- A pet food buying cycle is set by bag size divided by how much the pet eats each day, so the same bag can last one customer a month and another three months.
- Ask for pet size and number of pets at signup or right after the first order, because one reorder delay for every customer will be wrong for most of them.
- Autoship customers need a heads-up before each shipment; one-time buyers need a reorder reminder plus a reason to switch to autoship.
- A pet food winback needs a way for owners to tell you their pet passed away, so you stop emailing them about dinner.
Why is pet food email marketing different?
The pet eats every day, the owner doesn't want to switch food without a reason, and running out means a late-night trip to whatever store is open. That's your opening and your risk. The customer who runs out and grabs a bag somewhere else might not come back.
You're also selling to two customers. The owner reads the email. The pet decides whether the food stays.
How do you time reorder emails by bag size and pet size?
Start with the feeding guide on your own bag. It already tells people how much to feed by weight, so you have the math. You just need to know which pet they're feeding.
Say your feeding guide puts a 24 lb bag at about 30 days for a large dog and about 90 days for a small one. A reorder email on day 25 is perfect for the large dog's owner. For the small dog's owner, it's two months early, and after a couple of those they stop opening your reorder emails at all.
Here's how I'd set it up:
- Ask for pet size and number of pets. Add it to your signup form or a one-click question in the first post-purchase email, and save it to the profile in Klaviyo.
- Split the reorder flow by bag size and pet size. Small bag plus large dog is the shortest cycle. Large bag plus small cat is the longest.
- Count multi-pet households. Two dogs go through a bag twice as fast.
- Switch to real data fast. Once you have a few months of orders, pull the median days between first and second order for each bag size and move the first email about a week ahead of it.
The reorder reminder isn't one of the 8 core flows I install for every brand, but for a product that runs out every few weeks, I'd build it on top of them early. The build is in my Klaviyo replenishment flow guide, and the timing math is in replenishment email timing.
Autoship vs one-time buyers: who gets which email?
Don't put autoship customers in the same reorder flow as one-time buyers. Someone whose bag ships automatically doesn't need "time to reorder!" It confuses them and can cause a double order.
One-time buyers get the reorder reminder. Make the first one easy: "Running low? Here's a one-click reorder." Later in the sequence, make the autoship pitch: never running out, no late-night store run, and whatever perk you offer. Ask once or twice, not every email.
Autoship customers get a heads-up a few days before each shipment. It reads like a service email, but it's when they add treats, size up the bag or move the date. Put a skip or delay button right in the email. A pushed shipment beats a cancelled autoship. More on keeping subscribers in my guide to subscription churn emails.
What should a new-pet welcome look like?
A new puppy or kitten is one of the best moments to win a customer for years. The owner is paying attention, looking for advice and making choices they'll stick with. If your signup form or quiz can tell you someone just got a new pet, work new-pet content into their welcome series:
- Email #1 does the heavy lifting. In my pooled data, welcome email #1 earned about $4.50 per person, and emails #2 to #5 about $0.10 each. Email #1 carries most of the money, which is why the offer goes in it, and the rest of the week builds trust before it expires.
- How to switch foods. Point them to the transition schedule in your feeding guide. Owners who switch too fast and see an upset stomach blame the food.
- Feeding as the pet grows. A growing puppy eats more each month, so the bag runs out sooner. That's a reason to email and to suggest the next size up.
- The life-stage switch. When they'll move to adult food, and which of your formulas comes next.
In the Flow System I install, the welcome series is 6 emails over 7 days (days 0, 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7), the offer expires on day 7, and the flow ends as soon as they buy. The new-pet topics above slot into those days. More on structure in my welcome email series guide.
How should a pet food winback work?
Pet food customers leave for a few reasons: they switched brands, their vet suggested a different diet, they found it cheaper somewhere else, or their pet died. Your winback has to handle all of them.
- Start soft. In the Flow System I install, winback waits 45 days after an order, then sends 5 emails between day 45 and day 60, starting with a restock reminder. For pet food, a plain "Everything okay with the food?" fits that first email. If your biggest bags last longer than 45 days, check that wait against your own reorder data.
- Let people tell you why. A few one-click options: switched brands, vet changed the diet, pet passed away, still have food. Tag the answer to their profile.
- Stop the emails for anyone whose pet passed away. A short, kind note is fine. A "we miss Max!" email two weeks later is not.
- Save the offer for email 4. The offer doesn't show up until email 4, and the last two emails come close together. In my pooled data, winback email #3 earned about 2x email #1 ($0.23 vs $0.11 per person), so the later emails earn their place.
Only engaged openers enter, and anyone who reorders exits, so you're not emailing dormant contacts or people who already came back. For more on length, see how long a winback flow should be.
Which flows should a pet food brand build first?
My Flow System has 8 core flows: welcome series, abandoned checkout, abandoned cart, browse abandonment, collection abandonment, site abandonment, post purchase thank you and customer winback, each with separate paths for customers and people who haven't bought yet. Every one carries an offer: people who haven't bought get the same offer as your welcome series, and customers get a slightly better one, a buy-more offer or a subscription. For pet food, here's where I'd focus:
- Reorder reminder, on top of the core 8, split by bag and pet size.
- Autoship pre-shipment reminder, if you sell autoship.
- Post purchase thank you, split by order count (a first order gets 6 emails over about 24 days), with the feeding guide, transition schedule and pet size question in the first-order path.
- Welcome series, 6 emails over 7 days, with new-pet content when you know they just got one.
- Customer winback, with the reason question.
Cart and checkout still matter for the first order, when the owner is nervous about switching. Answer the worry: what if my pet won't eat it? In the cart and checkout flows I install, the first email has no offer, the offer comes in through the sequence, and the final reminder carries it before it expires with the last email. People who haven't bought yet get the same offer your welcome series gives, never a bigger one, so nobody learns that abandoning a cart beats signing up. Customers get a slightly better offer or a buy-more offer. Those automations also show the autoship option, so the customer saves by committing to regular deliveries and you get more predictable monthly revenue.
What should a pet food brand measure?
Judge emails by clicks and revenue, not opens. Apple Mail auto-opens make open rates close to useless.
- Revenue per recipient on the reorder flow, by bag size.
- Days between first and second order, by bag size and pet size.
- Autoship skips vs cancels after the pre-shipment reminder.
- Share of one-time buyers who move to autoship.
The bigger picture is in my repeat purchase email strategy.
Where these numbers come from
The per-person numbers come from a pooled look at 4 consumable brands, 2,897 campaigns and $17.7M in email revenue. None of them is a pet food brand, and only 2 of the 4 had a reorder flow built. It's a small sample, so treat it as directional.
FAQ
When should a pet food brand send the first reorder email?
About a week before the bag runs out, based on bag size and pet size. If you don't know pet size yet, start from bag size and tighten the timing once you see how fast customers reorder.
How do I get pet size into Klaviyo?
Ask on the signup form, in a quiz, or with a one-click question in the first post-purchase email, and save the answer as a profile property. Keep it to one or two questions so people actually answer.
Should autoship customers get reorder reminders?
No. They should get a heads-up before each shipment with an easy way to skip, delay, add an item or change the bag size. Reorder reminders are for one-time buyers.
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.