Shopify email that earns its revenue line.

The flows every DTC store should ship

Seven flows, in priority order:

1. Welcome — subscriber to first purchase. Handles the incentive, the brand story, the first product highlight, and the case for order #1.
2. Browse abandonment — viewed without adding to cart. Softest trigger; lowest send rate; catches interest before it fades.
3. Cart abandonment — added to cart, didn’t check out. Highest-performing flow for most brands.
4. Checkout abandonment — reached checkout, didn’t complete. Most urgent trigger; often just a reminder + slight reduction in friction.
5. Post-purchase — shipping updates, care instructions, review request, referral. First 30 days after purchase are the highest-leverage retention window.
6. Winback — lapsed customer, no purchase in X months. Segmented by prior behavior, not one-size-fits-all.
7. Replenishment — predictable-cadence products (consumables, supplements, skincare). Triggers on expected repurchase window.

Most brands we audit are missing at least three of these, or running one with obvious breakage (welcome that doesn’t use the discount code; abandoned cart missing the product image). Missing flows leave 10–20% of revenue uncaptured. Fixing them is often the fastest-ROI email work we ship.

Beyond the core seven: VIP flow (high-LTV customer segment), reactivation (specific campaign-triggered lapses), birthday, anniversary, back-in-stock, price-drop. Each earns its place in a mature program.

Klaviyo vs Shopify Email vs Omnisend

Klaviyo — the default for serious programs. Best segmentation, best flow logic, deepest Shopify data feed, strongest deliverability tools. What most of our clients run.

Shopify Email — fine for low-cadence brands that send 1–2 campaigns per month and don’t need deep segmentation. Cheap (free tier for most volumes). Limited flow logic; thin segmentation.

Omnisend — sits between. Better than Shopify Email on flow logic; less depth than Klaviyo. Reasonable choice for brands that want more than Shopify Email without Klaviyo’s complexity or price.

Our honest recommendation depends on your volume, cadence, and segmentation needs. We’ve migrated from all three to all three; the decision is made on use case, not vendor preference.

SMS when it pays

SMS revenue is real; SMS cost is real. Every SMS send costs $0.01-0.03 depending on provider and carrier. Deliverability shrinks over time if list health deteriorates. Some brands get 10%+ of revenue from SMS; others break even at best.

We run unit economics on every SMS campaign before scaling it. Cost per send + deliverability + opt-out rate vs. incremental revenue. Brands that pass: visual products, impulse categories, flash-drop-driven launches. Brands that fail: considered purchases with long decision cycles, high-margin products where the messaging frequency pushes opt-outs.

Vendor: Postscript for most cases (best integration with Klaviyo + Shopify), Attentive for enterprise needs (more B2B-style account management). Both ship well; choice is operational fit.

Segmentation and deliverability

Deliverability is the hidden lever. A perfect flow sent to an inbox folder earns nothing. Most email programs we audit have one or more deliverability issues — usually because nobody has looked.

What we set up and maintain:

• SPF, DKIM, DMARC configured correctly per sending domain; p=reject DMARC policy once alignment is confirmed
• BIMI record published once DMARC is enforced — branded inbox logos lift open rates measurably
• Subdomain separation for transactional (txn.yourdomain.com) vs. marketing (marketing.yourdomain.com) sends
• List hygiene running monthly — engagement-based suppressions (no opens in 180 days, for example)
• Sender reputation monitoring — Google Postmaster, Validity Sender Score, Microsoft SNDS if applicable
• Warmup when switching providers or expanding sending volume

Segmentation: behavior-driven (engagement, purchase history, product category, season) over demographic. Narrow segments with high relevance beat broad blasts every time.

Campaign cadence and content

The calendar we run for most clients: 2–3 campaigns per week for mature programs, 4–6 for high-cadence brands, 1 per week during ramp.

Every campaign has a reason — a story, a product, an educational angle, a social-proof moment, an offer. No “we haven’t sent in a while” sends. Content rotation:

• Product — new arrivals, restocks, collection highlights
• Story — brand moments, founder notes, team features, process content
• Educational — how-to, guide content, category explainers
• Social proof — UGC, reviews, press mentions
• Offer — promotions, exclusive access for subscribers, limited-time incentives

A/B testing runs on subject lines, hero imagery, and CTA copy continuously. Winning variants become defaults in the flow library.

Lifecycle measurement

• Attributed revenue (Klaviyo attribution + server-side tracking) — signal, not gospel
• Contribution margin after discount and cost of send — the number that actually matters
• Incrementality via controlled holdouts where spend justifies it
• List health trending — subscribers, engaged subscribers, unsubscribe rate, complaint rate
• Deliverability trending — delivery rate, open rate, spam complaints, inbox placement

Monthly reporting rolls up to the full marketing measurement stack. Email’s contribution is surfaced as a blended attribution number, not a siloed ROAS.

Post-purchase lifecycle

The most under-loved area in most email programs. Post-purchase drives reviews, referrals, subscriptions, repeat purchases. For subscription brands, this is where LTV is built.

What we ship in post-purchase:

• Order confirmation + shipping updates — transactional, but branded and cross-sell-aware
• Care or usage instructions — for products that benefit from education
• Review request — timed to expected use window; staggered asks that respect the customer
• Referral program enrollment — one-click opt-in; specific incentive
• Subscription signup (if relevant) — ReCharge flow integration
• Replenishment reminder — for predictable-cadence products
• Cross-sell to complementary products — 30-60 days after first purchase

Each touchpoint earns its place or gets cut. No post-purchase “spam on autopilot.”

Our email process

• Audit (weeks 1–4) — flow review, segmentation review, deliverability review, list health check, current content cadence
• Flow repair (weeks 2–6) — fix missing or broken flows first; fastest ROI
• Program build (weeks 4–12) — segmentation, calendar, content system, deliverability infrastructure
• Iterate (ongoing) — monthly review, A/B testing, refinement, new flows as the catalog expands

Email program case studies

• CLIENT, DTC redesign + SEO engine — email % of revenue 18% → 36%.
• Full portfolio: selected work.