How to set up Klaviyo flows for a new store

Your store is live and a few strangers visit, but when they leave, they never hear from you again. To set up Klaviyo flows for a new store, you need only three automatic emails: one for people who join your email list, one for people who leave checkout, and one for first-time buyers. Klaviyo's free plan keeps exactly three live at once, and you can build and test them yourself today, without paying an agency.

Do these three things

About 5 hours today, then 10 minutes a day and 30 minutes on Sunday. Klaviyo is free up to 250 contacts and 500 emails a month; after that, $20 a month.

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1. 1Today: connect your Shopify store to Klaviyo and set 3 flows live on the free plan: a welcome series, an abandoned checkout reminder and a thank-you for first orders. Test each one with your own email.
2. 2Every day: check that every new subscriber, checkout and order from the last 24 hours got its email, and answer every reply the same day, the way you would answer a customer you met.
3. 3Every Sunday: write down each flow's people, clicks and orders, then rewrite the one email with the fewest clicks. Judge each flow after 100 people have been through it, not after one week.

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1. Connect your Shopify store to Klaviyo and turn on tracking

Install Klaviyo's Shopify app, turn on the Klaviyo app embed in your theme, and turn off Shopify's own abandoned checkout email. Without the app embed, Klaviyo cannot see who looks at a product or starts checkout, so two of your three flows never start.

Start on the free plan. As of October 2026, Klaviyo's free plan inside Shopify gives you 250 contacts, 500 emails a month, 1 live signup form and 3 automations live at once, with "Powered by Klaviyo" on your emails. That is enough for a store with a few hundred visits a month that is still getting its first sales. You will spend money on it later, in step 7, not today.

1. 1

   Disconnect any old email tool

   If another email app is connected to Shopify, disconnect it first. Klaviyo warns that otherwise your existing subscribers may get a "please confirm" email.

2. 2

   Connect Shopify

   In Klaviyo, open Integrations, click "Explore apps", search for Shopify and click "Install". Type your store address (yourstore.myshopify.com), click "Connect to Shopify", then "Install app", then "Integrate". You can also install Klaviyo from the Shopify App Store and set it up inside Shopify. Either way, only the store owner's login can finish the setup.

3. 3

   Sync your subscribers

   Tick "Sync your Shopify email subscribers to Klaviyo" and pick "Email List", the list that will start your welcome series in step 3. People who tick the marketing box at checkout now join it. Click "Complete setup". In Shopify's checkout settings, change the label on the "Accepts marketing" box to say what they will get, such as "Email me tips and new products".

4. 4

   Turn on tracking

   In the "Onsite tracking" section, tick "Track behavioral events", then click "Turn on". Shopify opens your theme's App embeds tab. Switch on the Klaviyo embed, click "Save", go back to Klaviyo and look for the green banner.

5. 5

   Turn off Shopify's own abandoned checkout email

   In Shopify, go to Apps › Messaging › Automations. On "Abandoned checkout emails by Shopify", click the three dots, then "Edit settings", untick "Send abandoned checkout emails automatically" and save. Klaviyo's own help says to turn off your platform's cart emails, so nobody gets two.

Then test it. Open your store on your phone, look at one product, add it to the cart and start checkout with your own email address. Stop before you pay.

If you sell to the EU, the UK or Switzerland: Klaviyo may not track visitors there until they accept your cookie banner, so fewer of them will enter your checkout flow. That is expected. Do not turn off the banner to get round it.

• Tool: Klaviyo, free plan, and your Shopify admin.
• Time: 40 minutes.
• You will have: your store connected to Klaviyo, subscribers syncing to one list, tracking on, and one abandoned checkout email instead of two.
• It worked if: within an hour, your own profile in Klaviyo shows "Viewed Product", "Added to Cart" and "Started Checkout". If any is missing, the app embed is off or not saved.
• Common mistake: skipping the app embed. Your flows look fine, but no one ever enters them. The other mistake is leaving Shopify's email on, so a shopper gets two reminders an hour apart and stops trusting the store.

2. Send your emails from your own domain

Add a branded sending domain in Klaviyo, so your emails come from your store's own address, such as hello@yourstore.com, and not from Klaviyo's shared one. It takes 30 minutes plus waiting for your domain's settings to update.

New Klaviyo accounts send from a shared domain, so your emails show "via klaviyomail.com" next to your name. Gmail requires every sender to have SPF or DKIM, two settings that prove an email really comes from you, and to keep spam reports below 0.3%. Since November 2025, Gmail has been rejecting more mail that breaks these rules. Your own domain also lets you add DMARC, the setting that ties your From address to your domain. You are far below Gmail's bulk sender line of 5,000 emails a day, but doing it now costs 30 minutes and keeps your deliverability safe as you grow.

