time a
[46:10] customer rolls over. Like yes, getting
[46:12] them to place their second order is the
[46:13] most important thing, but then it's
[46:15] their third order, then it's their
[46:16] fourth, then their fifth, then their
[46:17] sixth, then their seventh. And your
[46:18] individual subscription brand is going
[46:20] to have a churn point that is different
[46:21] to everyone else. For most people, most
[46:23] churn happens in the first month. And
[46:24] that's what we need to be solving for
[46:26] F2. But after that, it's really just
[46:27] making sure that we don't have a
[46:29] specific drop off and we're just
[46:30] consistently solving for better
[46:31] retention. Now, the subscription flows
[46:33] that work best, a we need a on boarding.
[46:35] I spoke about this in the post-purchase
[46:37] sequence. I'm not going to do this tons.
[46:38] A really good example of this is AG1.
[46:40] The premise of it is they pretty much
[46:42] send a daily email or I think it's like
[46:44] 20 emails in the first 30 days. And this
[46:46] is just pure onboarding, pure propaganda
[46:48] designed to encourage people to use AG1
[46:50] every single day as much as possible as
[46:52] that's what's going to lead to the best
[46:53] retention. After this, you want a
[46:55] surprise and delight flow or a milestone
[46:57] flow. This is essentially where you find
[46:59] your churn point. This might be, you
[47:01] know, at month one or it might be at
[47:02] month three. And it's where we surprise
[47:03] customers with value. Very simply put,
[47:06] the surprise and delight flow. So, say
[47:08] you have tons of customers who churn
[47:09] going into their second subscription.
[47:11] What we'd want to do is in the billing
[47:12] reminder, we'd want to go, hey, rather
[47:14] than saying, hey, your subscription is
[47:16] about to roll over and you're going to
[47:17] be charged in 3 days. We're going to go,
[47:19] hey, XY Z free gift is on its way in 3
[47:22] days. And then you're actually exciting
[47:24] the customer and just communicating the
[47:25] upside rather than saying you're getting
[47:27] charged in 3 days. We're going hey we're
[47:29] sending you this free gift in 3 days
[47:30] with your order. And then you obviously
[47:32] have links to the portal. You don't want
[47:33] to hide the fact that they're being
[47:34] built but we want to lead with value.
[47:36] Always lead with value and remind them
[47:37] of the upside. So we have this very
[47:39] comprehensive onboarding over 30 days
[47:40] where we're educating the customers,
[47:42] showing them what's the long-term
[47:43] benefit of using our product and then
[47:45] surprise and delight flows which are
[47:47] essentially designed to lead with value
[47:49] just before someone's about to get
[47:50] build. You don't need to do that every
[47:51] single month, but maybe you have a
[47:52] really good strategy like that. All the
[47:54] best brands do. Outside of that, there's
[47:55] a few other subscription flows you're
[47:57] going to want to build. Uh payment
[47:58] recovery or payment failed and
[48:01] cancellation. Payment failed essentially
[48:03] just, you know, someone's going to enter
[48:04] Dunning and we want to make sure that
[48:05] we're following up uh very regularly and
[48:07] we're setting good logic. So, we can
[48:09] also encourage people to update their
[48:10] card details. You don't necessarily want
[48:12] to say like, "Hey, your payment failed
[48:13] like we're going to cancel your
[48:14] subscription." Because some people might
[48:16] be like, "Oh, yeah, awesome. Sounds
[48:17] good." But we can actually let people
[48:18] know before their card's going to expire
[48:20] or something like that. You might want
[48:22] to work out the main reason for payment
[48:23] failing. Like is it because cards are
[48:25] expiring? If so, we can work on a card
[48:26] expiry flow. Um, but otherwise, set up
[48:29] payment failed. You can actually go into
[48:30] your subscription portal. Make sure it's
[48:32] retrying their card every pretty much
[48:34] every single day. And then you're
[48:35] sending them emails encouraging them to
[48:36] update their billing information.
