Something that trips a lot of store owners up in Klaviyo is the “Accepts Marketing” custom property.
A lot of stores new to Klaviyo think that you can only email to subscribers who have this property set to true. And if anybody on your list has “Accepts Marketing” set to false, then you can’t email them anything.
Below, I’ll explain why this is a flawed thought process and point out two reasons why this breaks down at scale.
Where Exactly Does “Accepts Marketing” In Klaviyo Come From?
Before we can dive into why only mailing to “Accepts Marketing” in Klaviyo is a flawed strategy, we need to understand where that custom property actually comes from.
“Accepts Marketing” is a custom property that is added to subscribers’ profiles in Klaviyo if they check the promotional radio button in Shopify Checkout.
When customers & prospects check that button, they’re then added to the “Accepts Marketing” group in Shopify, which is then synced to Klaviyo.
Now let’s dive into some of the reasons why it’s problematic to only email to profiles who have that set to true.
#1: Store Owners Forget To Sync “Accepts Marketing” To A List In Klaviyo
In order for the “Accepts Marketing” custom property to be set to true inside Klaviyo, you actually need to enable this in your Shopify integration inside Klaviyo.
The reality is after working on hundreds of Klaviyo accounts, a handful of store owners forget to even have this checked on. If it’s not checked on, it will appear as though everyone’s “Accepts Marketing” features are set to false.
SellerFlows recently worked with a store that had over 100,000 people on its list. When we were double checking their settings, we noticed this was not togggled on.
So this was a 100,000-plus-person list with technically everyone’s “Accepts Marketing” property set to false!
#2 Not Everyone On Your List Goes Into The Checkout
Another big problem with relying on “Accepts Marketing” as your default mailing list is that in order for that property to become true, profiles must go into the checkout and accept marketing.
The problem is that a lot of stores capture email addresses well before the checkout.
With pop-up forms like the one above that leads to a welcome flow, many stores don’t always link these forms to the list that accepts marketing.
Best practices for list hygiene are to have only one list and use segments to organize everything else. But I’ve found most stores don’t follow this at scale and/or have a hard time following hard-set rules with multiple team members operating inside Klaviyo.
Instead, I’ve found that these stores often create lists ad-hoc based on the pop-up or lead magnet they’re testing.
Conclusion
Remember that the “Accepts Marketing” property onboards subscribers through Shopify Checkout and will not always be true if you don’t set this up properly or use sign forms before the checkout.
If you’re looking to learn more information on this, Klaviyo’s Sync Shopify Accepts Marketing Customers into a Klaviyo List is always a good resource to refer to.