What Is Klaviyo Smart Sending? A Complete How To Guide

Ryan Turner // August 16 // 0 Comments

In this quick guide we’ll explain Klaviyo’s Smart Send feature, how to use it, as well as the advantages and disadvantages it brings for emails sent via automated flows and manual campaigns. This is one of the Klaviyo features we get asked about most often here at the Ecommerce Intelligence email marketing agency.

Here’s what we’ll be covering:

What is Smart Sending in Klaviyo?

Klaviyo Smart Sending restricts the number of emails or SMS that your subscribers can receive in a particular time frame.

When you have a large store with multiple Klaviyo flows turned on, your subscribers might get bombarded with marketing emails or SMS in a single day if you don’t have very strict filters in place. It can be difficult to manage these manually in a complex email strategy.

So essentially Klaviyo Smart Sending prevents you from accidentally becoming a spammer.

How does smart sending work?

If you enable the smart send option, Klaviyo will check whether the subscriber has received any emails or SMS in the past few hours (or days) depending on your account settings.

If your subscriber has received an email or SMS in that given time frame, Klaviyo will automatically skip sending a message to that contact. 

Will smart sending auto-reschedule skipped profiles?

No. Smart sending doesn’t auto-reschedule the skipped messages. If a subscriber does not pass the Smart Send filter, they will simply not receive the campaign in question.

If you want to re-send skipped messages, you can do it from individual profiles or flow analytics but this is not recommended unless you just need to message a small handful of people.

Email smart sending window

In Klaviyo both email and SMS smart sending time frame windows are different. This is so that email sending doesn’t impact SMS.

The default email Smart Sending Window is 16 hours. Most Ecommmerce brands either leave this setting as-is, or use a shorter use a shorter window between 3 to 12 hours. But, you can adjust it according to your sending activities.

Here’s how you can adjust your email smart send window:

  1. Click the upper right corner drop-down (Klaviyo dashboard)
  2. Click Settings
  3. Click email
  4. Look for the smart sending period
  5. Update the number as per need

Adjusting the smart send time window for email in Klaviyo
Adjusting the smart send time window for email in Klaviyo

NOTE: As consumers search for transactional messages after every transaction, Klaviyo recommends keeping smart sending disabled for transactional messages. You always want customers to receive these.

SMS smart sending window

The SMS smart sending window is set to 24 hours by default. Again you’re free to change this but we like to keep it at 24 hours in our specialist Klaviyo email agency, unless you’re running a big time-sensitive promo where sending SMS campaigns to a group of people more than once in a day is necessary. This is the exception and not the rule though.

Here’s how you can change your SMS smart sending window:

1) Go to the top right corner drop-down menu

2) Click account

3) Click settings

4) Find the smart sending area

5) Change the hours as per requirement

Adjusting the smart send time window for SMS in Klaviyo
Adjusting the smart send time window for SMS in Klaviyo

How to turn off smart sending for flows

Smart sending is disabled by default for flows.

In case any of your flows are using smart sending and you want to turn it off, follow these steps:

1) Go to the flow page

2) Check for smart sending under settings (left side)

3) Toggle the button to turn off smart sending

Smart sending in flows
Smart sending in flows

How to turn off smart sending for campaigns

Smart sending is enabled by default for all the campaigns you send. 

In case you want to disable it, make sure you toggle off the smart sending before you create a campaign and send it out.

Campaign smart send setting
Campaign smart send setting

So, by default Klaviyo prioritizes flow emails by having Smart Sending turned off as standard, and having it turned on for campaigns. This means that a customer is more likely to receive the flow email than the campaign, if they’re eligible for both in a short time period.

Flows are generally considered to be more personalized and relevant than campaign emails.

Benefits of this feature

1) You never bother your subscribers: 

Imagine your customers getting irritated by your emails and SMS campaigns and putting you inside their spam box for life. That sure hurts! 

Smart sending is a simple and easy-to-apply tool that helps you send messages to the right people at the right time without accidentally overdoing it. This will reduce your spam complaints and unsubscribes overall.

2) Helps increase open and click rates:

Timely, personalized emails simply get opened at a higher rate, and receive more clicks. Smart Sending helps you send less irrelevant emails, or too many in a short time period.

Klaviyo smart sending can increase your open rates up to 10%. This is something tested and claimed by Klaviyo.

3) Protects your domain

Your domain is your virtual real estate. Once your domain is blacklisted by email inbox providers like Yahoo, Gmail, and Outlook, you’ll face a hard time reaching your customers.

The fewer readers mark you as spam the better. Smart sending protects your domain reputation, by skipping profiles that are more likely to mark you as spam due to sending too many emails in a short period.

4) Builds a better brand reputation in the longer run

A brand that doesn’t spam its customers is always a good brand. If you keep using smart sending for all your campaigns and flows, in the long run, it will improve your overall reputation as a clean and customer-friendly brand that sends good content from time to time and doesn’t spam.

FAQs

How is Smart Sending different from Smart Send Time?

Smart send time is testing which timing works best for your campaigns, whereas smart sending prevents you to bombard your recipients with marketing emails or SMS. You can use smart send time to better time your campaigns.

Is it possible to resend skipped messages?

Yes, you can resend them manually. Currently, there is no option to resend automatically.

Is it advisable to turn off smart sending?

This depends on your email send frequency. As a very general rule we like to keep the setting turned on for campaigns, and off for flows at our agency. You can also learn more about the technical settings we recommend in Klaviyo inside our course.

Where can I find skipped profiles in flow?

Go to flow analytics and click on skipped.

Does smart sending affect my campaign subject line?

No! It doesn’t. It makes your work easier by skipping profiles you shouldn’t send to.

How to add Klaviyo smart sending?

It doesn’t require any technical skills. By default it’s active. You can toggle it whenever you don’t need it for either flows or campaigns as shown earlier in this article. More info can be found here.

How can I resend skipped emails?

There are two ways you can do it:

  • From an individual profile’s personal Inbox
  • From the recipient activity tab

What to do if a large number of profiles are skipped from a campaign?

If you see a large number of profiles are skipped and your campaign success depends on it, you can simply resend to skipped profiles and non-openers after a time gap.

Get in touch

If you’d like help with any of the more technical aspects of Klaviyo then contact us today to discuss our Klaviyo consultant packages. We’re sure we can help you grow sales using the email channel.

About the Author Ryan Turner

Ryan Turner is the lead strategist here at Ecommerce Intelligence with over 6 years experience growing Ecommerce brands using proven Klaviyo email marketing strategies.

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