1. In Klaviyo, click your company name at the bottom left, then Settings, then Domains, then "Add Domain". Choose Marketing.
2. Klaviyo shows you some DNS records. Copy each one into your domain's DNS settings, where you bought your domain or in Shopify's domain settings.
3. If you have no DMARC record yet, add the one Klaviyo offers (it reads v=DMARC1; p=none;). It watches, and blocks nothing.
4. Back in Klaviyo, click to verify. If it does not verify yet, start the welcome series below and come back to it later.
5. In Settings, set your From name to your store's name and your From email to an address on that domain.

Klaviyo says a new account should warm up its sending in the first 2 to 4 weeks. Your three flows send a few emails a day, which is fine. What to avoid is importing an old list of thousands and emailing all of them in week 1. That is the same idea as warming up a new domain for outreach.

• Tool: Klaviyo settings and your domain's DNS settings. Free.
• Time: 30 minutes, then a wait for the records to update.
• You will have: a verified sending domain and a From address on it.
• It worked if: the domain shows as verified, and a test email to a Gmail and an Outlook address lands in the inbox, not spam, with no "via klaviyomail.com".
• Common mistake: sending from a free @gmail.com address. You cannot set up DMARC on a domain you do not own, so your emails look less trustworthy to inboxes.

3. Set up a welcome series: 3 emails in 7 days

A welcome series is the set of emails a person gets right after they join your list. Use Klaviyo's pre-built one: it sends 3 emails, the first straight away, the second 3 days later and the third about a week after signup.

Set it up. In Klaviyo, open Flows. If you have no flows, click "Create welcome series"; if you do, find the "Welcome Series" card and click "Use flow". Pick "Email List" as the list that starts it. Klaviyo lists ask people to confirm by email first. Keep that on, as Klaviyo recommends: it keeps fake and mistyped addresses off your list.

Keep buyers out. Click the trigger, then add a flow filter: "Placed Order zero times over all time". People who tick the marketing box at checkout join your list too, and they should get your thank-you email (step 5), not "welcome, here is why to buy".

Get people in. Publish one signup form from Klaviyo's Sign-up forms page: a popup that offers something useful, not only a discount. If you already run a Shopify Forms popup with a Shopify welcome email, replace both with this one form and this welcome series, so nobody gets two welcome emails. A form with no visitors fills nothing. Bring visitors from Google and social media, and ask 100 people a day to join your list as well.

Write the 3 emails. Give ChatGPT or Claude the template below, your product page, your value proposition and two real reviews or testimonials. Ask for all three emails, then rewrite every line until it sounds like you. Keep each one short, with one button.

Email 1 (straight away)
Subject: Here's your [the thing they signed up for]
Hi [first name], thanks for joining. Here is [the guide, sample offer or code you promised].
I'm [your name]. I started [store] because [one true sentence about why].
If you only try one thing, start with [best seller]: [what it does, in their words].
[Button: Shop [best seller]]
One question: what made you sign up? Just reply. I read every answer.Email 2 (3 days later)
Subject: How to get the most from [product]
[3 short steps to use it well.]
[One real review, word for word, with the person's first name.]
[Button: Shop [product]]Email 3 (7 days after signup)
Subject: Why I made [product]
[3–4 sentences: the problem you had, what you tried, what you made.]
[What it costs, delivery time and your returns promise.]
Reply and tell me what you're hoping it fixes. I'll tell you honestly if it's the right one.
[Your name]

Set the flow live: click "Update status", choose "Live" and click "Save". A flow left in Draft sends nothing.

If you are importing old contacts: before you import, set the welcome flow to "Manual" (Update status › Manual › Save). Otherwise everyone you import gets the welcome series, even people who joined a year ago. Import only people who agreed to hear from you.

• Tool: Klaviyo's pre-built welcome series and its Sign-up forms page, and ChatGPT or Claude to draft.
• Time: about 90 minutes.
• You will have: a live 3-email welcome series and one live signup form.
• It worked if: you sign up through your own form with a new address, click the confirm email, and email 1 lands in your inbox within 5 minutes.
• Common mistake: testing with an address that never clicks "confirm". It never joins the list, so the flow never starts, and it looks broken. The other mistake is a discount in every welcome email, which teaches people to wait for a sale.

4. Set up an abandoned checkout flow: 2 reminders in 24 hours

An abandoned checkout flow emails people who typed their email at checkout and then left without paying. Send the first reminder 4 hours later and the second about 24 hours after they left. Stop the moment they buy.

Set it up. In Flows, click "Create flow" and pick Klaviyo's pre-built abandoned cart flow whose trigger is "Started Checkout". Starting from the pre-built one keeps the block that shows each person's own product, price and a "Return to Cart" button. Click the trigger and check the filter reads "Placed Order zero times since starting this flow", so anyone who buys leaves the flow. Set the first wait to 4 hours. Keep 2 emails: Klaviyo recommends 2 or 3, with the second 20 to 48 hours after the first, so set the second wait to 20 hours.

