How do you evaluate a Klaviyo agency before hiring one?

In simple terms, our advice is always looking beyond the sales pitch and understanding who will actually work on your account. Better understanding how they think strategically and above all else, their application of Klaviyo using commercial acumen. You should also assess how they approach areas like deliverability, segmentation, customer lifetime value and retention – not just a top level attributed revenue figure. Strong Klaviyo partners will often ask thoughtful questions about your business, customer behaviour and wider business goals before proposing solutions – if they don’t this can be a telltale sign they are quite generic on their approach.

Can a Klaviyo agency improve my email revenue?

Yes, it needs to pay for itself in both subscription but also management fees. A capable and expert Klaviyo partner should improve your email revenue but the best agencies focus on improving quality and sustainability of that revenue. Short term volume gains are often associated with negative longer term consequences. Key areas they should help impact include: Better flow infrastructure Improved segmentation Stronger campaign planning Deliverability improvements Reduced churn Better customer journeys Increased repeat purchase rates Improved customer lifetime value

How much does a Klaviyo agency charge per month?

Pricing for Klaviyo management varies significantly depending on the level of support, campaign volume, automation complexity and strategic involvement. Some agencies can charge as little s a few hundred pounds per month through to tens of thousands. Our model starts from around £400 per month for the basic level of support, raising to more enterprise focused levels of £2,400+ which is often associated with full control campaigns. Our top level of investment will cover everything from design, segmentation and deliverability. Ultimately though the main question is what will this spend generate in profit; commercial viability should be the root assessment – which can dictate the level of involvement required.

How to choose the right Klaviyo agency

Finding a partner that fits

Most agencies sound similar on the surface, what matters is what sits underneath the shop front. Commercially driven, margin awareness and supporting wider business goals defines the best Klaviyo agencies.

We'll present our ideas below on how to evaluate a Klaviyo agency.

Key metrics to evaluate an existing Klaviyo agency

Before consider a new Klaviyo agency – let’s look at how to evaluate your current one. Even if you picked one of the best Klaviyo agencies in the UK – it doesn’t always mean the staff working on your account are best suited to your objectives.

A core challenge with Klaviyo is there are mechanisms that will drive short term growth at the cost of long-term deliverability. It can be hard to identify this but there are common symptoms.

Below, we’ll cover our key metrics to watch for in order to effectively evaluate your Klaviyo agency.

Specific Klaviyo metrics to evaluate

Revenue growth vs. revenue quality

There are some short viewed tactics an agency can deploy in order to boost attributed revenue - some of the key signs are:

Unsubscribes are rising
Engagement rates are falling
Spam complaints are increasing
Deliverability is weakening
Customers are disengaging faster

A strong agency delivering performance would be building up repeat purchase revenue, customer lifetime value, revenue per recipient, revenue efficiency and retention revenue consistency. If you are unsure on these metrics, your agency should be able to create a report for you - or seek the help of a third party agency to carry out an audit.

Database Growth & Subscriber Quality

We've seen many Klaviyo accounts grow their email list in an unhealthy way - the key things you need to ascertain to see how you're growing yours:

Net subscriber growth
Unsubscribe trends
Suppression growth
Spam complaint rates
Bounce rates
New subscriber engagement
Segment fatigue

A critical part of unhealthy list growth is it will be pushing up your Klaviyo billing - it's important to get your Klaviyo flows in order to help triage your user into sunsetting if they aren't viable.

Engagement trends over time

Isolated snapshots can be problematic when looking at Klaviyo trends, temporary spike scan happen, especially through promotional or seasonal periods. On a long term basic, some of the areas you need to watch for in way of decline include:

Open rates
Click rates
Active subscriber percentages
Campaign engagement
Flow engagement

Context is key here - some can indicate a deeper issue with messaging, segmentation or send frequency but this needs to be packaged up into trends and wider business context; areas such as pop-ups or data collection can come into play here.

