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, SMS, or push notifications that your subscribers can receive in a particular time frame. The default timeframe is 16 hours for email and 24 hours for SMS and push. However these can be changed however you’d prefer.
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 and allows you to automatically filter out users from receiving certain campaigns if they’ve recently received another communication from you.
How does Klaviyo smart sending work?
If you enable the smart send option, Klaviyo will check whether the subscriber has received any emails, SMS, or push notifications 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. Re-sending is possible only with skipped emails.
The email smart sending window
In Klaviyo both email and SMS/push 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.
In our experience 16 hours is a good choice.
Here’s how you can adjust your email smart send window:
- Click the upper right corner drop-down (Klaviyo dashboard)
- Click Settings
- Click email
- Look for the smart sending period
- Update the number as per need
NOTE: As consumers often search for transactional messages after every transaction, we recommend keeping smart sending disabled for transactional messages. You always want customers to receive these and there isn’t a reason to skip them.
SMS and push notifications smart sending windows
The SMS smart sending window is set to 24 hours by default, as is the push notification window.
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
How to turn off smart sending for flows
Smart sending is enabled by default for some flows, and disabled for others, depending on the flow.
In case any of your flows are using smart sending and you want to turn it off, follow these steps for each message in the flow sequence:
1) Go to the flow page
2) Check for smart sending under settings (left side)
3) Toggle the button to turn off smart sending
How to turn off smart sending for campaigns
Smart sending is enabled by default for all the campaigns you send if you’re building a brand new campaign and not duplicated an existing or previous one.
In case you want to disable it, make sure you toggle off the smart sending before you create a campaign and send it out.
So, by default Klaviyo prioritizes flow emails by having Smart Sending turned off as standard in most cases, 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.
We generally recommend this setup as your default as flows are generally considered to be more personalized and relevant than campaign emails. However, there are always exceptions to this general rule.
One example of this would be time sensitive campaigns or promotions. If you’re running a 48 hour flash sale and sending a number of emails during this short timeframe, you may want as many people from your engaged audience to receive the campaigns as possible. Here you could choose disable smart sending for all of these sale campaigns and just accept that a few people might more emails than is desirable during this short time period, especially if they’re going through a flow.
This situations are handled on a case by case basis and it is necessary to balance overall customer experience with your revenue goals. The safest and least aggressive option is always to leave smart sending on for all campaigns, in the knowledge that some people will miss time sensitive sale campaigns.
There is always a trade off to consider.
Benefits of the smart sending feature
1) You’ll never bother your subscribers accidentally:
Imagine your customers getting irritated by your emails and SMS campaigns and putting you inside their spam box for life by hiting the spam button due to frustration. 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.
Smart send acts as an overarching safety feature making it difficult to accidentally overwhelm people with messages when you have a lot going on inside your account.
2) Helps increase open and click rates by maintaining good deliverability:
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% according to some data. This is something tested and claimed by Klaviyo and we generally believe this to be at least somewhat accurate in our experience.
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.
Although getting blacklisted is highly unlikely for any brand emailing responsibly, the smart send feature acts as a reliable safety net.
Frequently Asked Questions
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 for emails but not SMS or push notifications. 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.