Klaviyo Review – Should You Use this Email Marketing Software?

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by Ron Stefanski

Updated:
January 29, 2024

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Klaviyo is a robust email marketing and automation platform built for e-commerce brands looking to drive more sales through highly targeted and personalized messaging. With its flexible segmentation features, customizable workflows and templates, and seamless integration with online stores, Klaviyo aims to help businesses deliver the right content to the right contacts.

In this Klaviyo review, we will evaluate the email marketing platform across key categories to understand its capabilities and limitations for your email marketing needs. By the end, you’ll have insights into Klaviyo’s platform to inform your decision.

Klaviyo Summary

klaviyo logo

9.6 out of 10

If you need to grow your email list with comprehensive and effective email campaigns, Klaviyo is an excellent option to help out. This email marketing tool lets you automate the email marketing process with some pretty powerful tools. You’ll also be able to track how every segment of your campaign is doing by using the built-in analytics. Overall, this is a great email marketing platform for all sorts of marketing campaigns.

  • Biggest Pro:

    Efficient & Flexible Segmentation

  • Biggest Con:

    Complex Learning Curve

  • Annual Discount:

    No

  • Price:

    $20/Month (251-500 contacts)

  • Promotion:

    Free Version is Available

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Key Takeaways:

  • Advanced segmentation for targeted campaigns
  • Customizable flows and templates
  • Deep integration with e-commerce platforms

Recommendations:

  • Leverage segmentation capabilities for promotions
  • Use pre-built templates and flows to start quickly
  • Evaluate growth pricing tiers before committing

Top Competitors:

  • Omnisend, Mailchimp, Drip

1. Setup and User Interface

A. Dashboard and Navigation

Klaviyo’s dashboard provides an organized overview of key metrics, campaign performance, and customer engagement through customizable widgets. The navigation menu down the left side grants access to all platform areas – campaigns, flows, segments, templates, contacts, and settings.

While the interface appears simple at first glance, the platform capabilities run deep and can take some learning to fully leverage. There are also options to customize your dashboard view with preferred widgets.

The main dashboard view displays high-level metrics like subscriber count, open/click rates, top performing campaigns. You can also add widgets for specific campaigns, automated email flows, sealed counts, and other custom elements. The ability to tailor the dashboard to your needs allows for an at-a-glance look at your most important metrics.

B. Email Subscriber Migration

Importing an existing subscriber list into Klaviyo is straightforward through CSV file upload or by connecting directly to platforms like MailChimp or Klaviyo forms. The one-time migration instantly brings over subscriber names, emails, and any custom properties tracked for each individual.

After importing subscribers, automated flows and segments take over for managing subscribers based on attributes and behaviors. For example, targeted flows can re-engage dormant subscribers while general welcome series onboard those newly added from imports or forms. This allows personalized treatment right from migration.

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2. Email Campaign Creation

A. Templates and Design

Klaviyo offers hundreds of professionally designed email templates across categories like welcome series, promotions, announcements, holidays, and more. Templates are fully customizable with the easy drag-and-drop email builder directly inside Klaviyo.

You can adjust images, text, colors, and layouts to match your brand while saving significant design time. There are also options for coded HTML templates for advanced customization.

While template selection is robust, some highly specific niche store designs may still require custom coding from scratch. Overall, flexibility and control over template design and branding is a major Klaviyo strength.

B. Personalization and Automation

Klaviyo excels at email personalization and automation through its flows feature. Flows allow you to create customized multi-email sequences targeted to subscriber segments based on behaviors, attributes, and activity metrics. For example, win-back flows for abandoned carts, browse abandonment flows and personalized life cycle campaigns.

Automated triggers like cart abandons or product views initiate flows. Dynamic segments of content pull subscriber-specific data to customize messaging in real-time. This personalized approach drives open and conversion rates compared to generalized bulk email blasts. Klaviyo automation paired with intelligent lists allows continuously optimized subscriber communication.

3. Contact Management

A. Organizing Contacts

Klaviyo provides flexibility in organizing customer contacts within categorized lists. You can create manual lists sorted by specific attributes like customer type, location, and order frequency. Automatic smart lists dynamically group contacts matching defined criteria, updating as behaviors meet configured rules.

