How to create a sunset flow

You will learn

Learn how to set up a sunset flow that is designed to phase out customers who are no longer engaging with your brand. You can use this flow as a last-ditch effort to win back their business, and then delete or suppress anyone who is not responsive. You will also see how this recommended sunset segment definition connects to the prebuilt Sunset (Email) segment in the Segment library. This will help you maintain a clean list and avoid having inactive customers count toward your active email profile limit.

When to sunset subscribers

Since sunset flows act as a final effort to engage profiles, you should sunset lists and segments that you plan to suppress. Once you suppress a profile, they will be unable to receive marketing emails and promotions from your brand. By sunsetting these profiles, you have an opportunity to exclude profiles that engage with the flow from suppression, as they still are valuable to keep as active and send to.

Email suppression does not affect a profile’s ability to receive SMS messages or push notifications.

You should also sunset profiles as they become inactive, or churn as customers. It no longer makes sense to keep them as active in your account and have them count toward your active email profile limit. These are profiles that have demonstrated a long, sustained period of inactivity (i.e., no website visits, purchases, or marketing engagement). Due to this sustained period of inactivity, it is highly unlikely that these profiles will engage with your brand again.

Once a profile is no longer generating any revenue for your business in Klaviyo and you do not see any opportunity to win them back, you can take action to suppress them so they do not count toward your active email profile limit.

Set up a sunset segment

A sunset flow is triggered when a profile is added to a particular segment. While the recommended segment below enables you to identify and sunset profiles that have demonstrated a long period of inactivity, you can run any segment or list you plan to suppress through a sunset flow.

To identify profiles that have demonstrated sustained periods of inactivity, build the following segment and run it through a sunset flow. These conditions identify profiles with no recorded activity for any of the events listed below, even if their profiles have existed for years.

• If someone can or cannot receive marketing > Person can receive email marketing
  AND
• Properties about someone > Created is at least 180 days ago
  AND
• What someone has done (or not done) > has Received Email at least 5 in the last 72 weeks
  AND
• What someone has done (or not done) > has Opened Email 0 times over all time
  AND
• What someone has done (or not done) > has Clicked Email 0 times over all time
  AND
• What someone has done (or not done) > has Active on Site 0 times over all time
  AND
• What someone has done (or not done) > has Viewed Product 0 times over all time
  AND
• What someone has done (or not done) > has Checkout Started 0 times over all time
  AND
• What someone has done (or not done) > has Placed Order 0 times over all time

This definition appears as the prebuilt Sunset (Email) segment in the Segment library. The suppression recommendations on the Suppressed profiles page use stricter criteria: profiles must have been created at least 365 days ago and must not have had a suppression added in the last 90 days.

1. Navigate to Audience > Lists & segments, then select the Segment library tab. Select Sunset (Email).

2. Review the Sunset (Email) definition, enter a name, and optionally add tags. Click Create to create the segment.

If Sunset (Email) is not listed, create the segment manually:

1. From Audience > Lists & segments, select Create > Segment.
2. Name your sunset segment. If a naming dialog opens, click Create segment to continue to the definition.
3. Add the conditions listed above, connecting them with AND, then click Create segment.

Deliverability benefit

Suppressing profiles that remain unengaged helps you maintain a clean list and protect your sending reputation. Repeatedly sending to inactive inboxes can hurt deliverability. Klaviyo also provides recommendations for low engagement profiles on the Suppressed profiles page, using the stricter criteria described above.

After you set the sunset flow live, profiles that enter the segment can receive the final emails from your brand before you suppress those who remain unengaged.

Keep the sunset flow limited to a final attempt to re-engage these profiles. Continuing to include them in regular campaigns or repeatedly sending re-engagement emails can put your sending reputation at risk.

Set up a sunset flow

After setting up your sunset segment, you will need to build a flow that is triggered by being added to your sunset segment. We recommend using a pre-built sunset flow from the flows library.

1. Navigate to the Flows tab.
2. Click Create flow to view the flows library.
3. In the search bar, search for "sunset" to see Klaviyo's pre-built sunset flow.
4. Click on the pre-built "sunset unengaged subscribers" flow.
5. In the trigger dropdown, select your sunset segment.
6. Click Use template to create the flow.
7. Customize the message content to match your brand. Check the profile filters, final time delay, and Property update action against the setup instructions below.

Create a sunset flow from scratch

If you'd prefer to create a flow from scratch:

1. Navigate to the Flows tab.
2. Click Create flow.
3. Click Build your own.
4. Name your flow and select Create manually. If the dialog shows Create flow instead, click that button.
5. In the flow builder, select All triggers > Added to segment.
6. Select your sunset segment.
7. Add Profile filters requiring Opened Email 0 times since starting this flow AND Clicked Email 0 times since starting this flow. These filters prevent profiles that open or click an email, including another email sent while they are in the flow, from receiving later sunset emails or being marked for suppression.

