How to send order updates via SMS for Shopify

You will learn 

Learn how to send order updates via text to people not opted in to your SMS marketing program. 

These “transactional” messages are a great way to:

1. Expand your SMS audience, potentially converting recipients to sign up for marketing text messages.
2. Decrease customer support questions by proactively providing information about orders.

Before you begin

Please note the following about SMS order updates:

• This feature is only available for paid accounts with Shopify stores.
• Consent given for order updates only applies to that 1 order. 
  • This permission does not apply to SMS updates on any future orders, nor does it apply to SMS send marketing messages
• These messages send to anyone who either subscribed to receive: 
  • Only order updates.
    Or
  • SMS marketing messages.
• Before using this feature, your message must be approved by Klaviyo, either via using a pre-approved template or by submitting a custom message and going through the approval process.
  
  • The approval process can take up to 24 hours (1 business day).
  • Editing a transactional message after it has been approved removes its transactional status, and the message will need to be re-submitted for approval.
• You can send order updates via post-purchase flows triggered by one of these metrics: 
  • Placed Order.
  • Fulfilled Order.
  • Partially Fulfilled Order.
  • Refunded Order.
  • Cancelled Order.
  • Confirmed Shipment.
  • Delivered Shipment.
  • Marked Out for Delivery.
• You cannot use this feature if you are an alcohol brand, regardless of whether you have age-gating or not. 

Note that Confirmed Shipment, Delivered Shipment, and Marked Out for Delivery only sync to Klaviyo if they are available in Shopify, and these events are only available for certain shipping carriers. 

Understand how consent for order updates works

The way someone opts in to receive SMS order updates is by:

• Going to the Shopify checkout page. 
• Inputting their phone number in the shipping address field.
  
• Placing an order. 

When any order-related event (e.g., Placed Order, Fulfilled Order, etc.) syncs to Klaviyo, it includes a field specifying that they've opted in to SMS order updates.

This consent only applies to that 1 order. If someone places multiple orders, they will only receive updates about the order(s) where they inputted their phone number within the shipping address field.

Collect order update consent

If you haven’t already, you must update your settings in Shopify so that you can start collecting consent for order updates.

1. Log in to your Shopify store. 
2. Navigate to Settings > Checkout. 
3. Under Customer contact method, select Email (if it’s not already selected).
   
4. Scroll down to the Customer information section.
5. Locate the option for Shipping address phone number, and select Optional.
   
6. Save your changes.
7. Locate the Checkout language section.
8. Click Manage checkout language.
9. Search for the Checkout contact section.
10. In the Optional phone label field, add the following language: 
    • “Phone number to receive order updates.”
11. In the Phone tooltip field, add the SMS consent language, replacing the URL placeholders with the URLs to your privacy policy and terms of service: 
    • Suggested consent language: “Enter your phone number to consent to order-related text messages (order and shipping updates), including messages sent by autodialer. Consent is not a condition of any purchase. Msg & data rates apply. Msg freq varies. Unsubscribe by replying STOP or clicking the unsubscribe link (where available). View our Privacy Policy [Insert your URL] and Terms of Service [Insert your URL].”
    • Example: “ View our Privacy Policy [mystore.com/polices/privacy-policy] and Terms of Service [mystore.com/policies/terms-of-service].”
    • If you have engineering resources, we recommend adding this language directly to your checkout page. That way, the language is conspicuous to customers, which helps toward compliance. See Shopify’s Help Center for instructions. 
12. Save your changes. 
13. In the left sidebar, click Notifications > Customer notifications.
14. Select Order Confirmation > SMS.
15. If the status is Active, click Deactivate.
    

Create your transactional message

Note that your flow must use one of the following metrics as the triggering event:

• Placed Order
• Fulfilled Order
• Partially Fulfilled Order
• Refunded Order
• Cancelled Order
• Confirmed Shipment
• Delivered Shipment
• Marked Out for Delivery

Creating a custom transactional message

1. Drag an SMS into your flow.

2. Edit the content of your message (e.g., “Your order has shipped! Track it here [LINK]”).

3. Save the content.

4. In the right sidebar, click Apply for transactional status.

   • Note: if you want multiple messages in a flow to be transactional, you must select them one at a time.

5. Wait at least 24 hours (i.e., 1 business day) to see if your message was approved. While waiting:

   • You will not be able to edit the message content.

   • You cannot set up an A/B test.
     

6. After 24 hours, you will see whether your message has been approved or denied.
   

What to do if the message was rejected

If your message was rejected you can:

• Keep the message as-is (and not have it be marked transactional).
• Edit the content and re-submit it for approval.
• Submit an appeal.

For the appeal, you must submit a ticket to Klaviyo Support with the subject line and include:

• “Transactional appeal” as the subject line/reason for the ticket
• Flow message ID
• Example (or 2) of the message you want to send
• Screenshot of your call to action (CTA)
• Estimate of how many times per month someone could receive this message
• The opt-out and SMS disclosure language you’re using
• Links to your privacy policy and terms of service

Targeting your SMS subscribers

Transactional messages send to both SMS marketing and order update subscribers. However, you may want to split your SMS sending depending on which of these groups someone is in.

To do this, you need to use a trigger split and set it to OptedInToSMSOrderUpdates equals True.  (The conditional split can receive SMS marketing only checks for SMS marketing consent, so everyone opted in to only SMS order updates will go down the No path.)

1. Drag in a conditional split and set it to: If someone can or cannot receive marketing > can receive > SMS marketing.
2. On the Yes path, add an SMS message and either create your message and include promotional content, or mark the message as transactional.
3. On the No path, place a trigger split and set it to OptedInToSMSOrderUpdates equals True.
4. On the Yes path of the trigger split, add an SMS message.
5. Create your transactional message and submit for approval.
   
6. Optional: turn off Smart Sending and quiet hours, and turn on UTM tracking.
7. Optional: add an update profile property below the SMS message on the Yes path to track those who opted in only to order updates. Note that you will not be able to send SMS messages directly to these subscribers except for order updates.
   • Here, we set it to Create New Property > Order Updates Only > Boolean > True.
     
8. Update all action status by selecting Update Action Statuses > Live > Update Statuses.

If you have an existing flow that is more complex (with several splits, emails, or time delays), you can switch the splits so that you don’t have to move anything to a different path.

Additional resources

• Help Center:
  • Shopify data reference
  • Understanding SMS consent collection
  • How to create a post-purchase flow
• Blog post: SMS marketing strategies for all levels [+12 Pro tips]