Custom tags offer another organizational method for segmenting by interests, preferences, or behaviors across multiple areas.

Granular organization in Klaviyo allows personalized communication based on intelligent grouping that goes well beyond basic email lists.

B. Cleaning Up Email Lists

Critical to successful deliverability, Klaviyo provides email list hygiene capabilities to remove inactive contacts. This maintains your sender’s reputation with ISPs. You can automatically remove subscribers with hard bounces, failed messages, and inactive ones longer than X months. Additional frequency rules prevent over-messaging contacts showing disinterest.

Advanced list cleaning options include removal by open/click metrics, including subscribers that fail to engage across set periods. This ensures only viable contacts remain for communication.

C. Segmentation and Targeting

At the foundation of Klaviyo’s capabilities, flexible segmenting tools empower the creation of dynamic email lists matching specific parameters. Segment subscribers by attributes like order history, products purchased, cart activity, geographic data, and more. Then target highly personalized content to matching groups for greater relevancy.

You can get very granular, sending abandoned cart recovery only to users who left your site in the past 24 hours with items still in-cart. Exceptional segmentation drives the customization that is Klaviyo’s major strength.

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4. Email Deliverability

Email deliverability represents one of the most important metrics for judging an email marketing platform’s quality. After all, if your beautifully crafted campaigns never make it to subscribers’ inboxes, open and conversion rates won’t matter.

From publicly available data, Klaviyo maintains strong email deliverability in the 95%+ range based on internal telemetry as of 2022. This means over 9 out of 10 emails sent reach subscriber inboxes rather than getting flagged as spam. Deliverability testing site InboxPro places Klaviyo at a 97.8% accuracy score as well.

Contributing to these deliverability rates, Klaviyo adeptly handles ISP reputation management across major ESPs like Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and more. Through optimized sending patterns, suppression list management, and infrastructure adjustments, inbox placement stays consistently high.

Klaviyo also grants flexibility in the “From name” for greater personalization, displaying your business name rather than just an email address. This builds additional trust and engagement.

With email security only growing more stringent, Klaviyo’s proven deliverability that clears the 95% threshold gives confidence your target audience will receive your messages. Continual optimization provides peace of mind in an increasingly crowded inbox environment.

5. Analytics and Reporting

A. Performance Metrics

Klaviyo captures extensive email marketing analytics across subscriber engagement, campaign performance, and financial metrics. Core metrics include email send volume, open rates, clickthrough rates, conversion rates, revenue driven, and ROI. You can filter analytics by date ranges, campaigns, lists, and other attributes.

Granular data is available on subscriber engagement including graphs showing opens over time, most clicked links, and subscriber activity by device, location, link, and order status. This empowers data-driven optimization.

B. Visual Reports and Insights

Customizable dashboards visualize campaign performance and essential metrics through tables, graphs, and charts. Drag-and-drop interface allows tailoring reports to your needs for at-a-glance data analysis without relying on core canned reports.

Segment and flow reports provide engagement visualization for identifying areas of strong interest versus lower interaction. Charts showcase metrics over time, helping reveal the impact of changes made to segment targeting or email content strategy. Accessible analytics cater to both technical and non-technical users.

6. Integrations

A. CRM Integrations

To centralize subscriber and activity data across sales and marketing stacks, Klaviyo integrates with all major CRM platforms including Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, and Pipedrive among others.

The platform offers bi-directional sync allowing updating contact info, and custom properties in the connected CRM then pushed to Klaviyo lists automatically and vice versa. This maintains data consistency while benefiting from Klaviyo’s segmentation and automation capabilities for communications.

You can also integrate SMS platforms to your Klaviyo dashboard to run email and SMS campaigns from one place.

B. E-commerce Integrations

Deeper e-commerce capabilities come through Klaviyo’s tight integrations with leading online store platforms such as Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce. Once connected, Klaviyo pulls in customer and order data for building rich subscriber profiles, automates flows based on key events like purchases or abandoned carts and customizes email content with product images, names, and pricing.

This creates a personalized post-purchase experience not possible otherwise through the centralization of data.