[48:38] Cancellation. We more want to handle
[48:39] this in the portal. This is going to be
[48:41] splash pages and offers once someone is
[48:43] canceled. So they go to the portal, they
[48:44] try cancel, we show them a splash page,
[48:46] maybe some sort of offer to stay on, a
[48:48] VSSL downell offer, something like that.
[48:51] But for subscription flows, you
[48:52] definitely just want to build them out.
[48:53] And the main thing to do is treat your
[48:55] subscription customers right. You can't
[48:58] be just having a subscription program
[48:59] and not filtering by these in all your
[49:01] other flows. Like you don't want
[49:02] subscription customers going through
[49:04] normal abandoned cart, normal abandoned
[49:05] checkout, normal post purchase flows,
[49:07] normal win back flows. You need to make
[49:08] sure you're excluding your subscribers,
[49:10] especially from all the other flows, but
[49:12] also from campaigns. We really only want
[49:14] to send very select campaigns to our
[49:16] subscription customers. We don't want to
[49:17] be bombarding them. We want to be
[49:19] letting the post-purchase flow do the
[49:20] educating, do the onboarding, and then
[49:22] then letting surprise and delight
[49:23] reminders keep them updated. Now, that
[49:25] takes me to the end of all the different
[49:27] flows we're going to need to build. Yes,
[49:29] there are other flows you can add in
[49:30] your Clavio account. At the end of the
[49:31] day, they're going to be store specific.
[49:33] There's sets of loyalty flows you might
[49:35] want to make. There's more comprehensive
[49:36] subscription flows. Everyone's going to
[49:38] have another opinion on on other flows
[49:39] you can build, but those are the core
[49:41] flows you need to be doing. And if
[49:43] you're splitting them out by new,
[49:45] returning, and loyal customers, you're
[49:47] going to be doing way more than the
[49:48] average person. A lot of other flows
[49:49] that people like to build in their
[49:50] Clavio just create overlap through these
[49:53] things. Whereas, if you just split like
[49:54] this from the start, a lot of your
[49:56] existing flow logic is pretty much going
[49:57] to handle every single scenario possible
[49:59] within your customer journey. A lot of
[50:01] people might do things like espresso
[50:02] shop flows I've seen which which can be
[50:04] really good or you know if someone's
[50:05] added to cart twice in the last 30 days
[50:07] instead of added to cart once. To me
[50:09] none of that really matters. It's like
[50:11] we either have our new customers, our
[50:12] returning customers and our loyal
[50:13] customers and we want to be
[50:14] communicating the number one thing in
[50:16] their customer journey. If you want more
[50:18] aggressive flows, if you really want
[50:19] more aggressive flows for new customers,
[50:20] there's other things you can do. But if
[50:22] you're going to be aggressive, you might
[50:23] as well be aggressive and just split out
[50:24] by new customers in the first place. So
[50:26] remember, we have our F1, we have our
[50:28] F2, we have our F3. The thing we want to
[50:31] be measuring is our first to second
[50:33] order conversion and our revenue from
[50:35] top customers. If you're doing this and
[50:37] creating all your flows in line with
[50:38] these rules and the principles and the
[50:40] structures I shared throughout this
[50:41] video, your email flows are going to be
[50:43] way better than the average ecom brand.
[50:44] Remember, we always optimize for
[50:45] retention, not just Claio attribute of
[50:47] revenue. If you've made it this far in
[50:48] the video and you're an ecom brand doing
[50:50] over $5 million a year and you want us
[50:51] to look at, audit, and even build your
[50:53] email flows for you, you can click the
[50:54] first link in the description. Or if
[50:56] you're a retention marketing expert with
[50:57] more than two years of experience, we'd
[50:59] love to have a chat about bringing you
[51:00] onto our team. Second link in the
[51:01] description. Thanks for tuning in. Like,
[51:03] subscribe. See you in the next one.