What are email automation flows?
How do they work?
A flow starts with a trigger. A shopper signs up, leaves a basket, buys, or goes quiet. The system then sends one email or a short series, with rules about timing and who gets what.
Klaviyo's help centre, a vendor's own documentation, defines a flow as a sequence of automated actions triggered by a behaviour or event2. These are vendor sources. They explain how the tools work, not whether the emails pay.
Flows run on first-party data: what you collect yourself from orders, accounts and sign-ups. Better flows usually split people into groups first. That is customer segmentation. A cart abandonment rate shows how many baskets a flow has to work with.
Why does it matter for a shop?
Flows are part of retention: getting existing customers to buy again. Once built, each extra send costs little. That makes them look very good in a report.
Here is the catch. A flow sends to people who already showed intent. Many of them would have bought anyway. A report that credits the flow with every order after the email overstates what the flow did.
For ZFD: Retention is part of what we cover. Where a number sits against contribution margin is the question we start with.
For the tools behind flows, see ecommerce email and CRM platforms. For which flows are worth building, read email marketing for ecommerce. If you want help with the work itself, there is a retention and CRM service.
Worked example
Easily confused with
Email automation flows vs Marketing automation
The wider category. Flows are the e-commerce version.
Email automation flows vs One-off campaigns
A campaign goes to a list on a date you pick. A flow responds to what a customer does.
Email automation flows vs Retention
The aim, not the method. Flows are one of the ways to get there.
FAQ
Are email flows the same as email newsletters?
No. A newsletter goes out on a date you choose. A flow sends when a customer does something.
Which flow should a shop build first?
Klaviyo's help centre, a vendor source, suggests starting with welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase and win-back flows2. Start with whichever matches the biggest gap in your own data.
Does the revenue a flow reports mean the flow caused it?
No. It means the order followed an email. Whether the email caused it is a different question.
Let’s find what’s actually working.
Next step. See how credited revenue and real profit can differ. Use the Is your ROAS real? calculator.