Email Marketing & Klaviyo
Email and SMS marketing terms with focus on Klaviyo flows, segmentation, deliverability, and lifecycle marketing strategies.
The metrics that decide whether your brand scales.
Email is the highest-margin channel for almost every Shopify brand — and the one most under-invested in. The terminology here covers the difference between flows and campaigns, the segmentation rules that move open rates from 25% to 45%, and the deliverability mechanics that keep your sends out of spam.
Most operators ship a welcome series, an abandoned cart flow, and call it done. The brands generating 30%+ of revenue from email use 9–12 flows, advanced segmentation, and predictive analytics — and the terms in this section are how they talk about it.
Whether you're auditing your current Klaviyo setup or rebuilding from scratch, this vocabulary gives you the language to evaluate what's working and what's missing.
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Showing 29 of 29 terms in Email Marketing & Klaviyo
Open Rate
The percentage of delivered emails that recipients open.
Click-Through Rate (Email)
The percentage of delivered emails where recipients clicked at least one link.
Click-to-Open Rate
CTORThe percentage of email openers who clicked a link.
Deliverability Rate
The percentage of sent emails successfully accepted by recipients' email servers.
Inbox Placement Rate
The percentage of delivered emails that land in the primary inbox versus spam.
Bounce Rate (Email)
The percentage of emails that failed to deliver, including hard and soft bounces.
Hard Bounce
A permanent delivery failure typically caused by invalid email addresses.
Soft Bounce
A temporary delivery failure caused by full inboxes, server issues, or message size limits.
Spam Complaint Rate
The percentage of recipients who mark your email as spam. Should remain below 0.1%.
Unsubscribe Rate
The percentage of recipients who opt out of future emails. Healthy lists see 0.2-0.5% per send.
Flow
An automated sequence of messages triggered by specific customer actions or events.
Campaign
A one-time, manually scheduled email or SMS send to a specific list or segment.
Segment
A dynamic grouping of profiles defined by specific conditions that automatically updates.
List
A collection of opted-in profiles, typically static once added.
Profile
A comprehensive record for each contact containing all known information and activity history.
Welcome Series
An automated sequence triggered when someone subscribes, introducing your brand.
Abandoned Cart Flow
An automated sequence triggered when someone adds items to cart but doesn't checkout.
Abandoned Checkout Flow
Triggered when someone begins checkout but doesn't complete purchase.
Browse Abandonment Flow
Triggered when a known visitor views products but doesn't add to cart or purchase.
Post-Purchase Flow
An automated sequence following a completed order, including confirmation and cross-sells.
Winback Flow
An automated sequence targeting customers who haven't purchased in a defined period.
Sunset Flow
An automation designed to phase out unengaged subscribers to improve deliverability.
Sender Reputation
A score calculated by ISPs based on sending behavior, affecting inbox placement.
SPF
Sender Policy Framework - a DNS-based email authentication protocol.
DKIM
DomainKeys Identified Mail - an email authentication method adding a digital signature.
DMARC
A policy protocol instructing servers how to handle emails that fail SPF or DKIM checks.
List Hygiene
Regular maintenance of email lists by removing invalid addresses and unengaged subscribers.
TCPA
Telephone Consumer Protection Act - US law requiring consent before sending marketing SMS.
Quiet Hours
Restricted times during which promotional SMS cannot be sent (before 8am, after 9pm).
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