The Problem with Over-Complicating Your Klaviyo Flows
Many clients are tempted to create separate branches for every product or category in their Klaviyo flows, especially for abandonment and post-purchase emails. On paper, this sounds like a great idea: every customer gets messaging tailored specifically to the product they were interested in. But as appealing as this sounds, this approach can quickly become very problematic even for brands with a small product catalogue.
Here’s why...
Flow Complexity: A brand with 10 products and three abandoned cart emails would need a flow with 10 branches, each containing three emails—a total of 30 emails. This creates an unwieldy structure that is difficult to navigate and maintain. When flows become overly complex with numerous branches, it impacts the ability to quickly implement changes or new strategies. For example, if a brand wants to introduce a new abandoned cart message or make adjustments to improve the user experience, navigating a flow with dozens of branches takes significantly more time. This can slow down not only implementation but also the time it takes to see results from optimizations. Additionally, a highly branched flow may cause confusion among team members who are responsible for managing or auditing these messages, increasing the likelihood of errors or inconsistencies.
Monitoring Challenges: Without a large and dedicated email marketing team, it becomes nearly impossible to monitor core metrics for every email. Issues like high spam complaint rates or profile filter misconfigurations could go unnoticed in specific branches.
Performance Audits: Monthly performance reviews become a nightmare. Deciphering which branches are driving revenue and which are underperforming is highly inefficient.
Uneven Data Distribution: In most cases, a minority of best-selling products drive the majority of purchases. This uneven distribution makes it hard to draw actionable insights from branches with low data volumes.
A/B Testing Complexity: Testing different subject lines, designs, or offers requires setting up A/B tests for every variation. Monitoring and analyzing these tests across numerous branches is resource-intensive. By contrast, centralized flows allow for broader audience testing and faster implementation of learnings. A successful A/B test on one general abandoned cart email that tests different featured reviews, for example, will net more incremental revenue for the brand as a whole than personalizing each email and not having the resources to properly run this A/B test across every email variant.
Update Overhead: Any brand-wide updates, like changes to free shipping thresholds or promotional messaging, must be applied to every email variation. A common example of an update that would require extensive rework across multiple branches is adjusting a free shipping threshold. Imagine a scenario where a brand increases its free shipping minimum from $50 to $75. In a single, centralized branch, you would update this messaging in one place, and it would apply to all emails or SMS messages automatically. However, in a flow with 10+ branches, this update would need to be manually made in every single message, multiplying the effort required and increasing the risk of missing a branch. This can be even more challenging if the brand has seasonal promotions or frequent policy changes that require updates.
Ongoing Maintenance for New Products: As brands add new products to their catalog, they must create corresponding branches and emails, further compounding the workload. This ongoing maintenance is resource-intensive and often takes time away from optimizing other marketing efforts or campaigns. The issue is magnified over time as the product catalog grows, leading to unscalable workflows.
Hidden Opportunity Costs: Excessive personalization consumes time and resources that could otherwise be spent on high-impact marketing strategies, such as acquisition campaigns, customer retention efforts, or broader engagement strategies. The opportunity cost of maintaining overly complex flows often outweighs the perceived benefits of granular personalization.
Ultimately, while the goal of personalized messaging is admirable, the incremental conversions generated by fully product-specific branches often do not justify the hidden costs in time, resources, and limitations. Overcomplicated Klaviyo flows make it harder for e-commerce brands to scale effectively. If an agency is trying to sell you on extremely personalized and complex flow setups, they are likely doing so to maximize the amount of work they can bill you for or because they won’t be around to deal with the operational challenges that come with this architecture (or both).
Why Simplified Klaviyo Flows Work Best for E-Commerce
The difference in performance between a well-designed general abandoned cart email (featuring dynamic product details, brand-level reviews, and USPs) and hyper-personalized, product-specific emails is minimal.
What’s more impactful is the ability to:
Run successful A/B tests on a central email.
Quickly adapt messaging based on results.
Maintain a scalable system that supports growth.
For most brands, a centralized approach with smart use of dynamic content provides the best balance of personalization and efficiency. While a centralized flow with dynamic content provides many benefits, there are potential limitations to consider. For instance, dynamic content blocks rely heavily on accurate tagging and customer data. If the data is incomplete or inaccurate (e.g., missing product-specific reviews or incorrect profile properties), the dynamic content may appear less personalized or even incorrect, which could harm the customer experience. Additionally, centralized messaging may feel less tailored to customers who are expecting highly specific product details, which could be a disadvantage for brands targeting a niche audience or offering premium products.
Klaviyo Flow Strategies: Simplification vs. Personalization
Option 1: The Benefits of a Completely Centralized Klaviyo Flow
At Dispatch, we recommend keeping flows as centralized as possible. Klaviyo offers robust dynamic content tools that allow for personalized messaging without creating separate branches.
For example:
Use dynamic blocks to display product-specific information (e.g., reviews, USPs, or cross-sell recommendations).
Utilize show/hide blocks triggered by profile properties (e.g., displaying a specific review only if a customer interacted with a particular product). Learn more about using show/hide blocks in Klaviyo.
This approach avoids clutter and ensures your team can focus on optimizing performance without being bogged down by excessive complexity.