1. Click Save, then Confirm and save to finish setting up the trigger.
2. Add 1 to 3 emails that prompt customers to unsubscribe if they are no longer interested in receiving emails from you. It is best to limit this flow to be no more than 3 emails because you don’t want to repeatedly contact people who are unengaged, since this can hurt your deliverability. Anyone who unsubscribes will be suppressed automatically, with no further action needed on your (or their) part.
3. After the last email, drag in a short time delay to give recipients a grace period to open or click the email. Here, the grace period is 3 days, assuming a daily sending frequency. If you send less regularly, push the grace period to be a longer time period, such as 7–10 days.
   

1. Drag Property update after the grace period. This action marks profiles that have not engaged for later suppression; it does not unsubscribe or suppress them.
2. Select the action, click Add step, and choose Create new property. Name the property Unengaged, select Boolean, set the value to True, and click Save.

Profiles that open or click an email since starting the flow fail the profile filters and skip the property update, so Unengaged = True is not added to their profile.

Once unengaged subscribers are tagged as Unengaged = True, they will exit the flow.

Turn on your sunset flow

1. After configuring and previewing your emails, click Review and turn on. Select Live under Flow status, choose Update status now, and click Save. Check that the emails and the Property update action are live; unconfigured actions remain in draft.
2. If your sunset segment already contains profiles, follow the Add past profiles steps below to include them.

Suppress unengaged profiles

Profiles that reach the final Property update action are marked Unengaged = True and can now be suppressed. Review the segment before suppressing it, particularly if time has passed since the profiles completed the flow.

Selecting Suppress current members opens a confirmation dialog. If Suppress inactive profiles and Suppress everyone appear, review the counts and choose whether to keep recently active profiles. Suppress inactive profiles keeps subscribed profiles that have not marked your emails as spam and have clicked an email or purchased in the last 6 months. If no profiles qualify to stay active, you still need to confirm suppression. Learn more about how to manage email suppressions and delete profiles in bulk.

If you manually suppress a profile and then unsuppress it, you cannot manually suppress it again until 90 days after the previous suppression. This restriction does not apply during the first 30 days after an account is created.

1. Navigate to Audience > Lists & segments.
2. Select Create > Segment.
3. Name your segment something that makes it clear it’s meant for suppression. If a naming dialog opens, click Create segment to continue to the segment definition.
4. Add the following segment definition:
   1. Properties about someone > Unengaged > is true.
      

5. Click Create segment.
6. Back on Lists & segments, open the action menu to the right of your new segment.
7. Choose Suppress current members. Review the confirmation dialog and any available suppression choices, then click Suppress profiles (or Bulk suppress, if that is the button shown). This applies to the selected current members, not profiles that join later. Profiles that are already suppressed remain suppressed.

Repeat suppression before future campaigns to phase newly marked profiles out of your email audience. The Property update action does not suppress profiles automatically, and there is no native flow action for email suppression.

A developer can automate suppression using Klaviyo’s API. See Solution Recipe 9: Use Klaviyo Flow Webhooks to Automate Suppressions Using Segments and Klaviyo’s APIs.

Flow content best practices

We recommend using plain text and being as personal as you can in the email by using the {{ first_name }} tag and a sender name like "Marissa from Klaviyo." Include content about any new products that have been released since they've become unengaged and consider offering a discount to entice them to buy.

You will want to include prominent unsubscribe and manage preferences links, in case subscribers want to update their settings rather than unsubscribe completely.

In the email(s), give recipients the option to browse your site or otherwise interact with you if they do want to remain subscribed. Below is an example from Princess Awesome.

In addition, indicate in the email subject line that you will say goodbye to these subscribers if they continue to not engage (e.g., “Is it time to say goodbye?” or “We miss you already”). For instance, the email below from Framebridge has the subject line: “Goodbyes are hard...”

Add past profiles

When you create a sunset segment, it is populated with profiles that already meet its criteria. These existing members do not automatically enter the sunset flow. The flow triggers when profiles newly qualify for the segment after the flow is set up.

If you'd like to add past profiles to your flow:

1. Make sure the flow’s messages are set to Manual or Live before adding past profiles. Manual messages require review before sending.
2. Click the Add past profiles icon on the trigger card.

3. Select At the beginning so eligible existing profiles start with the first step of the sunset flow, then click Add profiles. Throughout the flow places profiles based on when they joined the segment, so it can skip earlier emails.

Learn more about the effects of adding past profiles to a flow.

Additional resources