Klaviyo Segmentation: The 7 Segments Every Ecommerce Store Needs
The highest-ROI lever in email marketing isn't better copy, it's sending the right message to the right person. Here are the 7 segments that do it.
Table of contents
- Lists vs Segments in Klaviyo: Get This Right First
- The 7 Core Segments
- Segment 1: Active Subscribers
- Segment 2: Engaged Non-Buyers
- Segment 3: First-Time Buyers (Last 60 Days)
- Segment 4: VIP Customers
- Segment 5: At-Risk Customers
- Segment 6: Lapsed Customers
- Segment 7: Never-Purchased Engaged Subscribers
- Predictive Analytics Segments in Klaviyo
- How to Use These Segments Together
- Sources
Most brands using Klaviyo are leaving significant revenue on the table not because their emails are bad, but because they’re sending the same email to 40,000 people who are in wildly different places in their relationship with the brand. The customer who bought yesterday and the customer who hasn’t opened an email in 200 days should not be receiving the same campaign. When they do, your deliverability suffers, your list decays faster, and your revenue per email drops.
Segmentation is the fix. Done properly, it’s not uncommon to see 30–50% revenue increases from campaigns without changing a word of copy, purely from sending to the right people at the right time.
Here’s a number that makes the stakes concrete: stores doing $10M+ in revenue run an average of 134 segments in Klaviyo. Sub-$100K stores average 13. That’s a 10× gap in segmentation sophistication, and it corresponds almost directly to the revenue contribution gap between those tiers. Klaviyo’s ecommerce benchmarks show that email accounts for around 33% of total revenue at the $10M+ level. Segmentation is a large part of why.
Lists vs Segments in Klaviyo: Get This Right First
A list in Klaviyo is static. People are added to it manually or via a subscribe form, and they stay until they’re removed. Your newsletter signup form adds people to a list. That’s it.
A segment is dynamic. Klaviyo evaluates your filter conditions continuously and updates segment membership in real time. Someone who hasn’t opened an email in 90 days automatically joins your at-risk segment. Someone who places their third order automatically joins your VIP segment. You don’t manually move anyone.
Use segments for sending campaigns. Never send a campaign to your full list. Even for a “general” broadcast, send to your Active Subscribers segment (defined below) and exclude anyone who’s suppressed or at extreme churn risk. Your deliverability depends on it.
The 7 Core Segments
Segment 1: Active Subscribers
Who they are: Your warm, engaged audience. These are the people you can send to most frequently without deliverability risk.
Klaviyo filter logic:
Has opened email at least once in the last 90 days- OR
Has clicked email at least once in the last 90 days - AND
Email is not suppressed
How to use it: This is your primary campaign send list. For most brands, this should represent 20–40% of your total list. If it’s less than 15%, you have a deliverability or list health problem.
What not to send: Don’t limit this segment to promotional emails only. These subscribers are warm enough for educational content, brand storytelling, and product launches. They’re your core audience.
Segment 2: Engaged Non-Buyers
Who they are: Subscribers who open and click but have never placed an order. This is where a lot of email revenue gets left behind. These people are interested enough to engage with your content, but haven’t converted yet.
Klaviyo filter logic:
Has opened email at least once in the last 60 days- OR
Has clicked email at least once in the last 60 days - AND
Has placed order zero times - AND
Email is not suppressed
How to use it: These subscribers need a different message than buyers. They’re still in the consideration phase. Send them social proof, first-purchase incentives, and product education. A dedicated “first purchase” campaign sequence often converts 4–8% of this segment when done well.
What not to send: Don’t send them post-purchase content, loyalty program emails, or repeat-buyer campaigns. It creates a jarring brand experience and signals to them that your emails aren’t relevant to where they are.
Segment 3: First-Time Buyers (Last 60 Days)
Who they are: New customers in the critical first-purchase-to-second-purchase window.
Klaviyo filter logic:
Has placed order exactly 1 time- AND
Date of first order is in the last 60 days - AND
Email is not suppressed
How to use it: This segment should overlap with your post-purchase flow, but it’s also useful for targeted campaigns. Send them content that reinforces the buying decision, introduces adjacent products, and builds brand loyalty early. The goal is second purchase within 90 days.
What not to send: Don’t send aggressive discount campaigns. You don’t want to immediately train new customers to wait for discounts. Save those for the at-risk and lapsed segments where the alternative is losing the customer entirely.
Segment 4: VIP Customers
Who they are: Your top 10% by lifetime value (LTV). They over-index on every revenue metric and they respond to exclusivity, not discounts.
Klaviyo filter logic (choose one approach):
Option A: Order count based:
Has placed order at least 4 times- AND
Email is not suppressed
Option B: LTV based (requires revenue data in Klaviyo profiles):
Lifetime value (predicted) is greater than [your 90th percentile LTV threshold]- AND
Email is not suppressed
To find your 90th percentile threshold, go to Analytics → Benchmarks or run a segment with LTV filters and examine the distribution. For most DTC brands, this is somewhere between $300–$800 LTV depending on AOV.
