The five automated email flows that do the work
Campaigns are one-time sends; flows run forever off a trigger and quietly earn the bulk of email revenue. AI can draft a complete welcome flow you paste straight into Klaviyo; you build the automation and confirm any benchmark against Klaviyo's own published data, never a guess.
Fastest path: one prompt, end to end
🤖 AI prompt — paste into ChatGPT / Claude
You are an email automation strategist for a DTC brand.
Brand + product: [one line] Welcome incentive: [10% / free shipping / none]
Draft a complete WELCOME flow of 3 emails I can build in Klaviyo. For EACH email give four fields: subject line (under 50 chars), preview text (35-90 chars), a short body outline, and ONE CTA.
- Email 1 (immediate): deliver the incentive + brand hook.
- Email 2 (+2 days): bestsellers / social proof.
- Email 3 (+4 days): objection-handling / founder story + gentle urgency.
Then give a table of the other 4 money flows (abandoned cart, browse abandon, post-purchase, winback) with columns: Flow | Trigger | Timing | # emails.
Rules: do not invent stats, reviews, or discounts. Use [bracket] placeholders wherever I must insert a real number or quote. Do not guess or estimate any number: every figure must come from a source you can cite, named next to it; if you can't get a real one, leave it blank and ask me to fill it in. If you can't browse, still write the copy and leave data blank, and tell me where to pull it.
Output: the 3 welcome emails, then the flows table.
Build the welcome flow in Klaviyo (exact steps)
- Flows -> Create Flow -> Create From Scratch, name it "Welcome Series."
- Set the trigger to List and pick your signup / newsletter list (or the "Subscribed to List" metric). The flow starts the moment someone joins.
- Email 1 at 0 hours (immediate): deliver the incentive with a coupon/code block and one CTA to shop. Paste the subject + preview from the prompt.
- Add a Time Delay of 48 hours, then Email 2 (bestsellers + social proof). Add a Conditional Split first to skip anyone who already placed an order.
- Add another 48-hour delay (about day 4), then Email 3: top objection + founder story + a soft deadline on the incentive.
- Switch each email from Manual/Draft to Live, flip the whole flow to Live, and push a test subscriber through first. Done = a fresh signup receives all three on the 0h / +48h / +96h schedule.
The five money flows
| Flow | Trigger | Timing | Emails |
|---|
| Welcome | Subscribes to a list | 0h, +48h, +96h | 3 |
| Abandoned cart | Starts checkout, doesn't finish | 1h, 24h, 48h | 2-3 |
| Browse abandon | Views a product, no add-to-cart | 4h, 24h | 1-2 |
| Post-purchase | Places an order | at order, on delivery, +7-14d review ask | 2-3 |
| Winback | Past buyer goes quiet (~90-120d) | day 0 incentive, +7d last call | 2 |
Worked example (labeled structure): the welcome flow fires at 0h, +48h, and +96h. Build only this one first, measure its placed-order rate for a month, then build abandoned cart. Don't switch on all five at once, you can't debug five flows in parallel.
Build in priority order; review each flow's revenue monthly.