Email marketing on Shopify: Shopify Email and Klaviyo

Shopify Email, now part of Shopify Messaging

Shopify's email tool lives in the Shopify Messaging app, which brings email and SMS together and is available on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans. It uses your store's customer, product and order data with no integrations, and templates pull colors, logo and products straight from your catalog.

Pricing is based on the number of messages you send. The exact terms change, so check the pricing page inside the app. For a store that's starting out or sends low volume it usually works out very affordable, and not having to sync anything with another platform prevents errors.

• Campaigns with templates that read your catalog
• Email and SMS automations
• Shopify customer segments
• Reports on opens, clicks and attributed sales
• WhatsApp messages with Meta-approved templates

The automations to set up first

Before thinking about campaigns, set up the automations that work on their own. In Shopify they are under Apps > Messaging > Automations, with ready-made templates you only need to review and turn on. They recover the most sales for the least effort, because they go out at the exact moment the customer has shown interest.

Review the copy, subject line and timing of each one. The default templates work, but a message written in your brand's voice with useful information, like shipping times or how to choose a size, performs much better than a generic one.

• Welcome series for new subscribers
• Abandoned cart and abandoned checkout
• Product viewed but not purchased
• Post-purchase thank you and follow-up
• Win-back for customers who haven't bought in a while

When to move to Klaviyo

Klaviyo is an email and SMS platform widely used by Shopify stores. It connects through its official app and syncs customers, orders, products and browsing events. Its strength is segmentation and complex flows: branches based on behavior, different content per segment, next-purchase predictions and A/B tests at almost any step.

The move usually makes sense when your list is already large, when someone on the team spends real time on email, or when you need flows that depend on data Shopify Messaging doesn't handle as flexibly, such as custom events, reviews or loyalty points. Klaviyo is priced by number of contacts, so the cost grows with your list.

If you migrate, don't run both tools' automations at the same time: customers would get two abandoned cart emails. Turn off the Shopify Messaging ones as soon as the Klaviyo equivalents are working.

List building and consent

A list without clear consent is a legal problem and a deliverability problem. In Shopify, each customer's email subscription status is recorded on their profile. The subscription checkbox at checkout and the theme's forms store that status, and Klaviyo syncs it if you use its integration. For the wording of privacy notices and the legal basis, check with your advisor.

To capture subscribers, a form in the footer and another on the product page usually work better than a full-screen pop-up in the first second. If you use a pop-up, delay it, limit how often it shows and make sure it's easy to close on mobile.

Deliverability: making sure emails arrive

Send from your own authenticated domain. Shopify Messaging and Klaviyo walk you through adding the DNS authentication records (SPF, DKIM and DMARC) to your domain. Without them, Gmail and other providers treat bulk sends with suspicion and many campaigns end up in spam.

Clean your list regularly: contacts who haven't opened in many months hurt your domain's reputation. It's better to send to fewer people who read you than to a huge list that ignores you.

Segments and content that work

Sending the same email to the whole list is the fastest way to get people to stop opening. Shopify lets you build customer segments with filters on orders, spend, products purchased, location, tags and last order date, and those segments are used directly in Shopify Messaging. Klaviyo adds segments based on browsing, opens and clicks.

Three or four well-thought-out segments already make a difference: people who have never bought, people who have bought once, repeat customers and those who haven't bought in a long time. Each group wants a different message. The first needs trust and reasons to buy; the second, the next logical product; the third, new arrivals and early access; the last, a concrete reason to come back.

As for content, the emails that perform best for Shopify stores tend to be useful before promotional: how to use or care for a product, pairings, restocks of sold-out items and launches. Discount campaigns have their place, but if every email carries a code, the list learns to wait for the next one.

How to decide

If you're starting out, if your list is small or if nobody on the team will spend hours on email, Shopify Messaging covers the essentials with lower cost and fewer moving parts. If email is already an important sales channel and someone works on it every week, Klaviyo gives you more control. Either way, what makes the difference is a few well-written automations and a clean list, not the tool.