Klaviyo Migration Challenge: New Sender, Rebuilt Program, Q4 Deadline
The brand sells indie RPGs and solo journaling games online and launched a monthly game subscription on September 15. We started working together in August, when the founder was running email on Seguno alone.
Despite a loyal list and a back-in-stock email that already pulled its weight, they faced real barriers:
- Zero sender reputation: a brand-new Klaviyo account and sending domain with no history at inbox providers
- Nothing to carry over: Seguno templates couldn't be exported, so every email and flow had to be rebuilt
- A Q4 deadline: holiday sales roughly double, so the switch had to be live and warm before then
- No gap in back-in-stock sends: the founder's best-performing email couldn't pause during the move
- A self-managed program: five to six flows, all run by the founder
They needed a partner to move the list without hurting deliverability and turn Klaviyo into revenue before Q4.
Results: Email's Share of Revenue Doubled
29.3% of Store Revenue in October
On Seguno, email drove about 14% of store revenue from May to July. September, the warm-up month, came in at 10.2%. From October 1 to 27, email carried 29.3% of store revenue.
Klaviyo dashboard, Sep 22 to Oct 22 vs. the prior 30 days. The 24.1% shown here includes the last week of the warm-up. October on its own (Oct 1 to 27) came in at 29.3%.
The dashboard's 4.4% "previous period" is low because that window (Aug 23 to Sep 21) fell mostly before the switch, while email still ran on Seguno, and Klaviyo can't see Seguno's revenue. That's why we use Seguno's own reporting (about 14%) as the baseline, even though it doesn't use Klaviyo's 5-day open and click attribution window.
Email Revenue Up 2.7x in One Month
- Monthly email revenue grew 2.7x from September to October
- October email revenue was about 2x Seguno's monthly average for May to July
- Campaign revenue rose 201% vs. the prior 30 days
- From August to October, campaigns drove 61% of email revenue and flows 39%
A 3-Week Warm-Up That Paid for Itself
Nine warm-up sends between September 10 and 30 delivered 20,185 emails and generated 77% of September's email revenue. The Day 3 send to contacts engaged in the last 15 days produced 55% of the warm-up's revenue at a 69.7% open rate.
One spam complaint came in across the whole warm-up (0.005%). Nothing had to be paused or rolled back.
Performance
Why it worked
- The most engaged contacts went first, so inbox providers saw strong signals early
- Each send went only to contacts who hadn't received a warm-up email yet
- Segments were re-exported on send day, so every batch reflected the latest engagement
Flow Revenue Up 47x
Five flows were live by October 12. From September 22 to October 22, flow revenue grew 47x vs. the prior 30 days, and flows went from almost nothing to 44% of email revenue.
The Welcome flow, triggered by the site pop-up, drove 80% of flow revenue on its own and 8.9% of total store revenue. The rest of flow revenue came from:
Deliverability Score of 86, Spam Complaints at 0.003%
After the warm-up, the account settled at a Klaviyo deliverability score of 86. Every core metric beats Klaviyo's recommended benchmark, including a 0.29% unsubscribe rate against a ceiling of 0.30%.
Open rate
45.3%
Benchmark: 33%
Click rate
1.55%
Benchmark: 1.20%
Bounce rate
0.64%
Benchmark: under 1.00%
Spam rate
0.003%
Benchmark: under 0.01%
Our Approach
Phase 1: Tiered List Migration (August to Early September)
The goal was to move only the people who still wanted the emails, in the order inbox providers would trust most.
What we set up:
- A branded sending domain and DMARC, configured before the first send
- Seguno engagement segments at 15, 30, 60, 90, 120 and 180 days, exported as CSVs
- Each tier deduplicated against the earlier ones, so every send reached only new contacts
- Seguno unsubscribes and all-time bounces suppressed, so only opted-in subscribers moved
Key learning:
Re-exporting segments on every send day kept each batch current. It's also the approach Klaviyo support recommends.
Phase 2: The Net-New Tier Warm-Up (September 10 to 30)
We used the founder's own back-in-stock email as the warm-up vehicle, so the best performer never went dark. Sends started with a 98-contact seed list, then 6,710 contacts engaged in the last 15 days, then the 30- to 180-day tiers, net-new only. Day 20 was a blended send to 8,312 contacts.
Open rates fell as the audience got colder, down to 10.4% for the 60-day tier and 8.7% for the 90-day tier. They recovered to 58.1% once those contacts were blended with engaged ones on Day 20.
That drop is the reason to tier. Colder contacts went out in small batches, after engaged contacts had already built the new domain's reputation.
Phase 3: Flows, Campaigns and a Kickstarter (October)
With the domain warm, we launched the flows Seguno never had and built out the campaign calendar heading into Q4.
- September 21: Welcome flow live
- October 5: Added to Cart and Browse Abandonment live
- October 12: Subscription Onboarding live
- October 17: Kickstarter teaser sent
- October 22: Kickstarter launch email sent
The Kickstarter launch
The founder's first original game went to Kickstarter in October. The teaser reached 12,001 contacts at a 49.5% open rate, with an A/B test decided by clicks. The launch email went to 13,426 engaged contacts at a 41.5% open rate.
The game funded on Day 1, the day the launch email went out. As of October 29 it stood at 219% of goal from 170 backers, with the campaign open until November 19.
Overcoming Challenges
Starting With No Sender Reputation
Problem:
- Inbox providers had no history for the new sending domain.
Solution:
- A tiered warm-up: engaged contacts first, and only net-new contacts on each send.
Result:
- A deliverability score of 82 during the warm-up and 86 now, with zero paused sends.
Rebuilding Everything Seguno Couldn't Export
Problem:
- Templates and flows couldn't be moved out of Seguno.
Solution:
- Rebuilt five flows in Klaviyo, adding Browse Abandonment and Added to Cart, which Seguno never had.
Result:
- Flow revenue grew 47x in one month.
Keeping the Best Email Running During the Switch
Problem:
- Back-in-stock was the founder's best-performing email and couldn't go dark.
Solution:
- We made the back-in-stock email the warm-up email itself.
Result:
- The warm-up produced 77% of September's email revenue instead of costing revenue.
A Store Revenue Dip in the Same Window
Problem:
- September store revenue fell 7%: a bestseller was out of stock for about a month, and store traffic dropped after back-to-school. Average order value rose 4%, so the dip was in order volume, not basket size.
Solution:
- We kept October's launch emails to engaged segments and left the cold 180-day lists out.
Result:
- In October, daily store revenue recovered 5.7% and email carried 29% of it.
The Complete Picture
Final Results
What Made This Successful
Strategic Partnership
We reviewed results with the founder and asked for feedback on every call.
Deliverability First
We protected the new sender reputation before chasing revenue, and the revenue followed.
Data-Driven Flexibility
Daily re-exports kept every tier sized to the latest engagement data.
Constraint Innovation
The one email that couldn't pause became the warm-up itself.
Built for Q4
The account was live and warm with weeks to spare before Black Friday.