Klaviyo transactional emails: should Klaviyo send your order and shipping emails?

This is for Shopify founders deciding whether to rebuild their order and shipping emails in Klaviyo, or wondering why theirs look nothing like the rest of their brand.

What counts as a transactional email in Klaviyo?

Klaviyo's help center defines it as "an automated message that's sent when an individual takes an action," containing information about that action. Its examples of transactional messages are order confirmations, shipping alerts, password resets and account activation. Its examples of promotional messages are newsletters, abandoned cart emails, surveys, review requests and birthday emails.

The content rules are strict. Per Klaviyo, a transactional message "cannot include anything unrelated to the action." That rules out coupons, products the customer hasn't bought, newsletter content, sign-up links and marketing calls to action. Klaviyo also says welcome series messages can't be marked transactional in Klaviyo.

So why bother with the label? Two reasons, both from Klaviyo's own pages:

• Suppressed profiles still get them. Someone who unsubscribed from marketing still receives transactional emails, unless the address hard bounced, soft bounced 7 times in a row or marked a past email as spam. A customer who opted out still needs to know their order shipped.
• Smart Sending never skips them. Klaviyo says messages marked as transactional are never skipped by Smart Sending, and getting one doesn't cause someone to be skipped later. That applies to all channels. I go deeper on that setting in Klaviyo Smart Sending.

How does Klaviyo's approval process work?

Transactional status is set per email, not per flow. One flow can have a transactional order confirmation and marketing emails after it. Here's the process from Klaviyo's help center:

1. Build the flow on an event trigger, like Placed Order.
2. Set the email to Manual while you build it. Anything sent before approval goes out as marketing.
3. In the right sidebar, under Transactional, check "Apply for transactional status," then submit for review.
4. Wait. Klaviyo says it can take up to 24 hours, and you can't edit the content or add an A/B test while it's under review.
5. When the Transactional section shows Accepted, set the email to Live and save.

A few catches worth knowing before you start:

• Eligibility. It's only for paid accounts and metric-triggered flows. Price drop flows don't qualify. List or segment-triggered flows have to go through support, with stricter content rules.
• No A/B tests. A message with an A/B test set up can't be submitted.
• Editing removes the status. Every copy tweak means confirming "Remove transactional status" and resubmitting, so get it right first. Universal content blocks also unlink from your library once an email is marked transactional, so you update them inside the email.
• Rejections. You can keep it as a marketing email, edit and resubmit, or appeal through a Klaviyo Support ticket with the subject "Transactional appeal."

Which Shopify events can trigger order and shipping emails?

Klaviyo's Shopify data reference lists the order and fulfillment events it syncs:

Two things to check before you build on these. First, the three shipment events only sync when Shopify makes them available, and Shopify only provides them for certain carriers. If your carrier isn't covered, an "out for delivery" flow has nothing to trigger it. Second, Klaviyo warns that a final partial fulfillment can also trigger Fulfilled Order, so set your flows up to avoid sending two shipping emails for one order.

One more from Klaviyo's guide to disabling Shopify emails: automatic fulfillment can mark an order fulfilled when payment is captured. That can fire a Fulfilled Order flow before the box has left the building. Klaviyo says stores that ship themselves should use manual fulfillment.

Should Klaviyo or Shopify send your order confirmations?

Either can work. Shopify's emails are already on and need no approval. Moving them into Klaviyo gives you one design system and one place to edit, but each one needs Klaviyo's approval, and you have to deal with Shopify's version so customers don't get two. Whichever you pick, the flows that sell (welcome, abandonment, post-purchase) matter more than where the order number email comes from.

The catch is order confirmation. Shopify's help center says "Most customer notifications are sent automatically and can't be deactivated." The ones it lists as switchable are order canceled, order refund, shipping confirmation, shipping update, out for delivery and delivered. Some of those you turn off per order as you take the action, others in settings. Order confirmation isn't on the list. On Shopify Plus, the store owner can ask Shopify Support to turn off specific notifications.

So if you rebuild the order confirmation in Klaviyo and can't switch Shopify's off, the customer gets two. Check your own settings before you build anything.

If you do move some of them, Klaviyo's guide gives the order to do it in:

1. Get the Klaviyo email to Accepted transactional status first. One set live while still under review sends as marketing.
2. Turn off the matching Shopify notification right before you turn on the Klaviyo flow, so there's no gap.
3. Turn the Klaviyo flow on.

On subscription emails, I don't send subscription confirmations as transactional emails from Klaviyo. Those come from the subscription software, and I prefer keeping them separate. My Klaviyo series for new subscribers is there to help them get set up properly, which I cover in subscription welcome emails.

Whichever tool sends them, the selling happens after. That's the job of your post-purchase flow, which I walk through in what a post purchase email flow should send, and it's one of the 8 flows in my essential Klaviyo flows for CPG brands.

What should an order or shipping email say?

The customer is waiting on this one. Make it useful, not a place to sneak in promos. Here's the order I'd put it in:

1. The order, clearly. What they bought, what they paid, where it's going and, for shipping emails, the tracking link. Put it at the top.
2. How to use what they bought. Serving size, when to use it, how to store it. Keep it about the product in the order, since Klaviyo's rules exclude products they haven't bought. Klaviyo makes the approval call, so expect it to review anything beyond the order details.
3. One way to get help. Reply with questions, or check their order status. One link, not a grid of six.

If you want a cross-sell or a code in there, it isn't a transactional email under Klaviyo's rules. Put it in post-purchase instead.

Gift orders are worth a thought here. The order email goes to the buyer, not the person opening the box. For gift orders, I'd add extra packaging or a printed note so the recipient learns about the products.

How do you keep Shopify's emails on-brand?

Shopify's default templates often look nothing like the emails around them. You don't need Klaviyo to send them to fix that.

Inside Shopify. Shopify's help center says you can upload a logo and set an accent color under Settings > Notifications > Customer notifications > Customize email template, and that change applies to all templates at once. You can also edit each template's subject and HTML with Liquid, preview it and send yourself a test.

Designed in Klaviyo, sent by Shopify. Klaviyo lets you style Shopify notification templates in its editor, export the HTML and paste it into Shopify. Shopify still does the sending. Per Klaviyo, the limits are real: dynamic product blocks don't work, the variables are Shopify's rather than Klaviyo's, previews in Klaviyo show styling only, and any change, like a new logo, means exporting and pasting each email again.

Plain text or designed for order emails?

Go with whatever makes the order details easiest to read on a phone. What doesn't work is a template that buries the tracking link under three banners. I go through when each style fits in plain text vs HTML email.

If you're setting Klaviyo up from scratch, sort this out alongside the rest of the install. I cover the full build in Klaviyo setup for Shopify.

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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