- A Klaviyo audit should start with data and tracking, because every number after that depends on it.
- In my data, the biggest leaks sit in flows: missing reorder flows, weak first welcome emails and winbacks that stop too early.
- Judge every email by clicks and revenue, not opens, since Apple Mail inflates opens.
- If a send shows opens and revenue but zero clicks, your tracking is broken, not your email.
How to use this Klaviyo audit checklist
Go top to bottom. The order matters, because a broken integration makes every flow and campaign number underneath it wrong.
Mark each item yes, no or not sure. Anything in the "no" or "not sure" column is your fix list. Don't stop early: the flows section is where my numbers say the money is.
Setup and data
- Shopify is connected and syncing. Placed Order, Started Checkout and Viewed Product events show up on real profiles, today.
- Onsite tracking is firing on every page, so browse abandonment has something to trigger on.
- UTM tracking is on for both campaigns and flows, so Shopify and your analytics can see where email traffic came from.
- Email and SMS consent are collected separately on your forms.
- Your sign-up form works on mobile, shows up at a sensible time, and the offer is easy to understand in one glance.
List health
- You know your active profile count and how close it is to your plan's tier. If your bill jumped recently, read why your Klaviyo bill went up.
- You have an engaged segment built on clicks, site visits and purchases, with opens as a backup signal only.
- You have an unengaged segment and a sunset flow that gives those people one last reason to stay.
- People who finish the sunset flow without engaging get suppressed, so you stop paying for them.
- Customers and people who haven't bought yet are split into separate segments.
Flows
- Every live flow has a reason to exist you can say in one sentence. If nobody can explain why a flow is set up the way it is, that's a problem on its own.
- No flow emails are stuck in draft or manual when they should be live. Open each flow and check every message.
- Your welcome flow is live and splits customers from people who haven't bought.
- Welcome email #1 is your strongest email, not a soft hello. Across four consumable brands, it earned about $4.50 per person, while emails #2 to #5 earned about $0.10 each. That's roughly 30x.
- Your welcome flow is short. Put the effort into email #1.
- Cart and checkout abandonment runs long. Email #5 still earned about $0.25 per person in the same data, the same as email #3.
- Browse abandonment is live.
- A post-purchase flow is live, and it does more than say thanks.
- If your product runs out, a reorder reminder (replenishment) flow is live. Only 2 of the 4 brands in my data had one, and it earned about $2.23 per person, about 28x their best campaign. Here's how to build a Klaviyo replenishment flow.
- Your winback flow goes past one email. Winback email #3 earned about 2x email #1 ($0.23 vs $0.11).
- Flow filters work: buyers exit cart flows once they purchase, and nobody gets two discount codes in the same week.
For the full list of flows I'd want live and how I'd set each one up, see the essential Klaviyo flows for CPG brands.
Campaigns
- Campaigns go to segments, not your whole list every time. When every send goes to everyone, nobody can tell what worked.
- Every content send has a reason to buy attached. A wellness brand I work with sent a month of all-educational emails with no offer, and campaign revenue went from $3,146 to $110.
- Restock and back-in-stock emails get treated like big sends. For a snack brand doing about $650K a month, the restock email "We're back baby!" made $48,771 from 30,498 people, its best campaign ever.
- You have a campaign calendar for the next 30 days, built off what your list actually buys.
- Subject lines get tested on your own list. The "rules" flip by audience, so what works for another brand might not work for yours.
- Someone clicks every link in every email before it goes out.
Deliverability
- You send from your own branded domain, with SPF, DKIM and DMARC set up.
- You watch spam complaints and bounces after big sends and look into any spike right away.
- You aren't sending regular campaigns to people who haven't engaged in a long time. That's what the sunset flow is for.
Reporting
- You judge emails by clicks and revenue, not opens. In my four-brand data, click rate tracked revenue at 0.65, open rate at 0.32. For one brand, more opens actually meant less money.
- You scan for sends with opens and revenue but zero clicks. Across the brands I work with, about 20 sends looked like that, which meant tracking was broken. The flip side matters too: clicks with no sales means something broke between the email and checkout. A fitness gear brand had a restock email with double its usual click rate that made $0.
Bonus check: know what share of your email revenue comes from flows versus campaigns, and what share of total store revenue comes from email. Across the brands I work with, email averages about 32% of total revenue.
What I usually find when I take over an account
When I take over from a cheap freelancer, the same three things come up again and again.
- Flows with no intention behind them. They exist because a template said so, not because someone decided what each email should do.
- Flows that are missing or broken. A whole flow just isn't there, or one that's live doesn't do what it should.
- Campaigns that go to everyone, with no segments. That makes it impossible to analyze what worked, so nobody learns anything from the sends.
None of these are hard to spot once you know where to look. That's the whole point of running a checklist.
Where these numbers come from
The per-person flow numbers and the open versus click correlations come from pooled data across 4 consumable brands I work with: 2,897 campaigns and $17.7M in email revenue. It's a small sample, so treat it as directional, not a benchmark. The single-brand examples are from individual client accounts.
FAQ
How long does a Klaviyo audit take?
If you run this checklist yourself, plan on an afternoon. The setup and list sections go fast. Flows take the longest, because you need to open every email and check filters.
How often should I audit my Klaviyo account?
I'd run a full audit at least once a year and a quick flows check every quarter. Also run one any time you change platforms, themes or checkout apps, since that's when tracking tends to break.
What should I fix first after an audit?
Start with anything broken in setup and data, because it skews everything else. Then go after missing flows, starting with the reorder flow if your product runs out. Campaign tweaks come after that.
Is a free Klaviyo audit worth it?
It can be, as long as you can see what was checked. Ask for the list, the findings and the reasoning. If the audit is a vague score and a sales pitch, you didn't learn much.
Can I do a Klaviyo audit without an agency?
Yes. Everything on this list can be checked inside your own account. If you want help deciding what it costs to have someone fix what you find, read what a Klaviyo agency costs.
Founder of Bardown Digital, a Chicago-based Klaviyo email and retention agency for Shopify brands. He's worked with brands doing $500K to $100M a year, with $100M+ in email-attributed revenue across them.