How to get the most reviews with Klaviyo

I managed to steal some time from one of Klaviyo’s Elite partners, Ben Zettler of Zettler Digital, to find out how brands can best use Junip & Klaviyo together. He sat down with us during the busiest time of the year to talk about his favorite tactics for review messages; specifically around deliverability, A/B testing, SMS sending, and review data in Klaviyo.

Let’s start simple, why might some merchants choose to send review requests through Klaviyo, can’t most review apps send those themselves?

We’re advocates of leveraging a single platform for marketing communications because it’s beneficial for both branding and performance. Email providers like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo favor consistency, so sending all emails from a single server improves deliverability and enhances your brand’s reputation.

Using a tool like Klaviyo provides full visibility into how customers interact with your emails, giving you more control over messaging and their overall experience. It also unlocks advanced features, such as A/B testing, allowing you to analyze how different formats impact engagement and optimize your strategy accordingly.

I’m interested in the A/B testing piece you mentioned. We see a lot of merchants talk about this, but often they don’t know what to test here. What have you found helpful with A/B tests?

For owned marketing testing (ie. email, SMS, or even push notifications), we recommend structuring tests in a similar way as we do for advertising, where what you test depends on your advertising spend. The higher the spend, the more subtle elements you can test.

For brands that have large send volume for review flows, they can test minor changes, like a headline at the top of a message, or the words in a CTA button. For brands with lower send volume (a few hundred emails monthly), I’d suggest focusing on bigger changes, like testing a letter from the founder highlighting your brand’s story and the value of customer feedback, versus offering a giveaway that can be entered by submitting reviews.

We know that deliverability is an important part of being able to send effective review requests. What advice do you have for brands looking to improve the deliverability of Klaviyo review requests?

Deliverability is all about targeting users likely to engage and avoiding those who consistently don’t. Prioritize sending to users who have placed multiple orders, clicked on previous emails, or recently interacted with your site. Conversely, exclude users who haven’t opened or clicked after multiple emails over a long period or who frequently soft bounce.

I like to think of email deliverability like pouring water into a bottle through a funnel: a slow, measured approach ensures success. Sending emails to your entire list at once (“batch and blast”) is like nails on a chalkboard for me. Instead, stagger your sends, starting with highly engaged users, and gradually include less active ones to avoid red flags from email providers. For example, during a major sale, send your 9:00AM launch email to the most engaged users first, then use Klaviyo to gradually reach out to less active segments over several hours.

The same principles apply to review related flows: review requests are triggered for someone that has recently placed an order so they are likely to engage, but if brands are concerned, they can add filters to exclude disengaged users. A thoughtful, segmented approach is key to successful email marketing and strong deliverability.

Is there any benefit to building segments with Klaviyo reviews data?

Absolutely - it's reasonable to assume that users who have left a review previously are more engaged than those that have not. Since Junip can let Klaviyo know when someone leaves a review (and include info like the star rating of the review), you can then use this data to segment these profiles for others actions in the future. For example; you can survey these users, send them limited product releases, give exclusive early access to a sale, or anything else that you may not otherwise send more widely to your entire list.

SMS is a new channel that lots of merchants haven’t quite cracked yet. Do you have any thoughts on how they should approach SMS in review messages?

I am generally not the biggest advocate for sending out a lot of SMS campaign content because it's expensive and not everyone wants to receive SMS content to begin with. In most cases, users have signed up for SMS to receive a first purchase discount incentive, so outside of major sale announcements or an extremely enticing product launch, our rule of thumb is to avoid sending messaging to your entire list.

The power of SMS is in triggered messaging and, in particular, transactional content. Review content can offer a good use-case for this, for example, sending a review request via SMS for users that just had their order delivered 5 days before. To make it more personal, use post-purchase survey data: if someone bought a gift, ask how their loved one is enjoying it instead of the standard “How do you like the product?” to boost engagement.

Ben - thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us and break down some of these concepts. Brands looking to add more bandwidth to their team and supercharge their marketing can get in touch with him at zettlerdigital.com. The team knows how to get the most from Klaviyo & Junip, and they’ve always been a pleasure to work with. They’re currently accepting new clients so you can get in touch with their team to see if it could be a good fit!