How to strategically use RFM properties in campaigns and flows

You will learn

Learn how to use RFM (recency, frequency, and monetary) properties to target specific types of campaigns and content to your customer groups. Either by using the profile properties themselves or by using a segment with the RFM properties, you can tailor your marketing even further.

Before you begin

You have a few options for how to use RFM segments in your campaigns and flows:

• Segment conditions to target and tailor your campaigns.
• Variables with conditional logic in your email templates.
• Properties to target and tailor your flows.

Use segments to tailor your campaigns

You can use segments that have RFM properties (Current RFM group or Previous RFM group) to target customers of certain groups. This is especially helpful as Klaviyo has already done the work of categorizing who these customers are based on their historical purchase behavior.

Examples of using segments in campaign sends could include:

• Targeting Loyal and Champion customers to provide reviews on items.
• Targeting Loyal or Recent customers with new products or product offers to cross-sell and up-sell.
• Targeting Recent customers with a subscription so that they become a Champion or Loyalist.
• Targeting Inactive or At Risk customers with winback campaigns. 
• Targeting Inactive or At Risk customers with entry-level or lower cost items.
• Offering exclusive or time-limited discounts to Inactive or At Risk customers.

Use RFM properties as variables in your email templates

Using RFM properties (Current RFM group or Previous RFM group) as variables within email templates can help to further personalize emails to your specific customer groups. You can dynamically display a block, text, or custom content to a certain customer group, and even show or hide these based on the group.

To show or hide a block based on someone’s group membership, use the example conditional statement below. 

Examples of using variables in email sends could include:

• Personalizing the products that certain customer groups see vs. others by product value or type. For example, Champions or Loyal customers see higher value items vs. Inactive or At Risk that see more entry level items.
• Discounts appear for certain customer groups, such as Needs Attention, Inactive, or At Risk to encourage purchases. 
• Showing a section about leaving product reviews to those only in the Champions or Loyal groups.
• Showing lower priced products to those in Needs Attention or At Risk to encourage purchases.
• Having loyalty points information:
  • For those in Champions, Loyal, Recent, and Needs Attention groups show their tier or status.
  • For those in Inactive or At Risk explain your loyalty program and value they will receive after purchases.

Using RFM properties as variables in flows

Metric-triggered flows

In your metric-triggered flows, use your RFM properties (Current RFM group or Previous RFM group) as variables to personalize a customer’s messaging journey with your brand. This is especially helpful to help create messaging that certain customer segments will receive vs. the others.

Examples of using variables in flows could include:

• Creating a conditional split based on if a person is:
  • a frequent purchaser (Champions or Loyal)
  • or if they are a sometimes or never purchaser (Recent, Needs Attention, Inactive, or At Risk).
• Creating a conditional split based on a customer group’s recent browsing behaviors. 
  • For example, those in Champions, Loyal, or Recent may get a regular browse abandonment message, while those in Needs Attention, Inactive, or At Risk receive a browse abandonment message with an additional discount.
• Create a flow for those in the Champions, Loyal, or Recent group highlighting new products or launches.
• Encourage those in the Champions, Loyal, or Recent group to leave reviews of their products.

Segment-triggered flows

Slightly different from the above, you can use RFM-based segments to launch a segment-triggered flow based on a group's change in status. For example, sending messages to profiles who have recently become a Champion or have fallen into the Needs Attention group.

Examples of using RFM-based segments in flows could include: 

• Targeting customers in the Needs Attention or At Risk groups with time-limited discounts or welcome-back incentives. 
• Reaching out to those who recently became Champions or Loyal customers with “thank you” messaging. You could include a special promotion just for them or welcome them to another tier of your loyalty program.
• Trying to cross-sell new or highly rated products to those who recently became Champions or Loyal customers. 

Following up with post-purchase messaging for those who just entered the Recent group with a time-limited discount to purchase another product.

Using custom metrics with RFM data

Custom metrics allow you to create metrics that align with how your business and data functions. Using custom metrics in the RFM report ensures that you are capturing all data that accurately reflects your business model and how you define your customer groups.

Below are some examples of common use cases:

• Combine all sources of placed orders or revenue for RFM analysis
  Combine revenue from all of your non-Klaviyo integrations, systems (e.g., point of sale), and data tools to ensure that you have the most holistic and recent portrait of your customers spending habits.
• Remove subscription events from counting in RFM analysis
  Standard Shopify integrations, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce will include subscriptions in Placed Order events automatically. You can set up a custom metric to remove these so that you only capture one-time orders. This may be helpful if you want to evaluate customer behaviors based only on product sales, not including recurring subscriptions.
• Exclude $0 or free products from RFM analysis
  Set up a custom metric to exclude purchases that do not have monetary value (e.g., free giveaways, trials, etc.) so that they are not included in order history.
• Only focus on online buying habits for RFM analysis
  With Shopify and some custom integrations, physical retail (POS) and e-commerce orders will come through as a single event (e.g., Shopify Placed Order event). You may want to create a custom metric that removes these POS events, so that you can focus on online sales only. This may be helpful if you want to target customers with special online promotions, shipping information, online-only products, etc.

Additional resources

Getting started with the recency, frequency, and monetary (RFM) analysis report
Understanding scoring and customer groups in the recency, frequency, and monetary analysis (RFM) report
How to build a segment using RFM properties