1. Turn website visitors into customers with automated nurturing

First impressions matter, but what matters most is what those impressions lead to. A welcome series is essential communication infrastructure that can set the pre-conditions for brand retention and loyalty.

Welcome flows are automated emails, texts, mobile push notifications, or WhatsApp messages that introduce new subscribers to your brand. They're also effective: according to Klaviyo's latest email marketing benchmarks, the top 10% of welcome flows have an average placed order rate of 9.89%.

Welcome flows typically do several things:

• Introduce your brand story to establish an initial connection.
• Showcase your bestselling products.
• Offer a discount on a first order.

Short on time? Give Composer a goal in simple text — like welcoming new subscribers — and it drafts the whole series for you to review and approve.

Beyond the basics: how to make your welcome flow special

You can customise your welcome flow to trigger different messages based on a subscriber's actions — for example, launching a unique welcome series depending on where a new subscriber signs up.

Fitness supplement brand More Nutrition redesigned their welcome flow to better guide subscribers through their exploration phase to purchase:

• Email 1: personalised introduction, discount code, product highlights, and influencer endorsements
• Email 2: wellness routine tips, testimonials, and unique selling points
• Email 3: introduction to the fasting programme, weight loss tips, and social proof
• Email 4: reminder of the discount, free meal plans, targeted product recommendations, and key influencer content

As a result of the redesign, order rates increased 302%.

Maintaining compliance and gathering consent for automated messages

Automated emails, texts, push notifications, and WhatsApp messages require subscribers to opt in with express consent, usually through sign-up forms on your website.

This is how your business stays compliant with privacy laws such as Singapore's Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA). Violating these regulations can incur significant penalties and fines.

For WhatsApp messages, Meta requires senders to use pre-approved message templates for outreach outside the 24-hour reply window — including marketing, transactional, and support messages.

2. Recover lost sales when customers leave items behind

The abandoned cart automation is one of the best marketing opportunities for any small business. According to our email marketing benchmarks, abandoned cart flows generate the highest revenue per recipient of any automation, at $3.07.

With your B2C CRM, you can build abandoned shopping basket flows that trigger automatically when someone leaves your website without completing a purchase. To personalise your abandoned shopping basket flows, try:

• Offering discounts only for high-value carts
• Suggesting complementary products based on what's in the shopping cart
• Sending reminders through customers' preferred channels
• Adding user-generated content (UGC) that features the products in the shopping cart

Handcrafted jewellery brand Manly Bands uses a survey to collect feedback in their abandoned cart flow, asking customers who abandon their cart: 'Why didn't you want to buy?' Respondents receive a personalised follow-up message with a coupon.

In January 2026, the placed order rate for this flow was 4.8x the median in Manly Bands' peer group.

3. Personalise offers and content with marketing automation

According to Klaviyo's future of consumer marketing report, 74% of consumers expect brands to provide more personalised experiences. Automated personalised marketing is how you can exceed these high standards across thousands or even millions of customer interactions.

With zero- and first-party data, you can transform generic messages into ones that reflect how someone has actually interacted with your brand. For example, you can personalise your automated flows by:

• Offering product recommendations based on past purchases and browsing behaviour
• Targeting customers on the channels they use the most based on historical engagement data
• Sending proactive outreach to people predicted to order soon — or predicted to churn
• Gifting loyalty points to customers who've spent a certain amount or made a set number of purchases

Marketing automation that handles this type of personalised communication is how small businesses can compete against larger ones. Define your segments and conditional splits, set up your criteria and content, then monitor and tweak rather than reinventing the wheel with every message.

4. Gather social proof after every sale

Our future of consumer marketing report also found that customer reviews are the most influential factor when someone makes an initial purchase with a brand.

But collecting high-quality reviews that address real customer concerns could be a full-time job on its own — this is where automation helps: set up a flow timed to product usage and collect detailed reviews without manual outreach.

Review request automations can improve review quality with incentives, too. When coffee shop chain Compass Coffee wanted reviews that included a picture, they rewarded reviewers with auto-generated Shopify discount codes.

Using a conditional split: if a review included a photo, the reviewer received a 15% discount on their next order; if not, they got a thank-you email and a reminder to leave a photo next time.

After their first quarter using this review flow, Compass saw a 3.7x QoQ jump in customer photos submitted — and a 70.5% jump in total reviews submitted.

5. Support customers with post-purchase marketing automations

Once a customer makes a purchase, automatically send them post-purchase flows such as order confirmations, shipment tracking, delivery estimates, return information, and product education.

These automations can do more than support customers — they can drive repeat purchases, decrease returns, and build customer loyalty.

Natural cosmetics brand Freshly Cosmetics created journeys tailored to high-priority cohorts: first-timers seeking products for specific needs, repeat buyers with consistent average order value (AOV), and VIP customers.

