Email Marketing Campaign Checklist

Open Klaviyo Audience > Segments and either pick an existing segment or build a new one. Anchor the inclusion rules on Shopify-synced properties — placed-order count, last-order date, accepts marketing — not on raw list membership. Document the rule logic in the campaign brief so it's reproducible next month.

Split into recency / frequency / monetary tiers — VIPs (3+ orders, last 90 days), at-risk (last order 90-180 days), one-and-done, never-purchased. Tailoring offer and copy by tier is what moves revenue per recipient; one blast to the whole list trains your active buyers to expect discounts they would have bought without.

Sending to dormant subscribers tanks domain reputation at Gmail and Yahoo and pushes future campaigns to the Promotions tab or spam. Either exclude 90-day non-openers from the campaign or route them through a sunset flow first. Watch for the Apple MPP caveat — opens from Apple Mail Privacy users are inflated, so use clicks or site visits as the engagement signal where possible.

GDPR and UK GDPR require a recorded lawful basis (typically explicit consent) for marketing email to EU/UK residents. Verify the segment uses Klaviyo's Consented to receive marketing profile property and excludes anyone whose source predates a documented opt-in. A single complaint to a DPA can force a list-wide audit.

Run any subscribers added since the last campaign through Kickbox, NeverBounce, or ZeroBounce. Form-fill typos and bot signups inflate hard-bounce rate; Gmail throttles senders above ~0.4% bounces. Suppress catch-all and risky verdicts before the campaign goes out.

Aim for 30-50 characters on subject and 80-100 on preview. Avoid all-caps, excessive punctuation, and the words that ESPs flag as promotional triggers (FREE, ACT NOW, GUARANTEED). Save two of the three for the A/B winner test in the send-strategy section.

Start from the locked brand template, not a blank canvas — header, footer, color tokens, and unsubscribe block stay consistent. Keep the email under 102 KB so Gmail does not clip it. Use a single CTA in the hero and stack supporting CTAs below.

Use Klaviyo's {{ first_name|default:'there' }} pattern so a missing token never renders as 'Hi ,'. Drop a dynamic product block fed by the recipient's last-viewed or last-purchased Shopify event. Send yourself a preview as a real profile, not the generic preview, to confirm tokens hydrate.

CAN-SPAM requires a working one-click unsubscribe and a valid physical postal address in every commercial email. Gmail and Yahoo's 2024 sender requirements also mandate a List-Unsubscribe header for bulk senders — Klaviyo adds it automatically, but confirm it's present in the rendered source.

If the email promotes a partner product where you earn commission, or features paid creator content, FTC Endorsement Guides require clear disclosure. Mark this step Yes for any affiliate, sponsored, or paid-collaboration content so the disclosure step fires.

Place the disclosure (#ad, Paid partnership, or This email contains affiliate links) above the affiliate block, not buried in the footer. The FTC has taken action against brands where the disclosure required scrolling or hovering. Keep it the same size and color as the surrounding body copy.

Send through Mail Tester, Litmus Spam Testing, or GlockApps. Target 9/10 or better on Mail Tester; investigate any flag from SpamAssassin rules (HTML_IMAGE_RATIO, MISSING_DATE, BODY_8BITS). Mark this step Fail to trigger the remediation step if the score drops.

Check the test send's headers in Gmail's Show original: SPF=PASS, DKIM=PASS, DMARC=PASS, with the From domain aligning to the DKIM signing domain. Klaviyo's dedicated sending domain handles this when configured; a recently-changed DNS record is the most common cause of a sudden DMARC fail.

Use Litmus or Email on Acid for cross-client previews. Outlook desktop is the consistent breaker — background images, padding on buttons, and web fonts often regress there. Mobile is roughly 60-70% of opens, so prioritize iPhone Mail and Gmail iOS rendering.

Open the test on phone and laptop and click every link. Confirm UTMs are intact (utm_source=klaviyo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=...) and the landing page loads — broken collection URLs after a Shopify catalog reorganization are a common, expensive miss.

Fix the highest-impact spam triggers first: image-only emails (add text), missing alt text, deceptive subject lines, link shorteners (use full URLs through your tracking domain). Re-run the spam test and confirm Pass before proceeding to send.

Double-check the recipient count against last campaign's send. A 30%+ swing means a segment rule changed or a sync broke. Apply standard exclusions: recent purchasers (last 3 days), active abandoned-cart flow recipients, anyone in a discount-fatigue suppression list.

Check the calendar against welcome series, browse abandonment, abandoned cart, post-purchase, and winback flows. A subscriber who gets the campaign on top of three flow emails the same day is a likely unsubscribe or spam complaint. Use Klaviyo's smart sending window or pause overlapping flow messages for the campaign window.

Most consumer DTC brands see best engagement Tuesday-Thursday 9-11am or 7-9pm in the recipient's local time. Use Klaviyo's Smart Send Time or local-time send for lists spanning multiple time zones; a single UTC time means West Coast subscribers wake up to a buried email.

Marketing lead reviews the final preview, the segment count, and the offer terms one last time. Once approved, schedule in Klaviyo — do not press Send Now unless the schedule is intentional. Capture sign-off and any conditions noted by the reviewer.

Note open rate is inflated by Apple Mail Privacy Protection — roughly 50-70% of opens for most consumer brands are now MPP-driven. Track unique-open trends over time rather than absolute numbers, and lean on click-through rate for true engagement.

Match Klaviyo's attributed revenue (5-day click, 1-day view by default) against Shopify's Sales by traffic referrer and your Triple Whale or Northbeam dashboard. Klaviyo over-attributes for repeat buyers who would have come back anyway; cross-check with last-click in GA4 for a sanity range.

Gmail's 2024 sender requirements set a 0.3% spam complaint ceiling for bulk senders — sustained breach means deliverability collapse. Unsubscribe rate above 0.5% on a campaign is a content / segmentation signal worth investigating before the next send.

Pick the winner on click-through or revenue per recipient, not opens (MPP again). Keep a running log of winning subject-line patterns — emoji vs. no emoji, question vs. statement, length tiers — so the next campaign starts from learned ground.

Log segment, offer, subject lines, send time, key metrics, and one-line takeaway. Six months from now this is what tells you whether the new VIP tier outperforms the old, whether the Tuesday 10am slot still wins, and which creative direction is fatiguing.