How to use Klaviyo to maximize your subscription business success

Running a subscription business is like conducting an orchestra: every touchpoint needs to be timed, personalized, and harmonious to create a seamless customer experience.

As senior lifecycle and CRO manager at Universal Yums, a monthly international snack subscription box brand, I’ve spent years building and optimizing subscription flows in Klaviyo. I’ve learned that the key to subscription success isn’t just getting customers in the door. It’s keeping them engaged, valued, and excited about what’s coming next.

Before we dive into specific tactics, let’s address the elephant in the room: subscription businesses operate on fundamentally different principles than one-time purchase brands. They have unique opportunities that traditional businesses simply don’t.

As Ben Zettler, founder of Zettler Digital, a performance marketing agency based in the NYC metropolitan area, puts it, “most subscription brands I’ve audited are leaving money on the table. They’ve got a basic welcome flow and maybe a churn reminder, but that’s it.”

Jacob Sappington, director of email at Homestead Studio, a growth agency specializing in acquisition and retention, emphasizes this fundamental difference: “How you talk to your subscribers, and what you send them, are completely different from any other type of customer, even previous purchasers.”

Subscription customers have already made the most important decision: they’ve committed to your brand. Now your job is to nurture that relationship over time, not constantly push for the next sale. This shifts your entire email strategy from acquisition-focused to retention-focused.

I sat down with experts from all over the world to talk through the best ways to use Klaviyo’s powerful automation features to transform your subscription business into a retention powerhouse.

3 use cases specific to subscription businesses

We’ll begin with 3 use cases specific to subscription businesses:

Use case 1: Strategic up-selling that actually works

One of the most powerful tactics we use at Universal Yums is automated up-selling through custom flows. But here’s the key: timing is everything.

We target customers between their first and second renewal order with carefully crafted messages encouraging them to upgrade to a larger box size or longer subscription length.

Why this exact timing? Because they’ve proven they like the product but haven’t yet settled into a rigid routine.

The results speak for themselves: even getting a small percentage of customers to upgrade significantly increases our recurring revenue and leads to higher lifetime value (LTV) from our existing customer base.

Use case 2: Non-promotional content personalization at scale

In a subscription business, messaging touchpoints that provide added value may be even more important than those that encourage placing more orders. You want subscribers to feel appreciated for their business and know that you want to give back to them as they continue to be loyal.

At Universal Yums, customers receive a monthly box with snacks from a different country. But the experience doesn’t stop there. Using Klaviyo flows, we build perfectly-timed series of messages that give customers content they can use alongside their box: recipes from the country, popular music and movie recommendations, and even customized travel guides from locals.

Klaviyo’s robust data foundation is what makes this level of personalization possible, Sappington explains. “Klaviyo has all the data, which then allows us to segment and tailor the journey to very specific customer lifecycles,” he says.

Ross Hopkins, MOPs and analytics manager at Corporate Finance Institute, a leading provider of online finance and banking training, emphasizes the importance of personalization at scale: “We personalize every email—whether it’s onboarding, renewal nudges, or re-engagement—based on plan type, engagement history, and even which blog content someone converted through.”

Use case 3: Essential flows every subscription business needs

Based on our experience at Universal Yums and conversations with other subscription brands, there are several critical flows that every subscription business should implement:

4 advanced strategies that go beyond basic automation

“The most successful subscription brands we’ve worked with don’t treat Klaviyo like a campaign calendar,” says Zettler. “They use it as a retention engine.”

Here are some advanced strategies to consider:

1. Segmentation based on subscription behavior

“It’s important to segment subscribers by specific criteria,” says Zac Fromson, co-founder of Lilo Social, a full-funnel growth agency based in the NYC metropolitan area. “That way, you can deliver the right message at exactly the right moment in their customer journey.”

Fromson recommends segmenting by these criteria:

• Renewal cadence
• Engagement level
• Order history

Mike Kumlin, senior product manager at ButcherBox, a premium meat and seafood delivery subscription service, also appreciates the ability to respond to different issues a customer may have throughout their subscription, noting it as a “key driver to subscriber retention.”

“Klaviyo equips us with all those important metrics,” Kumlin says. To segment and personalize on a granular level, ButcherBox team takes into account activities like:

• Onsite activity
• Bill date movement
• Customer support engagement
• Next order placed

2. Flexible platform capabilities

“We’ve had experience working with clients who have had out-of-the-box subscription solutions as well as custom solution solutions,” Sappington says. “Klaviyo has been able to accommodate both through its breadth and availability of data.”

He also notes the practical benefits of modern subscription integrations: “Through some of these out-of-the-box solutions, we’re able to utilize specific features that help us retain more subscribers and increase the monetary value of subscribers and LTV over time.”

Sappington and his team rely on:

• Skio quick links: Direct subscribers to a particular section of a webpage.
• Order add-ons: Use dynamic product blocks to allow subscribers to add certain products to their upcoming order.
• Easy skips, done through the Klaviyo x Recharge integration: Limit the number of messages a subscriber gets in a certain amount of time.
• Flow dunning: Prompt subscribers to update their payment information when it’s expired or declined.

3. Integration with subscription platforms

Victoria ap Gwynedd, a CRM specialist at Unified, a full-service, London-based ecommerce agency focusing on strategy, design, and development, recommends Klaviyo’s integration with Skio. It “allows access to detailed customer profiles and subscription events, enabling highly personalized and relevant email and SMS campaigns,” she says.

ap Gwynedd suggests focusing on:

• Upcoming orders
• Pauses
• Cancellations

4. Custom data infrastructure

If you’re a larger brand with complex needs, it may be worth building a custom infrastructure.

Hopkins says that Corporate Finance Institute built one that feeds rich subscription events directly into Klaviyo, including:

• Subscription started
• Renewed
• Cancelled
• Viewed cancellation page

Key metrics to track

When measuring Klaviyo performance for subscription businesses, focus on these critical KPIs:

• LTV: how much money a single customer has spent with your business. This metric is the ultimate measure of subscription success.
• Retention rate: the average number of recurring orders a subscriber places. This metric is important to help brands understand the average lifecycle of their customers and the average lifespan that your product can have with an individual.
• Cancellation rates: how many subscribers cancel their subscriptions in a given timeframe. Monitor this metric closely for spikes that might signal product or service issues.
• Engagement metrics: email open rates, click rates, and time spent engaging with content. Engagement metrics like these are important to measure the impact of the content you’re sending subscribers and how it resonates with them.

Common mistakes to avoid

Here are the most common mistakes that subscription brands should avoid:

• Over-campaigning: Don’t try to get too much from existing customers without providing enough valuable content. Remember, these customers have already committed to your brand.
• Lack of transparency: When you don’t remind people about upcoming charges or subscription renewals, it breaks trust and can lead to unexpected churn.
• Poor timing: Don’t send upgrade messages too frequently or at the wrong time in the customer lifecycle. Know your company’s perfect customer lifecycle and align your messaging accordingly.
• Ignoring the long game: Subscription businesses have much longer customer lifecycles than traditional ecommerce brands. Your messaging strategy should reflect this reality.

Klaviyo: your retention engine

Subscription businesses have incredible advantages when it comes to email marketing, but only if they approach it strategically. You know that your customers have already made the commitment to your brand—now your job is to nurture that relationship over time.

The subscription economy isn’t going anywhere, and neither should your customers. With the right Klaviyo strategy, you can make sure they don’t.