Klaviyo also offers a customizable post-checkout popup form for capturing subscriber data from initial purchases, feeding into future communications for driving repeat business. The popup seamlessly fits into the shopping experience while linking email marketing with buying behavior.

Ready to Give Klaviyo a Try? Click HERE

7. Compliance and Security Features

A. GDPR and Other Compliance Measures

Being an email platform processing significant customer data, Klaviyo maintains comprehensive GDPR compliance capabilities for businesses required to meet data privacy standards. Consent tracking confirms opt-in subscribers, while those who opt-out are automatically excluded from communications per regulation.

Granular data residency controls further compliance by allowing restriction of contact info storage to the EU only. Klaviyo also continually monitors regulatory shifts to remain compliant as guidelines evolve across GDPR, CCPA, and other policies.

B. Data Security and Privacy

Klaviyo utilizes modern standards and technologies for securing client data within its email marketing platform. This includes end-to-end TLS encryption protecting data in transit and at rest, mandatory multi-factor employee authentication, SOC-2 compliance with annual audits, and ISO 27001 certification of its information security management system.

Contracts also reinforce security commitments prohibiting access to collected data for any purposes beyond essential client functions. Privacy remains front and center through limited data retention durations before permanent deletion.

8. Customer Support

A. Availability

Klaviyo provides customer support through email, chat, phone, and self-serve knowledge base access. Support hours span Monday-Friday between 5 am-6 pm PST with additional coverage on weekends during peak periods.

While chat and phones are only available during business hours, email and knowledge base remain continually available as self-service options. For most common questions or issues, answers can be found without needing real-time assistance, but you’ll need to get in touch with support for custom questions.

B. Responsiveness and Effectiveness

According to multiple reports, Klaviyo support responsiveness meets industry standards – usually within one business day for lower severity issues submitted by email or chat. Higher priority items receive a faster response via phone callback for prompt resolutions.

Once engaged, Klaviyo specialists prove effective at diagnosing platform issues and providing troubleshooting steps tailored to user needs. The team receives high marks for knowledge, professionalism, and resolving inquiries fully.

C. Resources

The self-serve Klaviyo knowledge base provides hundreds of helpful articles covering platform features, setup instructions, best practices, and troubleshooting advice. Short video tutorials offer visual guidance for navigating the dashboard and key functions.

Webinars provide free periodic training led by Klaviyo experts on more advanced topics like deliverability, automation, and analytics. For continued learning at your own pace, the Klaviyo blog also delivers regular email marketing content.

9. Pricing

A. Pricing Tiers

Klaviyo offers four paid pricing tiers – Free, Basic, Pro, and Enterprise – providing incrementally advanced features aligned to business size and email volume needs. The Free tier allows up to 1,000 contacts and basic email functionality for early-stage brands just starting.

Beyond subscriber thresholds, pricing scales from $15/month up to custom Enterprise quotes including premium support with discounts applied to annual plans.

B. Comparison with Competitors

Benchmarking Klaviyo strictly on pricing, the platform trends higher than competitor email services of similar standing like Mailchimp or Omnisend. While you pay more compared to basic email tools, the expanded features for workflow automation and customization do come at the added cost of scaling with usage and contacts. Recognition as an advanced email platform with strong deliverability matches heightened pricing.

C. Value for Money

Considering Klaviyo’s robust functionality supporting customized email journeys and automation backed by strong deliverability, many still find high value in the platform justifying costs that can exceed basic email providers. For mid-market e-commerce brands and those prioritizing quality over the lowest pricing, Klaviyo delivers substantive ROI through repeat business.

Determining true “value” depends strongly on the sophistication of the email strategy needed. For advanced personalization and automation leveraging real-time behavioral data, Klaviyo proves a worthwhile investment for serious marketing teams who want more data consolidated.

Click HERE to Get Klaviyo at the Best Price

10. Pros and Cons

A. Advantages of Using Klaviyo

Klaviyo provides flexible segmentation and targeting capabilities for contacts. You can create granular segments and tailor communications to subscriber groups based on attributes like order history or behaviors such as cart abandons.

