Intern
What you actually do
Scorecard and path walk. Pause impersonator campaigns. You are not 'doing Q4 creative'.
Library / System / Klaviyo is flows first, campaigns as a pulse — one lifecycle
Klaviyo as an operating layer is named states (browse, cart, buyer, repeat, lapse), flows that earn revenue per recipient, campaigns that sit on segments, suppressions that do not fight, and event truth from Shopify. The failure mode is welcome-as-coupon, cart-as-three-panics, post-purchase-as-review-on-day-zero, and Thursday brand stories that pause the flows. This hub is the layer, not a template gallery.
Klaviyo as an operating layer is named states (browse, cart, buyer, repeat, lapse), flows that earn revenue per recipient, campaigns that sit on segments, suppressions that do not fight, and event truth from Shopify. The failure mode is welcome-as-coupon, cart-as-three-panics, post-purchase-as-review-on-day-zero, and Thursday brand stories that pause the flows. This hub is the layer, not a template gallery.
Score the core flows before you write a campaign: welcome, cart/checkout, post-purchase, replenishment or second purchase, win-back with a stop. If a campaign is doing one of those jobs, kill the campaign, not the flow.
Revenue per recipient on flows is the number. Open rate is a meeting. If RPR is a vibe, do not add traffic.
Discount-first welcome and coupon-first cart train the wrong buyer and train the right one to wait. Proof can precede money off — especially at high AOV.
Holdouts on big sends tell you if the campaign earned its place. No holdout is how every blast looks 'necessary'.
Shopify Email plus Klaviyo is two senders. Pick one lifecycle owner.
Intern
Scorecard and path walk. Pause impersonator campaigns. You are not 'doing Q4 creative'.
Operator
States and flows first. Pulses on top. Suppressions. Event QA on every release. One ESP.
CEO
LTV is a flow system plus manners. Campaign volume is optional. Until RPR and event truth exist, more media is more first-order theatre.
Klaviyo profile, Placed Order and siblings, flow (job), campaign (pulse), segment, suppression, revenue per recipient, sunset/unengaged, SMS as a separate job map.
Event truth → flow filters; dirty Placed Order blocks creative work
State (buyer/repeat/lapse) → next move; campaigns do not impersonate those moves
Active flow member → excluded from colliding campaigns
Unengaged → sunset; complaint rate watched
Placed Order audit. Then a scorecard: each core flow on, filtered, not colliding. Ship the two worst gaps.
Why: Creative on dirty events is theatre. Campaigns on missing flows steal the job.
Done when: A one-page score. Two gaps named for 90 days.
Browse, cart, buyer, repeat, lapse. Each has a flow or a stop. Campaigns mapped to pulses (launch, seasonal), not to states.
Why: Unnamed states are how 'everyone' gets Thursday.
Done when: A table posted. A lapse definition in days.
Placed excludes cart. Recent buyers excluded from acquire. Subscribers excluded from acquire coupons if you have subs. Flow members vs campaign collisions.
Why: Each flow author adding 'just one more' is how you stack.
Done when: Path walk after purchase: no stacked recoveries.
Calendar in Q-minus-1. Segmented. Holdout on the next big one. Flows stay on in peak.
Why: Pausing flows 'to campaign' is how you pay for the same order twice.
Done when: Next campaign has a segment, a date, and flows still live.
Unengaged definition, suppress, do not keep mailing for vanity list size. Complaints weekly.
Why: A museum list is a deliverability bill and a fake asset.
Done when: Sunset rule written. Next blast excludes the museum.
Event audit. Scorecard. Exclusion path walk. List the campaigns that are impersonating flows and pause those. Do not build a new brand story. Ship the two worst flow gaps.
A creative retainer for weekly essays, a new Klaviyo app, or Black Friday inventing until core flows score and events match finance. Campaigns on a missing lifecycle raise unsubscribes, not LTV.
Welcome coupon. Cart panic ×3. Review on day zero. Win-back forever. Campaigns paused the flows last peak. List large. RPR indefensible. That is a campaign tool, not an operating layer.
Events true. Four/five core flows have jobs and exclusions. Campaigns dated and segmented. Sunset real. RPR is a number you would say in a board meeting.
Then they are pulses on segments, not the lifecycle. If weekly is doing welcome/cart/win-back, you do not have flows. You have a calendar.
AOV, replenishment clocks, and subscription state are yours. Clone jobs, not delays and coupons.
Theme launches break events. Later is how you distrust Klaviyo forever. Event tests are part of launch QA.
This week
This week: event truth, flow score, two gaps, kill a campaign-doing-a-flow-job, sunset rule. Flows stay on.
Until stages, fields, and write-in have owners, the sub-account is a filing cabinet.
Read ↗If every automation can fire, none of them is an operating system.
Read ↗If the thank-you does not change the contact, you paid for a brochure.
Read ↗Broadcasts feel like work. A spine with manners is the product.
Read ↗Working notes
Score your Klaviyo and lifecycle system the way an operator would. Request the file. It arrives by email — not a public dump, not a drip of slogans.
Email and WhatsApp stay open. A call is for installing the system — not for a tour of tools.