Essential Klaviyo flows for CPG brands: the build order I use

What are Klaviyo flows, and which ones are essential?

Klaviyo flows are automated emails that send when someone does something: signs up, views a product, leaves a cart, places an order, or goes quiet. Campaigns are the emails you schedule and send to a list. Flows run every day whether you're paying attention or not.

For a consumable brand, these are the flows I'd call essential:

• Reorder reminder (replenishment): reminds customers to buy again before they run out.
• Welcome: the first emails a new subscriber gets.
• Cart and checkout abandonment: follows up when someone starts to buy and stops.
• Browse abandonment: follows up on a product someone looked at.
• Window shopper: catches people who are looking around the site but haven't committed to a product yet.
• Post-purchase: what happens after the first order, so it turns into a second one.
• Winback: brings back customers who've gone quiet.
• Back in stock: tells people when a sold-out product is back.
• Sunset: cleans out people who've stopped engaging, so the rest of your list stays healthy.

At Bardown, every brand gets what I call the Flow System: 8 core flows and 60+ emails, with every flow split into separate paths for customers and for people who haven't bought yet. It's installed and live in the first 7 days, then personalized once the early data comes in.

If you're building flows yourself, you probably won't get everything live in a week. That's why the order matters.

Why does the order you build Klaviyo flows in matter?

Every week a flow isn't live is a week of money you don't get back. So you build in the order where each flow makes the most money for the people who'll hit it.

Two things decide that. How much a flow earns per person who gets it, and how many people will get it. A flow that earns a lot per person but only reaches a handful of people can wait a week. A flow that earns a lot and reaches everyone who buys can't.

For consumables, the reorder reminder wins on both once you have customers. That's why it goes first.

The essential Klaviyo flows, in build order

Here's the order at a glance, with what my data says about each one.

1. Reorder reminder (replenishment)

If your product runs out, this is the one I'd build before anything else.

In pooled data from 4 consumable brands, reorder reminder flows earned about $2.23 per person, about 28x the best campaign. Only 2 of the 4 brands had one built. The other two didn't have one at all.

Two more single-brand examples. A skincare brand's reorder reminder flow grew 496% in one month as new customers hit their reorder window. And at a subscription wellness brand, the "your order is coming up" subscription reminder made $47,321 in one month, 74% of all flow revenue.

The one exception: if you're brand new and have almost no customers, there's nobody to remind yet. Build welcome first, then come straight back here.

The flow lives or dies on timing. I go deep on that in replenishment email timing, and on the full build in the Klaviyo replenishment flow guide.

2. Welcome

Everyone who joins your list goes through welcome, so it touches more people than almost any other flow.

The numbers are lopsided. Across the same 4 consumable brands, welcome email #1 earned about $4.50 per person. Emails #2 to #5 earned about $0.10 each. That's about 30x.

One wellness brand's welcome email #1 made $2,160 from 50 deliveries in one month. That's about $43 every time it was sent.

So spend most of your welcome effort on email #1, and keep the flow short. I break down what goes in that first email in how to build a welcome email series.

3. Cart and checkout abandonment

Someone got close enough to put the product in their cart. That's about as warm as it gets.

Don't stop after one or two emails. In the pooled data, cart abandonment email #5 still earned about $0.25 per person, the same as email #3. People don't stop buying just because you've sent a few reminders.

Keep cart long. Split it, too: a returning customer who left a cart doesn't need the same pitch as someone who's never bought.

4. Browse abandonment and window shopper

These catch people earlier, before they've added anything to the cart.

Browse abandonment follows up on a specific product someone viewed. Window shopper is for people who are looking around but haven't landed on a product they want yet. Both are about getting someone from "just looking" to a cart.

I'd keep these lighter than cart. They're further from a purchase, so you're nudging, not chasing. Show them the product they looked at, your best sellers, and a reason to trust you, like reviews.

5. Post-purchase

The line on my homepage is "Make the second order automatic." This is where that starts.

Post-purchase is everything between the first order and the reorder reminder. It should help people actually use the product, set expectations for shipping, and give them a reason to come back. For a consumable, how they use it decides whether they run out on time.

For customers, the second order is the one that matters most. I cover the full flow in the post-purchase email flow guide.

6. Winback

Winback goes to customers who bought, then went quiet past the point they should've reordered.

Don't cut this one short either. In the pooled data, winback email #3 earned about 2x email #1 ($0.23 vs $0.11 per person). The later emails do more of the work, not less.

So keep winback long, like cart. I lay out a structure for consumables in how long a winback flow should be.

7. Back in stock

If you never sell out, skip it. If you do, it's one of the best flows you'll ever have.

At a snack brand doing about $650K a month, back-in-stock emails earn about 1.7x the brand's average per person ($0.26 vs $0.15). When something sells out, the restock email is your biggest send of the month. The setup, plus the restock campaign that goes with it, is in Klaviyo back in stock emails.

8. Sunset

This one doesn't make money directly. It protects the money everything else makes.

A sunset flow gives unengaged subscribers a last chance, then stops emailing the ones who still don't respond. That helps your deliverability and keeps you from paying Klaviyo to email people who'll never open. Here's how I'd set it up: Klaviyo sunset flow.

Why split every flow into customer and non-customer paths?

Because someone who's bought from you and someone who hasn't are in completely different places. Sending them the same email wastes both.

Here's what that looks like in practice:

• Welcome: a non-customer gets your intro and the reason to make a first order. A customer who just subscribed already knows you, so skip the first-order pitch and point them to what to try next.
• Cart and browse: a non-customer may need reviews and reassurance. A customer already trusts you and mostly needs the reminder.
• Back in stock: a customer reordering their usual product needs a fast link back to it. A non-customer may need a bit more about why it sold out in the first place.

This is the part that takes the most time to build, which is exactly why it's easy to skip.

What does a flow rebuild actually look like?

Here's a real one. We rebuilt a skincare brand's flow system: welcome, post-purchase, reorder reminder, browse, window shopper and winback.

Email revenue went from $48,193 for all of 2025 to $203,777 in the first 7 months of 2026. Flows went from 60% of email revenue to 83%. Over the same stretch, store revenue went from six figures to nearly seven.

That's one brand, and I'm not going to promise you the same result. Anyone who guarantees a number is a red flag. But it shows what happens when flows have intention behind them instead of just existing.

What goes wrong when flows are built cheap?

When I take over from cheap setups, I usually find the same three things:

• Flows with no intention behind them. Emails exist, but nobody decided what each one was supposed to do.
• Flows that are missing or broken. Whole flows that were never built, or ones that stopped working and nobody noticed.
• Campaigns sent to everyone, with no segments. That makes it impossible to tell what actually worked.

Two habits catch most of it. Click every link before anything goes live. And watch for clicks with no sales, because that means something broke.

If you want to check your own account, start with the Klaviyo audit checklist.

How long does it take to build these flows?

For my clients, the Flow System is live in the first 7 days. Then we personalize it once early data comes in, because the first version is never the final one.

I work in 90-day blocks. A lot of brands notice a lift in the first 30 days, and most see it within 90. After the flows are in, we build a campaign calendar off the brand's own list.

If you're doing it yourself, go in order and don't wait to finish one before starting the next. A live flow you'll improve later beats a perfect one sitting in draft.

Where these numbers come from

The pooled numbers come from 4 consumable brands, 2,897 campaigns and $17.7M in email revenue. It's a small sample, so treat it as directional. The single-brand numbers are from brands I've worked with, described by category and size.

FAQ

WRITTEN BY Jack White

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.

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