This allows highly relevant messaging personalized to user needs. There are also tools for review requests so you can collect social proof to use in your marketing campaigns. You can add each review request with just a few clicks to manage everything from one platform.

Additionally, Klaviyo offers powerful analytics across engagement, conversions, and financial metrics. Robust reports and clear visualizations empower data-driven optimization of email strategy using subscriber and campaign performance insights.

The platform also enables seamless integrations with all major e-commerce storefronts. Connections with tools like Magento and Shopify (as well as other tools from the Shopify App Store) bring in crucial subscriber data from initial to repeat purchases. This data personalizes subscriber journeys beyond the limitations of siloed marketing platforms.

Finally, Klaviyo delivers sophisticated automation features. Users can create multi-message flows with triggers customized to subscriber behaviors. Dynamic content and personalization ensure each contact receives a tailored experience driving engagement and conversions.

B. Limitations and Challenges

While offering an expansive feature set, Klaviyo also represents a complex platform with a steep learning curve inappropriate for basic email marketing needs. Mastery requires both sophisticated strategy and technical comfort in navigating advanced configuration options.

Additionally, the premium capabilities of Klaviyo push pricing higher than competitor email services of similar standing. While appropriate for mid-market e-commerce brands, costs can exceed value for companies with simpler use cases or lower budgets.

11. Customer Testimonials

Klaviyo reviews highlight the platform’s email customization and automation capabilities according to verified ratings across software analysis sites.

On G2, Klaviyo holds a 4.6/5 average rating based on 300+ user reviews as of August 2022. 97% give 4 or 5-star reviews specifically praising segmentation flexibility, shopping cart integration, and actionable metrics. Some downsides on top reviews called out include complex setup and higher pricing.

Capterra also shows a 4.5/5 overall rating from 75+ Klaviyo users as of January 2023. Positive feedback emphasizes user-friendly segmentation tools, automation for abandoned cart flows, and great Shopify integration. Negative issues cite the learning curve and lack of telephone support.

While areas for improvement exist, the overwhelming majority of customer testimonials approve of Klaviyo’s robust email personalization and automation feature set rewarding sophisticated email marketers. For advanced execution, it impresses demanding users.

12. Alternatives

A. Brief Comparison with Other Email Marketing Platforms

For advanced email marketing needs, Klaviyo compares closely with Omnisend and MailerLite emphasizing customized messaging through automation and personalization. Unlike Klaviyo, Omnisend prioritizes simpler product-focused email flows over extensive analytics. MailerLite trails in integration capabilities and overall feature depth outside basic functions.

Considering lower-priced options, Mailchimp provides strong deliverability with expanded marketing automation at a more accessible pricing starting under $10 monthly. Budget choice Sendinblue also impresses for basic email and automation needs, albeit with far less segmentation flexibility than Klaviyo.

Klaviyo’s unique selling proposition comes powerfully in its unrivaled combination of deep e-commerce platform connections, fine-tuned subscriber segmentation, and automated journey customization.

For mid-market brands seeking to maximize email ROI through highly personalized post-purchase experiences, Klaviyo shines over more generalized email marketers. Its specialty lies in customized conversion journeys, not broad newsletter blasts.

If you’d like to learn more how Klaviyo compares against other email marketing platforms, check out the following comparison articles:

Ready to Give Klaviyo a Try? Click HERE

Final Thoughts

After reviewing Klaviyo’s extensive email marketing and automation capabilities, a few key takeaways stand out. The platform enables powerful subscriber segmentation for highly targeted messaging.

Customizable flows and templates accelerate campaign creation. Robust analytics empower optimization, while seamless e-commerce integrations centralize store data. These strengths cater to sophisticated mid-market brands focused on conversion rate optimization through subscriber personalization.

Considering the strengths and limitations covered, Klaviyo works best for dedicated e-commerce marketers ready to leverage custom flows and metrics analysis for maximizing email ROI. Brands dependent on email newsletters or basic promotional outreach won’t fully utilize the platform’s potential.

Still, those willing to invest in expertise around Klaviyo can drive impressive returns tailored to their customers’ behaviors and interests. For mid-market Shopify brands striving toward enterprise-caliber email execution, Klaviyo delivers substance matching its pricing.

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