Organize your subscribers in Klaviyo
Lists and segments allow you to group your subscribers to help you better analyze your audience and target your messages. When you utilize lists and segments, you’ll have the power to build stronger customer relationships.
View the below tabs to better understand the differences between lists and segments in Klaviyo.
Lists & segments
Lists
Lists are:
- Groups of profiles bucketed under an identifiable label.
- Static, meaning people will only be added to a list for manual reasons (e.g., when you upload a new contact or they subscribe via a form).
- Commonly used to store contacts in one place and trigger your welcome series flow.
Example:
Let’s say you’re planning a wedding. You will create one main list that includes everyone you plan to invite.
Segments
Segments are:
- Groups of people defined by a shared set of conditions (e.g., what they’ve done and properties about them).
- Dynamic, meaning they grow and shrink automatically as profiles meet the conditions to be added or removed.
- Commonly used to send personalized campaigns and start segment-triggered flows (like a VIP or sunset flow).
Example:
Before and after the wedding, you keep track of the people you need to thank for giving a wedding gift. This group grows as you receive additional gifts leading up to the wedding, and shrinks as you send thank you notes afterward.
You may refine these groups based on qualities about the wedding attendees: bridesmaids, groomsmen, family, friends, adults, children, etc. since you'll speak to each differently.
It’s important to note that it’s essential to maintain separate main lists for email and SMS. When a subscriber consents to receive email marketing, that doesn’t mean they’ve also consented to receive your text messages. If you send SMS messages to your email subscribers who have not provided explicit consent to receive your text messages, this could result in fines for your business.
Keeping email and SMS lists separate will help ensure you’re always sending to consented profiles for each marketing channel.
Import existing subscribers
Before we move on to list growth strategies in the next lesson, let’s cover how to bring any of your existing SMS subscribers into Klaviyo.
Import a CSV of your existing contacts
If you are migrating to Klaviyo from another provider, you may already have a list of SMS subscribers that you’d like to transfer to Klaviyo. You can do this easily by importing a CSV of your existing contacts:
- In Klaviyo, navigate to Lists & segments on the left-hand navigation menu.
- Click Create new > Create list.
- Name your list, then click Create list.
- Click Upload contacts.
- Drag and drop or upload your CSV file.
Ensure imported subscribers are valid
When you manually import a list of existing contacts, it’s important to ensure that you aren’t uploading any subscribers who have opted out of your SMS program. Re-subscribing contacts who have previously opted out without their consent is against compliance regulations, and could seriously harm your deliverability.
The best strategy to avoid accidentally importing previously unsubscribed profiles is to ensure that the list export from your existing SMS provider contains fields for “consent status” and “consent timestamp”. This allows you to filter and import actively subscribed profiles only as well as add past opt-in data into your Klaviyo profiles.
If changing sending numbers, send a final campaign
If you are changing SMS numbers, it is an industry best practice to send a final campaign from your existing provider informing your subscribers about the upcoming number change. By doing this before you manually upload your subscribers to Klaviyo, you allow consumers to opt out prior to migrating to Klaviyo. You should then feel confident that you’re only uploading contacts that are currently opted-into your SMS program.
Reference this Help Center article for step-by-step instructions for importing existing contacts: How to upload a list of SMS contacts.