How to create follow-up messages in omnichannel campaigns

Follow-up messages let you re-engage recipients based on how they interacted with a previous message in your omnichannel campaign, without manually building audience filters. For example, you could send an email to your full audience, then create an SMS follow-up that only targets people who didn't open it. Klaviyo automatically sets up the right audience filters for you, so you can build multi-step, cross-channel sending strategies in just a few clicks.

Before you begin

• This feature is available in omnichannel campaigns only.
• You must have at least 1 existing message in your omnichannel campaign before you can create a follow-up. You can’t create a follow-up from a canceled message.
• An omnichannel campaign can contain up to 30 messages, including follow-ups.
• If you haven’t already, learn the basics of how to create and send an email campaign.

Create a follow-up message

1. Create an omnichannel campaign and add a message, or open an existing omnichannel campaign that contains at least one message.
2. On the message you want to follow up on, click the overflow menu (3-dot icon).
   

3. Select Add a follow-up message. A panel opens where you configure your follow-up.

4. Under Select a channel, choose from the channels available in your account: Email, Text message, Push, or WhatsApp. Text message requires SMS setup; Push and WhatsApp must be enabled for your account.
5. Under Select type, choose Engagement or Custom. For Engagement, select an Engagement type based on the source message.
6. Click Continue.
   

7. If you chose Custom, add your conditions in the filter builder, click Add filter, then click Save in the message panel.

Your follow-up message now appears as a draft in the same audience path as the source message, with its audience filters already applied. Add its content and review its send time before scheduling it.

To schedule your follow-up:

1. Open the follow-up’s Message tab and click Edit to add its content. When you return to the campaign, open the Review tab and resolve any errors.
2. Click Schedule, choose a send date and time after the source message, then click Schedule message. Make sure the source message is also scheduled if it has not been sent.

Choose your follow-up type

When creating a follow-up, you choose between 2 types: engagement or custom.

Engagement

Engagement options automatically build audience filters based on how recipients interacted with the source message. The options you see depend on which channel the source message uses.

If your source message is an email or WhatsApp message:

• Not opened — Targets recipients who did not open the source message.
• Opened — Targets recipients who opened the source message but did not click a link in it.
• Clicked — Targets recipients who clicked a link in the source message.

For a push source message, choose Not opened or Opened. Push does not offer a Clicked option.

If your source message is an SMS:

• Not clicked — Targets recipients who did not click a link in the source message.
• Clicked — Targets recipients who clicked a link in the source message.

Standard SMS does not support open tracking, so only click-based options are available.

Whichever engagement option you select, Klaviyo combines a "Received [source message]" condition with your chosen engagement condition. These source-message conditions check activity over all time. It also requires engagement with the follow-up’s channel in the last 30 days: an open or click for email or WhatsApp, a click for text messages, or an open for push. You can adjust these conditions in Audience filter after creation.

For example, an SMS follow-up to people who did not open your email also requires those recipients to have clicked a text message in the last 30 days.

Email open conditions exclude Apple Mail Privacy Protection opens. Email and text-message click conditions exclude bot clicks when bot click exclusion is enabled in your account.

Custom

Choose custom when you need targeting beyond standard engagement conditions, or want to combine multiple criteria.

The custom option opens the full audience filter builder with only a "Received [source message] since all time" condition pre-populated. From there, add any conditions you need, click Add filter, then click Save in the message panel.

Follow-up defaults

• Send time: The draft’s send time is set to 24 hours after the source message’s send time. If that time has already passed, it is set to 24 hours from when you create the follow-up. Review the time and schedule the message when it is ready.
• Name: [Channel] [Message number] (Follow up of [source message name])

Follow-up messages behave like other campaign messages. You can create additional follow-ups from them and edit or delete them while they are drafts. To change a scheduled follow-up’s content or audience filters, select Revert to draft and confirm, make and save your changes, then schedule it again.

Deleting a source message that has follow-ups

If you delete a message that has follow-ups referencing it, a warning modal lets you know that downstream messages have filter conditions tied to this message.

The follow-up messages will remain in the campaign, but their audience filters will reference a message that no longer exists and may return no recipients. Update or remove the affected filters before sending, then check the estimated recipients on the Review tab.

Additional resources