Setting up email marketing campaigns in Shopify for Latin America

Shopify Email is Shopify's native email marketing tool, integrated directly into the admin panel. It's easy to use, has access to customer and order data from the store, and is sufficient for stores that need to send basic campaigns and simple flows like abandoned cart and order confirmation. Klaviyo, on the other hand, offers advanced segmentation based on purchase behavior, more complex automated flows, A/B testing, and detailed revenue attribution reports. For stores in Latin America with an active customer base and a budget for growth, Klaviyo is the more powerful option. For stores in early stages, Shopify Email is the right starting point.

The most important automated email flows for a Shopify store in Latin America are: the welcome flow for new subscribers (which introduces the brand and may include a first-purchase incentive), the abandoned cart flow (which recovers between 10% and 20% of lost sales with one to three staggered emails), the post-purchase sequence (which confirms the order, manages shipping expectations, and requests a review), and the re-engagement flow for inactive customers (which brings back buyers who haven't returned in 60 to 90 days). These four flows together can account for between 20% and 35% of a well-configured store's total revenue.

Domain authentication is one of the most important factors for your Shopify store's emails to reach the inbox and not spam. It involves configuring specific DNS records on your domain: SPF (which authorizes Shopify or Klaviyo to send emails on your behalf), DKIM (which digitally signs each email to verify its authenticity), and DMARC (which defines what to do with emails that fail the previous verifications). Without this configuration, your emails are more likely to land in spam, drastically reducing open rates and the impact of your campaigns.

The optimal email sending frequency for Shopify stores in Latin America depends on the business type and customer relationship, but as a general guideline: automated flows (abandoned cart, post-purchase, welcome) are sent based on user behavior, without a fixed frequency. Manual or segmented campaigns work well with one to two per week for active bases, and one per week or every two weeks for colder bases. Sending too frequently without segmentation leads to unsubscribes and harms domain reputation. The key is to send relevant content to the right segment at the right time.

Key metrics for measuring email marketing success on Shopify are: open rate (percentage of recipients who open the email, healthy benchmark: 20-35% in LATAM e-commerce), click-through rate (percentage who click on a link, benchmark: 2-5%), conversion rate (percentage who complete a purchase after clicking), attributed revenue per email (available in Klaviyo and partially in Shopify Email), and unsubscribe rate (if it exceeds 0.5% per campaign, it signals that content or frequency are not well-calibrated). Together, these metrics provide a complete picture of the actual performance of each campaign and automated flow.