Option 2: When Limited Branching Makes Sense in Klaviyo
For brands with distinct product categories that materially differ in customer behavior or USPs, a limited number of branches may be justified.
Example Scenario:
A coffee brand where 70% of revenue comes from selling coffee machines, 25% from beans, and 5% from accessories could have one dedicated branch for machines, a second branch for beans, and a third "general" branch.
Within the machines branch, if 90% of sales come from one specific SKU, you might justify a unique branch for that SKU while grouping others together. A specific example of a unique branch could involve a flagship product that drives most of a brand’s revenue. For instance, if a coffee brand’s top-selling machine has unique USPs such as an advanced brewing technology not shared by other products, a separate branch for this machine could include messaging tailored to highlight these features.
This might involve a flow with distinct reviews, testimonials, or cross-sell suggestions related to accessories for this specific product. In contrast, the general branch for all other machines might focus on broader messaging, such as quality assurance or versatility.
We don't rely on a specific formula when deciding on the best approach for a brand, but our goal is always to minimize branches while attempting to maximize expected incremental revenue.
The General Branch: Once the exact number of branches and sub-branches has been determined, it’s essential to create a final general branch. This branch serves as a catch-all for any products not included in the personalized branches. The messaging in this branch should mirror the goals of Option 1 by leveraging dynamic properties, such as product images, names, and links, to display abandoned items. Additionally, it should include brand-level USPs and reviews that are broadly applicable to build trust and drive conversions. This approach ensures no customers fall through the cracks while keeping the flow simple and scalable. You can also use Klaviyo’s product feed to dynamically populate other products frequently purchased by customers alongside the abandoned product. This ensures relevance, reflects current purchasing behavior, and avoids static accessory recommendations that may not align with actual customer preferences over time.
Personalized vs. Generalized Klaviyo Messaging: A Comparison
Personalized Klaviyo Flow Messaging based on Product (or Category)
An abandoned cart email for someone who viewed a coffee machine (Product X):
Subject line: “Don’t Miss Out on Your [Product X]!”
Email Content: Highlights unique features and reviews of Product X, such as...
“Brew barista-quality coffee at home with [Product X].”
Includes testimonials specific to Product X.
Suggests static compatible accessories like a grinder or coffee filters specific to this machine.
Uses additional product-specific imagery other than what is in the product feed.
Generalized Messaging
A centralized abandoned cart email using dynamic content:
Subject line: “Still Thinking About Your Perfect Brew?”
Email Body:
Highlights the product left behind (via a dynamic product block showing Product X's image, name, and price).
Includes broader brand-level USPs, such as:
“Discover our customer-favourite coffee machines loved by over 10,000 customers.”
Showcases a general 5-star review for the brand.
Dynamically populates complementary products frequently purchased alongside Product X, using Klaviyo’s product feed.
Comparison
Personalization: Personalized messaging feels more tailored but requires exponentially more effort as products are added. Generalized messaging achieves personalization efficiently using dynamic content.
Scalability: The centralized approach scales effortlessly across a large product catalogue, while fully personalized messaging quickly becomes unmanageable.
Impact: For most brands, the incremental benefit of fully personalized messaging is negligible compared to the hidden costs.
Determining the Best Solution for Your Brand
Implementation Steps
Audit Your Product Line: Start by conducting an audit of your product line and categories. Ask whether or not products or categories truly need personalized branches to drive a sufficient number of incremental conversions in your Klaviyo abandoned cart flow. Consider the cost/benefit analysis in light of all the cons mentioned earlier, such as complexity, scalability, and resource allocation.
Strategic Branching (If Needed): For brands requiring branching, limit the number of branches to those that are absolutely necessary. Consolidate SKUs into broader categories where possible. Develop the flow's architecture to confirm that you are able to set up each branch as you best see fit.
Dynamic Content Setup: Use Klaviyo’s dynamic content features to personalize messaging without branching. Add reviews, USPs, or additional product details through conditional logic. Explore conditional logic in Klaviyo.
Profile Properties: Leverage profile properties to tag customers based on their interactions (e.g., products viewed or purchased). Use these tags to trigger dynamic content in your emails. Read Klaviyo’s guide on profile properties.
Performance Monitoring: Use Klaviyo’s reporting tools to track flow performance. Focus on centralized metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and revenue per email. To effectively audit performance in a centralized or limited branching flow, brands should focus on key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and revenue per message. Tools like Klaviyo’s analytics dashboard or third-party integrations for advanced reporting can streamline this process. Additionally, creating benchmarks for performance across different segments (e.g., product categories or customer demographics) can help identify trends and anomalies without requiring an in-depth review of every individual message. This approach ensures teams can quickly pinpoint issues and opportunities for optimization, even in a simplified flow structure.
Regular Audits: Schedule monthly audits to review flow performance. Simplify underperforming branches and consolidate where possible.
Conclusion: Scaling Your Klaviyo Flows for Success
Personalization is valuable, but it’s not worth sacrificing scalability and efficiency. By leveraging dynamic content and limiting unnecessary branches, brands can deliver tailored experiences without creating unmanageable workflows. At Dispatch, we help brands strike this balance, ensuring every flow drives maximum revenue with minimum complexity.
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