How to standardize country names and utilize standardized properties

You will learn

Learn how to standardize country names with Klaviyo’s data transformation tool and use the results in flows, reports, and segments. A standardization transformation applies your rules to a new profile property and keeps the original property unchanged.

For example, you can standardize US, USA, and United States to United States in $country__transformed, while $country keeps each profile’s original value.

Standardize country names

You can either use Klaviyo’s pre-built country standardization transformation, or create a transformation from scratch.

Standardize country names using a pre-built transformation

The data transformation tool has some pre-built transformations that you can easily enable, including 1 for standardizing country names.

1. Navigate to Data management > Transformation, then select the Profile properties tab. If this is your first transformation, you’ll see the pre-built transformations on the page. If you already have transformations, click Create.

2. Select Standardize country names to open the transformation builder.

3. Review the pre-built standardization rules and edit them to fit the country names and replacement values you want to use.

By default, the pre-built transformation includes the following countries, along with different variations of each name:

• United States
• United Kingdom
• Canada
• Spain
• France
• Italy
• Germany
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Ireland

1. Click Save to activate the transformation.

Klaviyo creates $country__transformed for existing profiles with a country value and applies the transformation to future profile updates. The transformation shows In progress while existing profiles are being updated, then Active when that update finishes.

Standardize country names from scratch

To create a country standardization transformation from scratch:

1. Navigate to Data management > Transformation, then select Profile properties. Click Create. If the pre-built transformation chooser opens, click Create again to open a blank builder.
2. Select Standardize under Method and $country under Profile property. The new profile property name is $country__transformed.
3. In the If value condition, select Equals to match a complete country name, or Contains to match text within a value.

1. Select Text as the data type for If value.
2. Select the country-name variations to replace under If value, such as US and USA. The dropdown shows up to 512 existing values for the profile property, and you can select up to 30 values per rule. To add a match value that is not listed, select Enter new value, enter it, and click Enter. This adds the value to the rule without changing existing profiles.

3. In the Replace with condition, select Text as the data type for the replacement value.
4. Enter the standardized country name under Replace with, such as United States.
5. To standardize another country, click + Add rule and configure its match values and replacement. You can add up to 50 rules to the transformation.

Rules run in order, and a later rule can match a value produced by an earlier rule. Avoid rules that replace one another’s standardized country names. If no rule matches, $country__transformed keeps the original country value.

1. Click Save to activate the transformation.

Klaviyo updates existing profiles and applies the rules to future profile updates, keeping $country unchanged. Wait for the transformation’s status to change from In progress to Active before using the standardized values for your full audience.

Use cases for standardized country names

By standardizing country names with Klaviyo’s data transformation tool, it is much easier to utilize country data across Klaviyo. Below are common use cases for standardized country names in Klaviyo.

Set up region-based flows

Standardizing country names allows you to more effectively personalize flows based on the region a customer is located in. Variations in country names can cause customers to go through conditional splits in a flow incorrectly, or require conditional splits with many conditions to account for each variation. By transforming country names, these variations can be standardized to a single format, making it easy to create splits based on a single value.

Use $country__transformed in a flow split to route profiles by their standardized country name. Add localized emails to the resulting paths. You can update product recommendations, include different privacy policies and terms and conditions, and otherwise personalize content to specific locales.

Create country paths with Split

If the Logic section of your flow builder shows Split, use it to create a path for each country you want to target.

1. Drag Split from Logic onto the flow, then select it to open its configuration panel.
2. On a country path, click Add path criteria. Set Properties about someone > $country__transformed > equals and enter a standardized country name, such as United States.
3. Click Save to save the path criteria. If you are editing a live or manual flow and the button says Apply, click it to return to the paths, then click Save on the split.
4. Click Add path to add another country, then set and save its country criteria. Save the split after adding your paths.
5. Add localized emails to the country paths and a default email to Everyone else for profiles that do not match a country path.

Use conditional splits

Existing conditional splits continue to use Yes and No paths. If your Logic sidebar offers Conditional split, you can also add one for country-based routing.

1. Select an existing conditional split, or drag Conditional split from Logic onto the flow and select it.
2. Set Properties about someone > $country__transformed > equals and enter a standardized country name, such as United States. Click Save. Profiles that match take the Yes path; other profiles take the No path.

In the example below, a conditional split sends customers entering a welcome flow down 2 different paths based on whether they are located in the United States. This allows you to better personalize the email subscribers receive based on location.

You can also combine multiple conditional splits based on $country__transformed to create a series of country paths. Profiles travel down the No path for each split until they match the split for their country, or reach a default email if none of the country conditions match.

Measure performance

Standardizing country names makes country-based custom reports easier to interpret. Instead of separate results for variations such as US and USA, use $country__transformed to group results under the standardized country name.

Custom reports use the profile property values recorded with each event. Updating existing profiles with $country__transformed does not regroup older events under that property. To compare results using the standardized country names, choose a timeframe after the transformation has finished updating existing profiles.

To create reports about performance by country, navigate to Analytics > Custom reports.

Click Reports Library to start with a pre-built report, or Create from scratch to build your own. The examples below use reports from the library.

Sales by country

The Sales by Country report in the Reports Library shows sales by country. You can customize the metrics included in the report and the timeframe you want to analyze.

1. Select Sales by Country in the Reports Library, then click Create Report to open its configuration. If the dialog shows Data Required, address the listed requirements first.
2. Under Group or Filter, change the country grouping to $country__transformed. Use a grouping to compare countries; a filter limits the report to selected values.

3. Review the metrics and choose the timeframe to analyze.
4. Click Save & Run Report to generate the results.

Email performance by country

The Email Engagement by Country report in the Reports Library compares email engagement by country, including opens, clicks, and unsubscribes. You can customize the metrics included in the report and the timeframe you want to analyze.

1. Select Email Engagement by Country in the Reports Library, then click Create Report to open its configuration. If the dialog shows Data Required, address the listed requirements first.
2. Under Group or Filter, change the country grouping to $country__transformed.

3. Review the metrics and choose the timeframe to analyze.
4. Click Save & Run Report to generate the results.

Build regional segments

With the country name standardization, you can also easily create location-based segments. Since the values for country names are standardized, you don’t have to create multiple conditions to capture each variation of a country name.

To create a segment that includes profiles in a specific country:

1. Navigate to Audience > Lists & segments. Click Create > Segment, or select the Segment card if you have not created any lists or segments yet.
2. Enter a name for the segment. If the name dialog appears before the builder, click Create segment to continue to the builder.
3. Select Properties about someone > $country__transformed > equals.

4. In the Dimension value field, enter the standardized name for the country you want to include in the segment.
5. Optional: To include multiple country conditions, combine them with an OR operator.

6. Click Create segment to save the country conditions and create the segment.

You can use these localized segments to personalize your marketing based on the country a profile is located in, targeting them with different content, like languages, deals, and product recommendations.

Additional ways to use data transformation

The following common transformations can also help you clean and format data so it can be utilized more effectively in segmentation and personalization:

• Standardize U.S. state names
• Standardize city names
• Format first names
• Standardize genders
• Reformat custom profile properties like quiz results

Additional resources