How to 90x your email ROI: a Q&A with Klaviyo, Wix eCommerce's newest partner
When it comes to eCommerce marketing, one of the oldest tools is still one of the best. Email remains one of the most powerful channels for engaging customers one-on-one, eclipsed only by SMS in recent years.
Both are channels that Wix’s newest integration partner, Klaviyo, is acutely familiar with. Having built a marketing automation platform that now services more than 100,000 customers around the world, Klaviyo knows a thing or two about making “old school” channels work in “new school” ways.
Below, Klaviyo shares their playbook for helping merchants to reach new heights in their marketing. The magic behind the scenes? Personalization and a modern approach to targeting. Keep reading for a deeper look into how they’ve helped merchants achieve an average 90x ROI on email alone, and use SMS to their advantage.
A peek inside Klaviyo’s playbook for email personalization in eCommerce
How would you describe the shift in mentality required to go from using traditional ways of collecting data to customer-first data?
“For the last decade or so, the concept of digital data privacy didn’t much exist––and online brands looking to grow bought email lists that weren’t theirs, used Facebook’s data to target niche segments with ads, and a lot more.
Today’s consumers, though, care a lot about data privacy, and the ways in which brands use their data to market to them. You see this also in policy in a variety of countries––the EU, Canada, specific U.S. states––where online companies must allow consumers to opt-out of data collection, remove their data from a brand’s warehouse, and more.
All of this is tedious work for brands, and has led to a big shift in thinking around how to collect data (previously seen as the oil of the online world). Brands can no longer exploit data they didn’t actually collect––which is where the rise in customer-first data is coming from.
Consumers like personalization. They want brands to talk to them—but only if they’ve explicitly given them permission to do so.
That is customer-first data in action. Brands need to collect it, store it, and make it actionable. Keep in mind that customers are not only giving you permission to use it, but they expect you to use it. Neglecting to use their data for personalization is often viewed as a bad customer experience.” – Tracey Wallace, Director of Content Strategy, Klaviyo
What are some common mistakes you see sellers making when attempting to personalize email marketing on their own?
“A lot of brands think that personalizing email marketing or SMS marketing content is incredibly time consuming, so they don’t do it. That makes email marketing personalization services a breeze for agencies and email marketing consultants!
The truth is that personalizing email and SMS messages should be scalable. You want to create segmented lists (these can be automated) based on zero-party and first-party data you collect via transactions, online behavior, answers to online quizzes, etc.
This data can help you decide which offers and messages are relevant to which segments. For instance, you’ll likely want to send something different to your VIP customers versus your ‘only buys when there is a sale’ customers.
You can then personalize content even further, using dynamic fields that pull in information like someone’s name, recently browsed products, personalized product recommendations, etcetera.
A combination of segmentation and dynamic content fields is what makes personalization scalable—and far too many brands simply ignore this opportunity, thinking it will take too much time. It won’t, so long as you’re using the right tools to automate and then scale these processes.” – Tracey Wallace, Director of Content Strategy, Klaviyo
How would you recommend sellers to go about segmenting their email lists? Is it possible to over-segment or overcomplicate personalization?
“There are multiple levels of segmentation. Think of it like a spectrum, from beginner to advanced. You can start with demographics that your subscribers have opted to share with you at signup, then evolve your strategy once you’ve collected more data points.
For example, you could start by segmenting your lists based on a subscriber’s age, gender, or geographic location. Over time, you could segment further based on the actions they’ve taken on your site or have consented to share (like past purchases, browsing activity, and/or order value).
If you’re ready to get really granular, you could use quizzes to collect information about your subscribers' values, habits, or interests.
But remember, you have to strike a balance. You don’t want to create hundreds of segments when you only have a handful of recipients. When you overcomplicate personalization and segmentation, you run the risk of producing messages that feel creepy instead of valuable—and possibly turning customers off from your brand entirely.” – Emily Riedy, Content Strategist, Klaviyo
How should a seller’s approach to SMS differ from email?
“Sellers should remember that though SMS and email have similarities, they’re two very different channels, and should be used in a complementary way, rather than using them to communicate the same message at the same time. As an example, SMS is much more intimate because it goes directly to your customer’s phone, which he or she uses to mostly communicate with friends and family. For this reason, you should speak to people via SMS on a more human level. And because they are likely to open a text message quicker than an email, it’s a great channel for urgent promotions or messages.
On the other hand, email is a great way to frequently communicate with shoppers and customers through a variety of promotions, including newsletters, product announcements, sales, and more. The key here, though, is balancing the messages on each channel so that they’re not saying the same thing at the same time. For instance, you could segment your text and emails so that text messages go out to people who haven’t made a purchase after receiving an email.
By using a unified email and SMS marketing platform, you can create a smart sending strategy that considers both of these channels’ strengths for better performance.” - Alex McPeak, Content Strategist, Klaviyo
Did you know: On average, adding SMS increases email-attributed revenue by nearly 10% (Source: Klaviyo)
How to take advantage of personalization via the Wix-Klaviyo integration
Looking to kick your marketing strategy up a notch? Klaviyo’s integration with Wix makes email personalization and SMS marketing easier than ever. Automatically sync customer profiles, order history, and catalog information to Klaviyo. Then, create highly personalized campaigns based on the most up-to-date information on your customers.
“This integration has been highly requested from both Klaviyo customers and Wix users,” says Rich Gardner, VP of Global Strategic Partnerships at Klaviyo. “Our missions are so closely aligned and I look forward to seeing how this partnership further empowers brands to have full ownership of their relationships with their customers.”
Learn more about the Wix-Klaviyo integration here.
Allison Lee
Editor, Wix eCommerce
Allison is the editor for the Wix eCommerce blog, with several years of experience reporting on eCommerce news, strategies, and founder stories.
