Are you looking for an email marketing automation strategy that tells you which flows to build, in what order, and how to keep them earning? An email marketing automation strategy is the plan behind your automated emails: one goal per flow, a trigger based on what the customer actually did, the timing, the filters that stop wrong sends, and the numbers you'll judge each flow on.
Without that plan, flows pile up. You end up with a welcome series nobody has opened in months and a cart reminder that still fires after the customer has paid.
That second problem is common enough that Klaviyo's abandoned cart flow guide tells you to add a "Placed Order zero times since starting this flow" filter to stop it. That filter is one of the first things I check on any automation setup (it takes seconds).
I'll walk you through the four decisions behind every flow, the build order I use, day-by-day timing for the core flows, the filters that prevent misfires, and how to measure the results. By the end, you'll know exactly which flow to build or fix this week.
Let's start with the decisions every flow needs.
In this article
- The four decisions behind every flow
- Give each flow one goal
- Pick triggers from real behavior
- The build order I use
- Timing the core flows day by day
- Filters and exits that stop misfires
- How do you measure your automations?
- FAQ
- Final Thoughts
The four decisions behind every flow
Every automated email flow comes down to four decisions: what the flow is for, what starts it, who should be kept out of it, and how you'll know it's working. If you can't answer all four in a sentence each, the flow isn't ready to build.
The four flow decisions look like this in practice:
- Goal: The one action you want, like a first order, a second order, or a review.
- Trigger: The event or list change that drops someone into the flow.
- Filters and Exits: The rules that skip people who already did the thing, or who shouldn't get the email.
- Measure: The single number you'll judge the flow on, plus a guardrail like unsubscribe rate.
Your strategy is just these four answers, written down for each flow, in the order you'll build them. It fits on one page, and that's the point.
Each flow also maps to a stage in the customer's life with you, which my customer lifecycle marketing strategy guide lays out from first visit to win-back.
Give each flow one goal
A flow with one goal is easy to write, easy to filter, and easy to measure. A flow trying to welcome, educate, upsell, and ask for a review all at once ends up doing none of them well.
Weak flow goal: "Welcome series: build the relationship and drive engagement."
Strong flow goal: "Welcome series: turn a new subscriber into a first-time buyer within 14 days of signup."
The strong version tells you who's in the flow, what counts as done, and when to stop. It also tells you what to measure, which is first orders from the flow, not opens.
Each goal also maps to a stage of your email marketing funnel, from first signup to repeat order.
Pro tip: Write the goal in the flow's name inside your platform, such as "Welcome: first order in 14 days." Anyone who opens the account later will understand the flow without asking you.
Pick triggers from real behavior
A trigger is the event that starts a flow, and the strongest triggers are things the customer just did. Someone who started checkout five minutes ago is far more ready to hear from you than someone who happens to be on your list on a Tuesday.
Klaviyo's flow triggers and filters guide lists six trigger types, and they map to strategy like this:
| Trigger type | What starts it | Flows I build on it |
|---|---|---|
| Added to list | Someone joins a list, usually through a signup form | Welcome series |
| Added to segment | Someone newly meets a segment's conditions | Win-back, VIP, sunset |
| Metric (an action) | An event like Started Checkout, Placed Order, or Viewed Product | Abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase |
| Date property | A date on the profile, like a birthday | Birthday, anniversary, reorder reminder |
| Price drop | An item someone viewed or started checkout with drops in price | Price drop alert |
| Low inventory | An item someone viewed or started checkout with runs low | Low stock alert |
One limit catches people out. Klaviyo's metric-triggered flow guide says opens, clicks, and received email metrics can't trigger a flow, so "opened three emails" has to become a segment instead.
Segment-triggered flows are only as good as the segments behind them, so read my email list segmentation guide before you build win-back or VIP flows. Other platforms use different names for the same triggers, and my comparison of the best email marketing platforms shows how they stack up on automation.
Weak trigger: "Send the product education series every Monday to the whole list."
Strong trigger: "Start the product education series when someone places their first order, and skip anyone who has ordered twice."
For more trigger ideas with worked examples, see my guide to triggered emails.
Pro tip: Metric-triggered flows let people re-enter every time they take the action, unless you add filters. Decide on purpose whether a repeat buyer should get your post-purchase flow again.
The build order I use
You don't need twenty flows to start. You need the few that cover the moments when people are most likely to buy, built well, before you add anything else.
Here's the build order I use, with a recommended mix of effort:
| Tier | Flows | When to build | Share of your effort |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Core | Welcome series, abandoned cart and checkout, post-purchase | First, before any new campaign work | Most of it |
| 2. Recovery | Browse abandonment, win-back, sunset | Once tier 1 is live and filtered | A solid chunk |
| 3. Extras | Birthday, price drop, low stock, replenishment | When you have the data to trigger them | A little, and only if tiers 1 and 2 are healthy |
Tier 1 earns its place because those flows catch people at the moments with the most intent: just signed up, nearly bought, or just bought. Tier 3 flows are nice to have, and a birthday email can't save a store whose cart flow is broken.
Once tiers 1 and 2 are running, my list of marketing automation workflow examples has ten more flows worth adding later.
If you're running a SaaS product instead of a store, the tiers look different (trial onboarding, activation nudges, and dunning come first). My guide to email marketing for SaaS covers that version.
For the activation side, my SaaS onboarding best practices show how to get trial users to a first win.
Running a small team with no time for twenty flows? My guide to marketing automation for small business keeps the setup lean, and ecommerce email marketing automation goes deeper on store flows.
If an AI assistant is writing these flows for you, keep it on drafts. My guide to setting up Grok Bot for email marketing shows how to have a Bot write flow emails in Draft or Manual while you decide what goes Live.
