Insider insights on SMS and email marketing from Klaviyo's experts

Email and SMS marketing are vital to e-commerce businesses. For every dollar spent on email marketing, you can expect to make approximately $42. There are over 3.9 billion smartphone users worldwide, and 64% of those users say that businesses should text them more often.

Those are some powerful numbers. You may already be using email marketing, but to stay current, you should be using SMS marketing as well. When they work in tandem, they can yield incredible results for your e-commerce business.

Choose the right email marketing volume

Ramin: So, Jack, on average, how many campaigns should a merchant send out each month?

Jack: It depends. If you're selling a t-shirt where it's a quick transactional sale versus selling furniture, it might be a little bit different. But the sweet spot that we usually see is somewhere between four to eight for most brands.

So once to two times a week for email campaigns, let them know about new products, new design, updates, maybe sales that could be going on qualifying for a VIP if you're doing any loyalty programs and things like that. Twice happens to be the sweet spot for email.

Build these 3 essential email & SMS marketing flows

Ramin: So, at the end of the day, it depends on the brand, right? I see a lot of people fixated on flows now, and they start to forget about the campaigns, and you shouldn't. You should definitely not forget about your campaigns and continue to send them.

So talk to me about flows. What is the go-to flow setup for a merchant starting out? What does it look like?

Jack: Yeah, for a merchant starting out, I'd recommend three flows. First one is the welcome series. When somebody signs up, you want to give them that discount. You want to get them so that when they're expecting that 10% off, they can use it. That's one of the highest revenue drivers for businesses across Klaviyo.

Second, I would recommend the abandoned carts—any of those people closer to the finish line, making them cross over the edge. Maybe start with your first two emails, not leading with a discount, to get them to pay full price.

The third one I would recommend is the post-purchase driving that engagement. After a week, somebody's product's been delivered, reach out to them. Hey, we'd love for you to come back and leave a review on our website. Hey, we actually just released this product similar to the one you bought. We thought you might like it and nurture them to continue that conversation and keep your brand top of mind for them to complete another purchase from you.

Time your flows to maximize engagement

Ramin: That's great. How many emails within those flows would you recommend, and what's the separation?

Jack: Yeah. Usually, a day to two days is about right. So for that first email, maybe for the abandoned cart you want to send after one hour while they're top of mind, maybe they just needed to walk their dog. They got a phone call, completely forgot. So get them while they're still hot. And then if they don't convert, maybe send one into another day later saying, Hey, don't want you to forget this.

And again, to try to get them to complete that purchase. And then if not, maybe wait another day or two and say, Hey, flash sale. We're going to offer you 10% off for the next 48 hours. Go by and complete it while this coupon is still valid.

Follow best practices for SMS marketing

Ramin: Well, let's dive into SMS, and I think a lot of people just assume that their customers are not going to like it, or they're not going to be happy with it.

Jack: Yeah. And it's one of those assumptions that you'll never know if you don't try, and you can AB test it within Klaviyo. Demographics change, like older demographics prefer email. They check their email more often, but the other stat is 90% of text messages are opened within the first three minutes.

And this has been huge for inventory problems. Companies across the world are having inventory problems with things being stuck. They're stuck on ships. They can't get items in time, and items are sold out. And if you want to text their most loyal customers to say, Hey, this item's back in stock now, get it because we don't know how long it's going to take for it to restock.

Maintain SMS compliance with Klaviyo

Ramin: We're very cognizant when we're doing this for clients. Let's talk about the SMS compliance standpoint and how Klaviyo helps with that, and what should merchants know about compliance?

Jack: Great question. So Klaviyo, we'll go through, and we'll take any client that is federally legal. Compliance is built into the product for Klaviyo, so you're not going to need the lawyer on your team. You're not going to have to go through and worry about it since Klaviyo does everything on the profile level.

We can say out of your newsletter list, say there are 10,000 people in it, we know 5,000 of them have consented to receive SMS marketing. And you can just send it to your newsletter list. So you don't have to create new lists or segments based on SMS only to stay compliant. We will not allow you to send to anybody who does not have a timestamp of SMS consent associated with their profile.