The VIA Institute on Character grows share of revenue from email 2.5x after switch to Klaviyo

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The VIA Institute on Character is a global non-profit organization whose mission is to advance the science and application of character strengths to realize the best in individuals, organizations, and communities. Their signature survey, based on peer-reviewed research, has helped nearly 35 million people discover their strengths over the past 25 years. The team at VIA also provides a variety of strengths-focused courses and certifications—and to manage their lifecycle marketing and user data, the VIA Institute on Character relies on Klaviyo.

Learn why the VIA Institute on Character had to leave Listrak to “rapidly evolve”

Challenge

With 10,000 people completing the VIA Survey daily, the VIA Institute on Character was growing rapidly, but their email marketing platform, Listrak, was slowing them down.

Building out email automations required substantial technical and IT support, so the team only had 3 email automations in Listrak.

“Building out triggered communications and lifecycle messaging was extremely clunky,” says head of marketing Isabel Howell.

Subscriber data was difficult to access and act on, too, which made it hard to operate strategically.

“Listrak slowed our growth as an organization,” Howell says. “We weren’t able to rapidly evolve and scale when we were ready to.”

Listrak slowed our growth as an organization. We weren’t able to rapidly evolve and scale when we were ready to.

Solution

Of the 3 new CRM options the VIA Institute considered, Klaviyo stood out.

It was the most competitively priced, with a flexible month-to-month billing option, and it was the most user-friendly: even new hires could build flows with minimal tech support.

The VIA Institute now has 38 live flows in Klaviyo—more than 12x what they had in Listrak—and flows drive 54% of their total Klaviyo-attributed revenue.

They’ve also been able to centralize their user data in Klaviyo, easily connecting their existing database to Klaviyo B2C CRM via API and ingesting custom data.

“Because of how Klaviyo segmentation works, we can easily query our data now and get an understanding of how groups of community members are engaging with us,” Howell says.

That ease of use is key. As a lean team of 10 with only two full-time marketers, the VIA Institute needs to operate efficiently—and with Klaviyo, they can.

Because of how Klaviyo segmentation works, we can easily query our data now and get an understanding of how groups of community members are engaging with us.

Strategy

Now that the VIA Institute marketing team uses Klaviyo, they’ve done a few new things to help fuel growth of their key KPIs, subscribers and revenue. For instance:

• Launching a password reset flow: This automation is critical for the VIA Institute, because individuals have to be logged into their accounts to access personalized reports and register for courses. In Klaviyo, the flow delivers more promptly and reliably than it did in Listrak, and it’s helped lift revenue.
• Migrating forms to Klaviyo: When the VIA Institute migrated their pop-ups into Klaviyo, they gained visibility into performance and new targeting options. The team can now serve pop-ups specifically to individuals who haven’t yet taken their free survey (a core sign-up driver). In 2024, their subscriber list grew 13%.
• Querying user data with Klaviyo AI: Now that the team can more easily spin up segments, they often create them for research purposes—to gauge engagement with a new offering, for example—with help from Klaviyo AI, which can generate segments from text prompts. “Segments AI helps me more quickly come to the right solution in terms of the and/or statements,” Howell says—and makes it easier to understand the engagement journey.

This year, the VIA Institute plans to integrate more dynamic content into their email marketing, and test Klaviyo Reviews. Howell sees consolidating more products in Klaviyo as a way to save on tech costs—and save time.

Sara Webb, the VIA Institute marketing manager, agrees. “A lot of non-profits are very lean and trying to get as much done as they can in a short period of time,” Webb says. “Klaviyo makes it easy for anyone, even someone who’s not super technical, to jump in and start creating almost instant value.”

A lot of non-profits are very lean and trying to get as much done as they can in a short period of time. Klaviyo makes it easy for anyone, even someone who’s not super technical, to jump in and start creating almost instant value.