The last flow before they go
A sunset flow is the last step in the customer journey before you (potentially) remove someone from your list. This flow triggers when someone joins a segment of your least engaged subscribers (i.e. people who haven’t opened or clicked an email from you in a long time).
The goal of this flow isn’t meant to drive revenue or site traffic. Its goal is to identify cold profiles and make sure your deliverability stays strong overall. That’s it. If they don’t engage with this final outreach attempt, then you know it’s officially time to remove them from your list.
Expect low engagement on this flow
Sunset flows generally have very low open rates, even lower click rates, and do not generate revenue. This is completely expected. Klaviyo finds that the median open rate for this flow is only 3.66%. If you are hitting that, you’re in a really good place. If your open rate is far higher than this, you may be targeting a more engaged audience than you should be.
Because of the low engagement expected, wait to set up this flow until after you’ve fully warmed your sending infrastructure.
Write a clear subject line and preview text for your sunset email
A great subject line and preview text is often what convinces an unengaged subscriber to open your email. The stakes are high: if a customer does not open this email, you may stop emailing them, so it is important that you convey that to your recipient. If the subject line of this email looks like it could be for any other campaign, they likely won’t open it. Make sure that it is obvious from the subject line that, “if you don’t open this, we’ll stop emailing you.”
Some common phrases used in high performing sunset flows are:
- Is this goodbye?
- This may be your last email
- Still want to hear from us?
Lots of brands use subject lines like these, but don’t worry about standing out from the crowd—it’s more important to have a subject line that is unique compared to the other emails you typically send.
Make your unsubscribe link the main CTA
Alongside your simple content, include a prominent unsubscribe link and tell your recipients to unsubscribe if they are no longer interested in your messages. This gives unengaged recipients a chance to really consider if they want to receive your messages, and opt-out if they don’t. If they don’t click to unsubscribe, that’s great, they really do want to receive your emails.
You can also give them the option to manage their preferences if you segment your campaigns based on content type or frequency by linking to your account's consent preferences page.
Wait a few days before marking a profile for removal
Since not everyone checks their personal email every day, you should set a time delay of a few days before the update profile property step of your flow. Klaviyo’s standard sunset flow template includes a 5-day time delay.
If after 5 days someone has not opened the email, a new profile property will be added to their Klaviyo profile to indicate that they should be suppressed.