We dive into popular email marketing beliefs we no longer stand by. Some of these hurt. All of them can unlock serious performance gains.
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There’s a dangerous thing that happens once you’ve been in the email game long enough: you start doing things because “that’s just the way it’s done.”
You exclude segments without question. You copy-paste your welcome flow strategy across five brands. You don’t touch your frequency because… spam.
But what if most of those beliefs were wrong? Or outdated?
In this post, we’re unpacking hard lessons from Episode 3 of the Klaviyo Geeks podcast — live from the Klaviyo HQ in London — where we dive into popular email marketing beliefs we no longer stand by. Some of these hurt. All of them can unlock serious performance gains.
Once upon a time, we were told: “Only email people who’ve opened or clicked in the last 30, 60, or 90 days.”
Sounds smart. Protect deliverability. Avoid unsubscribes. But here’s the truth:
When you exclude everyone who hasn’t engaged recently, you’re cutting off 60–80% of your list from hearing from you.
Let’s be clear: Yes, you should exclude spam traps, bounces, or Amazon placeholder emails. But the rest? That’s where long-term revenue lives.
Think of it like this:
📊 Try this: Create a Klaviyo segment of all your profiles and filter by “received an email in the last 30, 90, 180 days.” If most of your list hasn’t heard from you, ask: Why are you paying for profiles you’re not using?
One of the biggest misconceptions in ecommerce email is that you shouldn’t email someone right after they purchase.
In reality, that’s often the best time.
We tested it by creating micro-segments like:
What we found? The 0–3 day cohort was less responsive (no surprise — their order just went through), but cohorts from day 4 onward started converting again.
💡 Lesson: Recent customers are primed. They know your brand. They trust you. If you have a natural upsell or complementary product — now’s the time.
“I once added a dynamic product block to a thank-you email… and it became the second highest revenue-generating automation. Just because we asked.”
Let’s kill this myth: More emails = more unsubscribes = bad.
✅ One of our clients sends daily emails + daily resends and consistently hits 40–50% open rates.
✅ Yes, unsubscribes are higher — but they gain more subscribers than they lose.
✅ No, this doesn’t mean every brand should blast every day. But the fear of frequency is often more damaging than frequency itself.
📈 Smaller brand? You’re probably under-sending. If you send once a week, test twice. Measure impact and unsub rate. Iterate.
💡 Pro tip: Don’t just blast. Use waterfall segmentation:
We’ve seen it too many times: a brand installs a loyalty app, sets up a flow, and checks the box.
But loyalty isn’t:
Loyalty is how your brand treats its customers at every touchpoint.
Are you:
If not, you don’t have a loyalty program — you have a feature.
👀 One example we love: A racing cockpit brand that rewards loyal customers not with discounts, but with exclusive in-game content and racing gloves — items that enhance their experience, not just lower prices.
That’s real loyalty.
Here’s a painful truth: “We increased open rates by 20%” means nothing if your audience is tiny.
Always check:
You can show a 90% increase and still be broke.
Focus on metrics that align with business growth — not just vanity numbers that look good in a dashboard.
If we had to sum this one up?
Challenge your email beliefs. Every. Single. One.
Because most “best practices” are old advice, recycled through new platforms. And the brands winning today? They’re the ones that ask: “Does this actually work for us?”
Want to hear all the unfiltered rants, LinkedIn shoutouts, and spicy takes? Listen to Episode 3 of Klaviyo Geeks, recorded live from Klaviyo’s London HQ.
🎙️ Featuring:
And if you liked this post, drop us a 5-star rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Or share it with someone who’s still stuck in 2016 email strategy.
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