Based on these behaviours and traits, Freshly Cosmetics recommends bestsellers, invites customers to try new categories, and offers content like skincare tips. Repeat buyers receive cross-selling recommendations based on recent purchases.

As a result, Freshly Cosmetics saw a 136% increase in revenue.

6. Automate customer service to generate sales

Exceptional customer service is both a competitive advantage and a revenue driver. Brands with full alignment across marketing and customer service are 156% more likely to significantly exceed their marketing goals, according to Klaviyo's state of B2C marketing report.

Automation can create this alignment through data feedback loops — for example, suspending promotional messages automatically for the duration of an open support ticket.

After a support interaction goes well, automations can help you make the most of it with personalised recommendations that drive repeat purchases.

Here are a few simple ways to automate customer service to turn it into a marketing engine:

Unified helpdesk

Your marketing automation strategy needs to meet customers where they are — on multiple channels, with full context about who they are and how they interact with your brand. On the back end, that means a unified helpdesk that features:

• Unified inbox across all channels: email, web chat, SMS, WhatsApp, and social messages appear in one workspace, so your team isn't switching between tools.
• Complete customer context: every ticket pulls in order history, past support interactions, and recent marketing activity automatically.
• AI-powered automation: smart routing sends tickets to the right agent, and AI can resolve simple questions automatically before escalating to humans.

AI customer agents

As customers browse product pages, an AI customer agent can proactively answer questions about sizing, return policies, or product-specific details.

AI agents work best alongside human agents — great for proactively addressing common questions on lower-value items, while human agents generate revenue by reaching out to bigger spenders or customers at risk of churn.

Home fragrance brand Happy Wax created a review follow-up flow for customers who leave reviews with less than 3 stars — the flow pings the internal team to reach out and offer a new scent, free of charge.

7. Predict when customers will order and send proactive reminders

By analysing behavioural data, predictive analytics can forecast a customer's next order date, lifetime value (LTV), churn risk, and more.

When a customer's anticipated next order date is close, trigger proactive replenishment reminders with personalised recommendations, complementary items, and educational content. For customers with high predicted LTV, offer a slightly larger discount.

Personal care brand Every Man Jack generates personalised predictions for each subscriber, then sets reorder flows to send on — or slightly before or after — each customer's predicted next order date.

Using predictive analytics with marketing automation, the brand saw 25% YoY growth in flows revenue.

8. Re-engage customers who haven't purchased in months

It's easier — and less expensive — to retain a customer than acquire one. That's why it's important to trigger messages automatically once someone hasn't purchased for a certain period.

Be intentional about timing, messaging, conditional splits, and offers in your win-back flows.

Depending on your product, create a conditional split for customers who haven't purchased after a set time. Send personalised offers based on past purchase history and browsing behaviour, with discounts for high spenders and new products similar to previous purchases.

Texas arcade bar chain Cidercade has some of the most creative win-back flows around — their flows trigger when a customer doesn't visit for a few weeks, with one offering free admission if the customer beats a staff member at rock, paper, scissors.

After launching their new win-back flow, Cidercade's automation revenue jumped 221% period on period.

9. Improve marketing automation results with smart dashboards and reports

As a small business, you need to keep a pulse on the metrics that matter — but it takes time and effort to pull specific reports and track key data points.

Using a CRM with built-in reporting, you can aggregate all your customer data in one place, making it easier to pull reports like these automatically and translate them into action:

• Review sentiment analysis: understand your reviews by topic and sentiment over time to address product issues and maintain a healthy brand reputation.
• Marketing funnel analysis: create a funnel report that automatically tracks customers across their lifecycle, showing where they drop off.
• Benchmarking: access benchmarks reflecting your peers' performance by industry, company size, and market position.
• Omnichannel, linear multi-touch attribution: measure how all channels contribute to conversions, not just first and last touchpoints.
• RFM analysis: use recency, frequency, and monetary value to find high-value customers or ones most likely to churn.

Underwear brand 2(X)IST uses their CRM to automatically update RFM segments, without manual exporting or refreshing.

When a customer enters one of the highest-churn-risk segments, it triggers a segment-specific retention flow with a personalised discount — driving $15,200 in incremental revenue in a single quarter.

Automate personalised marketing with Klaviyo B2C CRM

Klaviyo B2C CRM is like hiring another full-time member of your team. The platform combines marketing automation, service, and analytics with a built-in customer data platform and AI to help small businesses:

• Centralise your customer data in one place.
• Create cohesive omnichannel experiences.
• Personalise at scale with integrated data.
• Grow faster with pre-built templates and automations.
• Turn customer service into a revenue generator.
• Measure performance with reports small businesses can act on quickly.
• Go from idea to live in minutes with Composer, which builds the campaign and tells you what to change, what to keep, and why after every send.

Work smarter, not harder, with Klaviyo on your team.

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