How to use it: Early access to new products, loyalty rewards, exclusive events, and direct lines to your brand. These customers don’t need more discounts. They need to feel like insiders. VIP-exclusive launches consistently outperform standard launches by 40–60% in conversion rate.
What not to send: Generic promotional emails. If a VIP customer receives the same 20% off campaign as everyone else, you’ve wasted an opportunity to deepen the relationship with your highest-value audience.
Segment 5: At-Risk Customers
Who they are: Previously active buyers who are slipping away. They’ve purchased before but haven’t engaged or purchased in 90–180 days.
Klaviyo filter logic:
Has placed order at least once- AND
Date of last order is more than 90 days ago - AND
Date of last order is less than 180 days ago - AND
Has opened email zero times in the last 90 days - AND
Email is not suppressed
How to use it: Win-back campaigns with a compelling reason to return: a new product launch, a personal discount, a “we noticed you haven’t been back” message with a strong hook. At-risk is your last best chance to intervene before a customer becomes lapsed. A well-structured win-back for this segment typically recovers 5–10% of recipients.
What not to send: Don’t send them standard promotional campaigns mixed in with the rest of your list. They need a specific message that acknowledges the gap and gives them a reason to re-engage. Sending them the same campaign as your active subscribers both wastes the opportunity and drags down your campaign metrics.
Segment 6: Lapsed Customers
Who they are: Buyers who haven’t purchased or engaged in 180+ days. Recovery rates drop significantly past this point, but the segment is still worth working. You’ve already paid to acquire these customers.
Klaviyo filter logic:
Has placed order at least once- AND
Date of last order is more than 180 days ago - AND
Email is not suppressed
How to use it: A structured win-back sequence, typically 2–3 emails over 10–14 days, with a meaningful offer (15–20% off is standard) and a clear fallback: if they don’t re-engage after the sequence, suppress them from campaigns entirely. Sending to chronically unengaged contacts kills your sender reputation.
Suppression threshold: If someone in this segment has not opened or clicked any email in 365+ days, move them to a suppression list. They are costing you deliverability.
What not to send: New product launches, loyalty program features, or anything that assumes an ongoing relationship. Their last experience was 6+ months ago. Meet them where they are.
Segment 7: Never-Purchased Engaged Subscribers
Who they are: Similar to Segment 2, but broadened to include subscribers who are engaging consistently but have never bought, regardless of how long they’ve been on your list.
Klaviyo filter logic:
Has placed order zero times- AND
Has opened email at least once in the last 120 days - AND
Subscribed date is more than 60 days ago - AND
Email is not suppressed
The 60-day subscription date filter removes people who are still in their welcome flow. You want people who’ve been around long enough that the welcome sequence didn’t convert them.
How to use it: This is your unconverted warm audience. Test different conversion triggers: urgency campaigns, social proof sends, limited-time first-purchase offers, or educational sequences. A/B test offer types: % discount vs. free shipping vs. gift-with-purchase. The conversion rate from this segment varies widely by brand, but a dedicated push typically yields 3–7%.
What not to send: Post-purchase flows, loyalty content, or anything that assumes a buying relationship.
Predictive Analytics Segments in Klaviyo
Klaviyo’s predictive analytics layer adds two additional segment types that are worth building once your account has sufficient order history (typically 500+ orders).
Predicted High CLV:
Predicted CLV (next 90 days) is greater than [threshold]- Use this to identify rising-star customers before they’ve formally become VIPs. Send them early-access content and loyalty program invitations proactively.
High Churn Risk:
Churn risk is high- This is Klaviyo’s ML model flagging customers who fit the profile of churned buyers based on purchase cadence. Use it as an early-warning trigger for your at-risk win-back campaigns, often 2–4 weeks earlier than a purely date-based filter would catch them.
To access these properties, go to Segments → Create Segment → Predictive Analytics properties. They’re only available on Growth plan and above.
How to Use These Segments Together
These seven segments are not mutually exclusive. A customer can appear in multiple segments depending on how you define the logic. The key principle is this: for every campaign you send, define both who receives it and who is explicitly excluded.
A typical campaign send structure looks like:
- Include: Active Subscribers
- Exclude: VIPs (they get a separate, tailored version), At-Risk Customers (they get a win-back version), First-Time Buyers in active post-purchase flow
Most brands who implement this framework see a 20–35% improvement in campaign revenue within 60 days, not from better subject lines, but from message-audience alignment. The data on personalisation reinforces why: personalised emails average a 30.3% open rate compared to 26.6% for non-personalised sends, and a 2.4% bounce rate versus 3.6%. Sending to the right segment is the most impactful form of personalisation available.
If you want help building these segments and structuring your campaign calendar around them, book a free strategy call.