Deliverability Health

One of the key pillars to any successful Klaviyo strategy is deliverability health; without this it all falls down and ultimately, makes it very difficult to recover from. This should be at the heart of what the agency does; even if it means slower revenue growth. Deliverability health can be masked but if you have excellent creative and strong offers and inbox placement is weak, performance eventually suffers across the entire CRM channel. The warning signs include:

Declining open rates across all sends
Rising spam complaints
High inactive subscriber percentages
Increased Gmail or Outlook filtering
Sudden campaign inconsistency
Sharp fluctuations in flow performance

Klaviyo agencies at a minimum should be actively managing areas like domain reputation, list hygiene, warm up strategies where applicable and send frequency control. Deliverability can be slow moving and difficult to recover from once established.

Flow performance vs. campaign dependency

We're talking more specifically around mature Klaviyo setups here. Robust retention infrastructure usually includes a set amount of automations (within DTC/eCommerce). Some of the core Klaviyo flows we'd expect to see within a diverse account would include the following:

Welcome series
Abandoned cart
Browse abandonment
Post-purchase
Win-back
Back in stock
Subscription retention
Replenishment flows

If a Klaviyo account is heavily reliant upon constant promotional campaigns without strong automated retention systems underneath, that can become difficult to scale in a sustainable way.

Commercial understanding

One of the clearest signs you're working with one of the top Klaviyo agencies is their understanding, and ability to apply, wider business performance. They understand operations, return rates to some degree and constantly align product and service pushes to commercially viable areas. Let's look into some of those care areas:

Profitability
Margins
Repeat purchase windows
Customer acquisition costs
Subscription churn
Retention efficiency
Product performance

The risk to any business is if conversations stay entirely within Klaviyo dashboards, without looping back to actual business growth - it can be concerning, as attributed revenue doesn't always mean revenue-added unfortunately.

Red flags that may signal it's time to reconsider your agency

We’ve looked at some specific areas, taking a wider view of performance, there are a few key areas that would indicate red flags on the partnership, or even amber. Let’s look through these in more details.

Failing engagement across multiple months
Heavy send frequency increases outside of key trading periods
Rising unsubscribe or spam complaint rates
Poor communication or slow execution
No strategic evolution over time
Generic reporting
Over-reliance on discounts
Weak deliverability knowledge
High attributed revenue but weak repeat customer growth

Amber Agency flags

Some potential amber flags would include:

Slowing subscriber growth
Flatlining flow performance
Campaign fatigue
Declining click-through rates
Increase inactive audience percentages
Weak segmentation depth
Reactive rather than proactive strategy
Limited commercial understanding

A dangerous game is formed when the objective is send more emails; top Klaviyo agencies know that growth can be medium to long term but sustainable.

Step

Focus on the people

Many people will focus on the agency name. Start by understanding who is actually working on the account and their credentials. A strong agency name means very little if the delivery teams lacks experience or strategic understanding.

Step

Their proposed growth strategy

Once shortlisted, you will likely need to give access to your account for a specific growth strategy proposal. Anyone can point our flaws in an account; what would they prioritise first? Does this make sense? Generic recommendations will likely provide insights into their service delivery.

Step

Review legals carefully

Properly review how the agency is structuring contracts and notice periods; long term agreements often protect their revenue and not the growth of yours. Highly effective Klaviyo agencies don't need contractual agreements to drive performance - although you will need to give the agency sufficient time to make changes - often 6-15 weeks.

Some frequency asked questions about Klaviyo agencies

In simple terms, our advice is always looking beyond the sales pitch and understanding who will actually work on your account. Better understanding how they think strategically and above all else, their application of Klaviyo using commercial acumen.

You should also assess how they approach areas like deliverability, segmentation, customer lifetime value and retention – not just a top level attributed revenue figure. Strong Klaviyo partners will often ask thoughtful questions about your business, customer behaviour and wider business goals before proposing solutions – if they don’t this can be a telltale sign they are quite generic on their approach.
Yes, it needs to pay for itself in both subscription but also management fees.

