The Klaviyo System
Deliverability
If the marketing campaign is your beautiful custom home, Deliverability is the foundation.
Before a single email sends, we need to build the foundation that creates trust and credibility for your account. Without this step, your emails will either not reach inboxes, get sent to spam, or be deleted unopened. Ignore this and your emails will stop being delivered entirely.
The greatest marketing campaign in the world is meaningless if it never reaches its audience.
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Your DNS records have to live somewhere — and where they live matters. Some platforms support the full range of record types required for a professional email setup. Others don't.
Shopify, for example, does not support the NS records required for Klaviyo's dynamic routing. If your domain is parked there, I will migrate it to Cloudflare — a free platform — before I begin. It's a straightforward process,
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SPF confirms to receiving mail servers that you are the authorized sender of the content. It protects your domain from bad actors.
It is a single DNS record that must be structured accurately. It is the first pillar of your deliverability structure. If not implemented correctly, your deliverability will suffer.
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DKIM assigns a digital signature to your outgoing email. The receiving server checks the signature against your stored DNS key to verify the authenticity of the source.
This is the second pillar of your deliverability structure that the receiving server looks for to allow your email to be successfully delivered.
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DMARC is your administrative policy that coordinates the DNS system between your records and the receiving server.
It is the third pillar of your deliverability system that ties it all together and gives you control over your delivery.
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You have standard business email outside of marketing. The sending environment is unique and needs its own unique DNS verification. Whether it is Google Workspace or another external email account, the receiving server for this email will not allow it to reach inboxes without correct DNS for these email sources.
DNS Records
Meeting the technical requirements are the foundation, but not the complete deliverability picture. Recipients and receiving servers alike will judge your email by how it looks. If it doesn't rise to the level of professionalism, it will be sent to spam, deleted before opening or outright blocked.
Presentation
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By default, Klaviyo sends your email from its own domain — your recipients see yourbrand.com via klaviyomail.com instead of simply yourbrand.com. In volume this is a red flag to receiving servers, who are tasked with protecting the integrity of your inbox. To recipients, it is confusing. Either way, it smells like spam.
A custom sending domain puts your brand on the email at the server level with not confusing tail. Your domain. Your identity. Clear. Professional. Definitive.
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Dynamic routing is a directive to Klaviyo that dictates how email is sent. Its value is the functionality that it unlocks.
For domains parked in Shopify, migration to Cloudflare is necessary to use this setting. It is a free and straightforward process.
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Every link in your marketing email is tracked — opens, clicks, conversions. By default, that tracking runs through Klaviyo's shared domain. That internal bookkeeping is one of the greatest benefits of Klaviyo.
But your clients want to see your url when they click a link. Dedicated click tracking puts your domain on every link. What the recipient sees is your domain and a recognizable destination. This is what dynamic routing makes possible.
An engaged list of 500 is way better than a weak list of 2,500.
Receiving servers love emails that are wanted, but when you send large numbers of emails that go unopened, are deleted or are sent to spam, the servers take notice. They will start treating your emails as junk.
This is your sender reputation. It’s easy to destroy. It takes a lot of time and effort to rebuild
The discipline of keeping good lists and sending to engaged profiles is called list hygiene. It is every bit as important as configuring DNS and email presentation. List maintenance is one of the core services that I perform