Write for the reason they left. In Baymard's 2025 survey of US shoppers, 40% of those who left a checkout left because of extra costs such as shipping, 20% because delivery was too slow and 19% because they did not trust the site with their card. So reminder 1 brings them back to the cart, and reminder 2 answers those three worries. If you offer free shipping over an amount, say it: a free-shipping line also nudges people to add a second item. Fix the same three things on your store too, or the emails only bring people back to the same problem.

Reminder 1 (4 hours after they leave)
Subject: Your [product] is still in your cart
Hi [first name], you left [product] in your cart. It's saved for you.
[Product block: picture, name, price]
[Button: Return to cart]
Questions about size, ingredients or delivery? Just reply. [Your name] reads every email.Reminder 2 (20 hours later)
Subject: Shipping, delivery and returns, in one email
Before you decide, here's the full price: [price] + [shipping], or free over [amount].
It arrives in [number] days. If it doesn't suit you, [your returns promise].
[One real review, word for word.]
[Button: Finish your order]

If someone is new to your list and also leaves checkout, they enter both flows. Klaviyo's Smart Sending is on in many pre-built flows: it skips an email if the person got one from you in the last 16 hours. That is what you want. Leave it on, and do not put a discount in both flows.

Set the flow live with "Update status" › "Live" › "Save".

• Tool: Klaviyo's pre-built abandoned cart flow, triggered by "Started Checkout".
• Time: 45 minutes.
• You will have: a live 2-email checkout reminder that stops when someone buys.
• It worked if: you start a checkout with a second email address and leave, and reminder 1 arrives about 4 hours later. Then you buy, and no second reminder comes.
• Common mistake: a discount in reminder 1. People learn that leaving checkout gets them money off. If the flow brings 0 orders after 100 people, test free shipping in reminder 2, not in reminder 1.

5. Set up a thank-you flow for every first order

A thank-you flow emails each first-time buyer right after they order, from you, as a person. Shopify already sends the receipt, so this email does what a receipt cannot: it says thank you, says what happens next and asks one question.

Set it up. In Flows, click "Create flow", then "Build your own". Name it "Thank you, first order", choose the "Placed Order" trigger and click "Save". Add a conditional split: "Placed Order equals 1 over all time". First-time buyers go down the "Yes" side. Leave the "No" side empty for now; repeat buyers can get their own email once you have repeat buyers.

Add 2 emails on the "Yes" side. Email 1 goes with no wait: Klaviyo says thank-you emails should not be delayed. Before email 2, add a wait equal to your usual delivery time, such as 4 days, so it arrives with the parcel.

Leave reviews to your review app. Your review app already asks each buyer about 7 days after delivery. Do not ask again here, and keep your three free automations for these three flows. A referral offer can wait until you have reviews.

Email 1 (at once)
Subject: Thank you, [first name]
Hi [first name], thank you for your order. You're one of our first [number] customers, and I mean that.
[Your name] here. I'll pack it myself. It ships in [number] days and arrives in about [number].
One question: what made you decide to order? Just reply. It helps me more than you know.Email 2 (on delivery day)
Subject: Your [product] should be with you
[3 short steps to get the best result in the first week.]
If anything arrived wrong or broken, reply to this email and I'll fix it today.
[Your name]

Write these as plain text, with no big pictures, so they look like a note from you. They are the start of customer interviews you do not have to book. When a happy buyer replies, ask if they would send a photo of the product in use: your first customer photos and videos.

• Tool: Klaviyo, "Build your own" flow with the "Placed Order" trigger.
• Time: 40 minutes.
• You will have: a live 2-email thank-you flow for first-time buyers.
• It worked if: you buy your cheapest product with your own card, and email 1 arrives within minutes of the Shopify receipt. Email 2 shows as scheduled for your delivery day.
• Common mistake: copying the receipt (order number, items, total). Shopify already sent that. The other mistake is a "20% off your next order" line in the first email; it shrinks the money left on each order before you know if they like the product.

If Klaviyo shows an upgrade prompt when you set this third flow live, you have hit the free plan's limit. Turn off anything else that is live (such as a test flow), so these three are the only ones running.

6. Test all 3 flows, then check them every day

Run one full test of each flow today, and from tomorrow spend 10 minutes a day checking that every new subscriber, checkout and order got its email. Flows break quietly. A setting turned off, a filter or a used-up monthly allowance can stop them, and nothing tells you.

Today, test each flow once more, end to end. Use a new email address for each test, so filters do not skip you. In each email, click "Preview & test" and send it to yourself first: check every link, the product block and how it looks on a phone. Then do the real thing: sign up through your form, start and leave a checkout, and place one real order.