A capable and expert Klaviyo partner should improve your email revenue but the best agencies focus on improving quality and sustainability of that revenue. Short term volume gains are often associated with negative longer term consequences. Key areas they should help impact include:
- Better flow infrastructure
- Improved segmentation
- Stronger campaign planning
- Deliverability improvements
- Reduced churn
- Better customer journeys
- Increased repeat purchase rates
- Improved customer lifetime value
Pricing for Klaviyo management varies significantly depending on the level of support, campaign volume, automation complexity and strategic involvement. Some agencies can charge as little s a few hundred pounds per month through to tens of thousands.

Our model starts from around £400 per month for the basic level of support, raising to more enterprise focused levels of £2,400+ which is often associated with full control campaigns. Our top level of investment will cover everything from design, segmentation and deliverability.

Ultimately though the main question is what will this spend generate in profit; commercial viability should be the root assessment – which can dictate the level of involvement required.

Finding the best Klaviyo agency for your needs

With a few additional considerations

Spending more time during the pitching process to find the right agency for your business will nearly always pay off long-term. Choosing a retention partner should go far beyond pricing or sales presentations. Below are some of the key pillars we’d expect to be discussed before commissioning a new Klaviyo agency.

Klaviyo partner status

We’ve noticed a trend around agencies that sell Klaviyo services classify themselves are partners, but in the Klaviyo directory they don’t have any record there – if they are potentially dishonest around this part of the account; it doesn’t hold well for the wider promises they make you. You can find our directory listing here.

A/B split testing strategy

Stagnation within Klaviyo management, especially around flows and campaign presumptions, is particularly problematic. A solid Klaviyo agency will get around this by carrying out A/B testing – reviewing new approaches, learning and adapting the strategy. Each test is specific to the client but without this, the account risks falling under generic management and may not fully align, or be best suited, to wider business goals.

Singular points of failure

Understanding the service delivery team on your account is really important for choosing your agency. Having a singular person who is overseeing all of the work often causes a few challenges further down the line, impacting performance and speed. Firstly, if that person leaves they take all the learned industry experience with them. Secondly, they may not be great at all areas, such as design, segmentation or flows – a well diversified team is key; we have strategists, CRM and designers in-house who are stacked onto accounts for diversified expertise, speed and above all else – higher performance.

AI Integrations

AI is enhancing an incredible amount of service delivery but it’s also causing some nuisance too. When agencies blindly adopt AI it can cause everything from security risks through to incorrect messaging hitting customers/prospects at the wrong time and likely causing frustration. A agency that is worth partnering with will understand the nuance of AI but also how it can be used in specific situations to enhance outcomes sustainably; weighing up and communicating the benefits but also the risks – with mitigation.

Seamless international scaling

Working with brands that sell globally means understanding compliance across multiple territories is critical. Alongside GDPR, we support businesses with regulations such as CAN-SPAM and CASL to help ensure email marketing activity remains compliant across the US, Canada and wider international markets.

Timezone adaptation is equally important within international retention strategies. Campaigns, flows and promotional sends should feel local to the customer, which is why we carefully manage send timing and localisation to ensure communications are delivered within the correct regional timezones.

Result expectations

There should be honest conversations around what success actually looks like, how long meaningful improvements may take and where the agency believes the biggest opportunities currently sit.

A strong retention partner should be able to explain:

What they believe is currently underperforming
Why they think performance has stalled
What they would prioritise first
What realistic short and long-term improvements could look like
How confident they are in delivering those improvements

In many businesses, retention gaps exist because:

The internal team does not have the specialist knowledge
There is not enough time internally to execute properly
The business has outgrown the current setup
Nobody has owned retention strategically
Deliverability or segmentation has become too complex
Flows and campaigns have become reactive rather than structured

A good agency should help bridge those gaps with specialist expertise, strategic direction and execution capacity that would otherwise be difficult to achieve internally.

Some of our Email results

Proof should always be in the results, if an agency isn't delivering it can often be a sign of the wrong partner; that's why we don't do contracts so clients can leave at any time.

View our Klaviyo Agency Services

Gingerlily
Led by:
163 %
Increase in Klaviyo US revenue YoY

Read case study
Stairparts Direct
Led by:
40 %
Increase in Email revenue in 90 days

Read case study
Mallet London
Led by:
300 %
Increase in non-branded ROAS year over year - driving incredible new customer recruitment too.

Read case study