Prompt best practices for Composer

Composer is Klaviyo's AI marketing agent. You talk to it in plain language, and it analyzes your account, audits your work, and drafts content for you to review. The clearer your request, the better the result. This article shows you how to write prompts that get strong, useful output, with example prompts you can copy and adapt.

Note: Composer recommends, drafts, and checks your work. You review, edit, and approve customer-facing content before it goes live. A good prompt gets you a better starting point, but you always have the final say.

You will learn

• How to write a prompt that gets a strong result
• How to add context when the output looks weak or generic
• Example prompts grouped by goal: analyze, audit, and create
• What to do when results look off, and how to re-prompt

How to write a good Composer prompt

Composer works best with natural language. Write whole sentences, the way you'd describe a task to a teammate, rather than a few keywords. If you aren't sure where to start, copy a product or event description from your website, or write as if you're explaining the topic to a friend.

Strong prompts usually name three things:

• The goal or offer: what you want to accomplish ("a 20% off summer sale," "find out why my welcome flow is underperforming").
• Context about your brand or account: who it's for and any specifics that matter ("for my makeup brand," "for customers who bought in the last 90 days").
• The tone or constraints you want: how it should sound or any limits ("use a professional tone," "keep it under three sentences").

You don't need every element in every prompt. An audit request needs less framing than a creative brief. But the more relevant detail you give, the more your output reflects your actual brand and goals instead of a generic template.

Note: Composer works to reflect your brand's voice and context when it creates content, so you don't have to describe your tone from scratch every time. You can still steer it in the prompt whenever you want a specific feel.

Add context when output is weak

Output quality can vary. If a result is too generic, too long, off-tone, or missing something you care about, add context and tell Composer what to adjust. You don't need to start over from scratch.

Useful ways to add context:

• Name the audience more precisely: "for lapsed VIP customers" instead of "for customers."
• Add the specifics: the exact offer, product names, dates, or the metric you care about.
• Set the tone or format: "make it punchier," "use a more formal tone," "give me the top 3 only."
• Point at a reference: when you start from existing content, describe what you want Composer to change rather than re-describing the whole thing.

You can keep refining in the same conversation. Change your prompt for more varied results, or paste a result you liked back into the prompt to get similar ideas.

Example prompts by goal

Use these as starting points and swap in your own details. The clearer and more specific you make them, the better the output.

Analyze

Ask Composer questions about your account and your performance in plain language. Name the campaign or flow, the time period, and the performance measure you care about, such as click rate or attributed revenue. Specify the channel if you want to focus on email, SMS, or push rather than all channels. If you want a comparison, name both periods or the campaigns or flows to compare.

Analyze my flow performance over the last 30 days and tell me what stands out.

Why is my welcome flow underperforming?

Which of my email campaigns had the highest attributed revenue over the last 30 days?

Are any of my flows conflicting with each other?

Audit

Ask Composer to review existing work before you send or publish it. Name the flow, campaign, form, segment, or message you want reviewed. For requests such as “Audit this email” or “QA this campaign,” open the relevant content first so Composer has the page context. Review the findings and decide which recommendations to act on.

Audit my flows and tell me what needs attention first.

QA this campaign before I send it.

Audit this email and flag anything that could hurt deliverability or accessibility.

Audit the SMS in my welcome flow for compliance and length.

What's wrong with my welcome pop-up form?

Do a full audit on all my segments and rank the issues.

An audit returns findings. When an email audit offers Apply recommendations, you can ask Composer to prepare selected fixes, then review the revised template before saving it. Make other changes in the relevant Klaviyo editor. For the full process, see How to audit with Composer.

Create

Brief Composer with a goal and it drafts email, push, SMS, and MMS content for you to review and edit. You can also ask it to build a flow or a segment. Name the channel you want in your prompt. To use SMS, MMS, or push, first set up that channel in your account; SMS and MMS also require a configured sending number.

Create a summer sale campaign for customers who bought in the last 90 days.

Build an email and SMS campaign for lapsed customers with a 20% off offer, in a friendly tone.

Create a Father's Day campaign for VIP customers.

Draft a launch email for our ultra-cushioned trail running shoe, with a bold, energetic voice.

Create a push notification campaign announcing our flash sale, with a short punchy title.

Build a welcome flow with three emails and one SMS, spaced over five days.

Create a segment of profiles with email consent who have ordered 3 or more times in the last 6 months.

Ask Composer to use a connected app

Connect the app before asking Composer to use it. Open Customize > Connectors, install an available app, and check that it appears under Enabled. If it is disabled or needs authentication, enable or reconnect it first. See How to connect and use apps in Composer.

In your prompt, name the app, identify the source or date range, and describe what you want Composer to produce. Include decisions it should ask you about before drafting, such as the audience or offer. For example:

• “Show me my recent Canva designs and ask which one to use for a campaign email. Ask about the goal and audience before drafting.”
• “Review my Shopify orders from the last 30 days and identify my 3 best-selling products. Show the findings, then ask which products and offer to feature in a campaign.”

“Review the email design in this Figma frame and suggest 5 subject lines and preview texts that match it. Ask me about the audience first.” Include the link to the Figma file or frame in your request.

Check that the response uses the intended app, records, and time period. Verify findings against the source and review any draft before saving or sending it. If the request needs an unavailable action, open the connector’s detail page and expand its tool count to check what it supports.

What to do if results look off

Composer is built to ground its output in your Klaviyo account and connected brand sources. But like any tool built on large language models, it can occasionally produce content that's inaccurate, off-tone, or not quite what you asked for. Always review before you use or send anything.

If a result looks off:

1. Verify the facts: Check prices, discounts, product details, dates, and any factual claims against your own records. You are responsible for the accuracy of your final content.
2. Re-prompt with more detail: Tell Composer what was wrong and what you want instead, in the same conversation. Include the missing details or an example of the result you want.
3. Ask for alternatives: Change your prompt for more variety, or reuse a result you liked to get similar ideas. Generating new options can use additional Composer capacity, so keep your plan's usage in mind as you refine.
4. For generated campaigns, test before you commit: Consider A/B testing a few of Composer's options rather than assuming the first draft is the best one.

Note: Content generation is weaker on image-heavy or fully image-based templates. If you build emails primarily from flattened images, set your expectations accordingly and plan to do more editing.

Note: Composer requests can use plan capacity, and usage varies with the action and its complexity. See How your Composer plan works for estimated costs and how to track usage. If you are on an early adopter paid plan or still within a legacy 90-day free trial, see How Composer credits work (Legacy) instead.

Additional resources