Pro tip: Klaviyo suggests running two cart flows, one triggered by Added to Cart and one by Started Checkout. If you do, add a "Started Checkout zero times since starting this flow" filter to the Added to Cart flow so nobody gets both.
Timing the core flows day by day
Timing is where a good flow turns into an annoying one. The schedules below are the starting points I use, and you should adjust them once you have your own results.
Welcome series (Day 0 to Day 7)
- Day 0: Deliver what the signup form promised, like the discount code or guide, right away.
- Day 2: Tell people why the brand exists and what makes the product different.
- Day 4: Show your bestsellers, with one clear button for each.
- Day 7: Share reviews from real customers, then remind them the welcome offer is still open.
A welcome series is a drip in its own right, so my guides to the email marketing drip campaign and email onboarding best practices go deeper on pacing and content.
Abandoned cart (Hour 1 to Hour 48)
- Hour 1: Remind them what they left behind, with a photo and a straight link back to checkout.
- Hour 24: Answer the likely objection, like shipping cost, sizing, or returns.
- Hour 48: Make the last reminder, and only add a discount if your margins can carry it.
Post-purchase (after delivery)
- Day 2 after delivery: Check in and share one tip for getting more out of the product.
- Day 7 after delivery: Ask for a review, with one question and one button.
- Day 21 after delivery: Suggest a related product based on what they bought.
That Day 21 suggestion works best when it uses the customer's own order history, and my email personalization best practices show how to set that up.
Weak timing: "Cart email 1 goes out three days later, so we don't seem pushy."
Strong timing: "Cart email 1 goes out about an hour later, while the shopper still remembers the item, and the next two follow at 24 and 48 hours."
For more time based sequences you can copy, see these drip marketing examples.
If you want a head start on the welcome copy, the free welcome sequence generator drafts a series you can edit for your brand.
Filters and exits that stop misfires
Filters decide who gets skipped, and they protect you from the most embarrassing automation mistakes. When a flow misbehaves, check its filters before you rewrite a single email.
The filters I add to the core flows are these:
- Abandoned Cart: "Placed Order zero times since starting this flow," so buyers stop getting reminders.
- Welcome Series: Skip or shorten the sales emails for anyone who has already placed an order.
- Browse Abandonment: Exclude anyone currently in a cart or checkout flow, so one visit doesn't trigger two flows.
- Win-Back: Exclude people who ordered recently, even if they stopped opening emails.
Campaigns and flows also need to share the inbox politely. If a customer is in the middle of your cart flow, a full-price promo campaign on the same day can step on it, so check your platform's send limits (Klaviyo calls its version Smart Sending) and plan big campaigns around your flows.
Weak setup: The cart flow has no filters, and the welcome series pitches a 10% discount to someone who just paid full price.
Strong setup: Every core flow has an order-based filter, and the welcome series branches buyers into a thank-you path instead of a discount pitch.
Pro tip: After adding a filter, preview the flow as a test profile who already ordered. If that profile still qualifies, the filter isn't doing its job.
How do you measure your automations?
Judge each flow on its goal, not on opens. Opens are unreliable for many readers because of Apple Mail Privacy Protection, so clicks and orders tell you much more.
The flow metrics I track every month are these:
| Metric | What it tells you | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Placed order rate | The share of recipients who bought | Compare it against the flow's goal |
| Revenue per recipient | Money earned per person who got the flow | Rank flows and rewrite the weakest |
| Click rate | Whether the email earned attention | Low clicks with good timing means the copy needs work |
| Unsubscribe and spam complaints | Whether people found it unwanted | A spike means timing or frequency is off |
Remember that attributed revenue depends on your platform's settings, which my revenue attribution guide explains in plain terms. Klaviyo's default is a 5-day window for both email opens and clicks, and my guide to email marketing ROI shows how to check that number with click-only revenue.
If unsubscribes and spam complaints jump across every flow at once, check your sending setup too, starting with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. For the wider scorecard, my guide to email marketing KPIs covers the 12 numbers worth tracking, and email marketing benchmarks by industry give you outside numbers to compare against.
Once a quarter, run a flow-by-flow email automation audit to catch broken filters, stale offers, and flows that quietly stopped sending. If you'd rather hand this off, my Klaviyo agency team builds and runs these flows for ecommerce brands. You can also have us run your flows and campaigns every week.
FAQ
What is an email marketing automation strategy?
An email marketing automation strategy is the written plan for your automated emails: each flow's goal, trigger, timing, filters, and the metric you'll judge it on. It also sets the order you'll build flows in, so the highest-intent moments get covered first.
Which email automations should I build first?
Build the welcome series, abandoned cart, and post-purchase flows first. They cover signup, near-purchase, and just-bought moments, which are the moments when shoppers are closest to buying.
What's the difference between an automation and a campaign?
A campaign is a one-time send to a list or segment, like a monthly newsletter or a sale announcement. An automation, or flow, sends on its own whenever someone meets its trigger.
How many emails should a welcome series have?
Three to five emails over the first week is a good starting point. Send the first one right away, because that's when the subscriber is paying the most attention.
How often should I review my automations?
Check flow metrics monthly and run a full audit each quarter. Also review a flow any time you change your offer, your discount policy, or your ecommerce platform.
Final Thoughts
You now have the full strategy: four decisions for every flow, triggers built on real behavior, a build order that starts with welcome, cart, and post-purchase, day-by-day timing, the filters that stop misfires, and the numbers to judge it all by. My recommendation is simple: get the three core flows live and filtered before you build anything else.
Your next step is to open your email platform today and check one thing: does your abandoned cart flow have a "Placed Order zero times since starting this flow" filter? If it doesn't, add it, then work through the rest with an email automation audit.
If you want a second pair of eyes first, request a paid Email DDx audit and fix and you'll get a ranked list of fixes for your Klaviyo account.
Russ