Every day, check the last 24 hours. Open each flow, click the first email, then "View details" in the Performance section, and look at the "Recipient Activity" tab. Compare it with your store: new subscribers in Klaviyo's Email List, abandoned checkouts in Shopify's Orders › Abandoned checkouts, and new orders. Every person should have their email. If someone is missing, check in this order: the flow is Live, the app embed is on, the filter did not skip them, and you have not used up your 500 emails for the month.

Answer every reply the same day. Each of your emails asks a question. The answers tell you why people buy and why they do not, in their own words. Write them in a sheet. They go into your product page, your Instagram posts and your next emails. AI can sort the replies by topic; you write each answer yourself.

• Tool: Klaviyo flow analytics, your Shopify admin and a Google Sheet.
• Time: 30 minutes for today's tests, then 10 minutes a day, plus replies.
• You will have: 3 tested flows, and a daily check that catches a broken flow within a day.
• It worked if: every subscriber, abandoned checkout and first order from the last 24 hours shows its first email in Recipient Activity, and every reply has an answer.
• Common mistake: setting the flows live and never looking again. The other mistake is judging them by open rate. Klaviyo says Apple Mail Privacy Protection makes opens look higher than they are, so count clicks and orders.

7. Count each flow's clicks and orders every Sunday and fix one email

Every Sunday, write down how many people each flow reached, how many clicked and how many ordered. Then rewrite the one email with the fewest clicks. Judge a flow after 100 people have been through it.

What a good number looks like. In Klaviyo's 2026 benchmarks, from more than 183,000 brands, flow emails get about 5.6 clicks per 100 people and about 1.6 to 2.2 orders per 100 people, depending on the industry. With a few hundred visits a month, that means a handful of orders a month from your flows, not hundreds. That is a real result for a new store: these orders cost you almost nothing, while an order from ads has a real cost. Count each order by name.

Week | Flow | People who got email 1 | Clicks | Orders | Unsubscribes | Spam reports
Replies this week: [number] · What people said most: [one line]
Email rewritten this week: [flow, email number, what changed]

Use these rules, in this order:

1. Spam reports above 3 per 1,000 emails: stop that email today and rewrite it. Gmail's limit is 0.3%.
2. Under 2 clicks per 100 people, after 100 people: rewrite that email's subject line and first line. Change one email a week, so you know what made the difference.
3. 0 orders after 100 people in a flow: rewrite the offer line: the price with shipping, the delivery time, the returns promise. In the abandoned checkout flow, test free shipping in reminder 2.
4. Over 250 contacts, over 500 emails a month, or you want a fourth flow: move to Klaviyo's Email plan, which starts at $20 a month for 251 to 500 contacts and 5,000 emails. Then add, one at a time: a browse abandonment flow (trigger "Viewed Product", wait at least 1 hour, one short email), then an added-to-cart flow for people who never reach checkout. After that, a win-back email for buyers who go quiet.

Once a month, look at your flows next to your other channels in a monthly marketing review. Tag the links you share elsewhere with UTM parameters, and track orders as conversions, so you can tell flow orders from other orders. Do not pay for retargeting ads on Meta to reach people who left checkout until these free emails are running, and keep any ad budget small until then.

• Tool: Klaviyo flow analytics and your Google Sheet.
• Time: 30 minutes every Sunday.
• You will have: one row per flow per week, and one better email every week.
• It worked if: after 100 people through each flow, you can name which flow brought each order, and every flow is at 2 or more clicks per 100 people.
• Common mistake: rewriting all three flows after 20 people because nothing happened yet. At this size, 20 people tells you almost nothing. Wait for 100.

Your Klaviyo flows checklist for this week

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Step 1 · Connect your Shopify store to Klaviyo

• Connect Shopify to Klaviyo on the free plan, sync subscribers to one list, and turn on the Klaviyo app embed.
• Turn off Shopify's own abandoned checkout email, then test tracking with your own visit.

Step 2 · Send your emails from your own domain

• Add a branded sending domain and a DMARC record, and set your From name and address.

Step 3 · Set up a welcome series

• Set the 3-email welcome series live and publish one signup form.

Step 4 · Set up an abandoned checkout flow

• Set the 2-email abandoned checkout flow live.

Step 5 · Set up a thank-you flow for every first order

• Set the 2-email thank-you flow for first-time buyers live.

Step 6 · Test all 3 flows, then check them every day

• Test each flow end to end with a new email address and one real order.
• Every dayCheck that everyone from the last 24 hours got their email.
• Every dayAnswer every reply to your flow emails the same day.

Step 7 · Count clicks and orders every Sunday and fix one email

• Every SundayFill in the Sunday flow sheet.
• After 100 people per flowRewrite the one email with the fewest clicks or orders.
• Once a monthCheck your contacts and emails sent against the free plan limits.

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