Most wineries with a Klaviyo account are using about 20% of what it can do. They send the occasional campaign, maybe a welcome email — and leave the rest untouched. These are the flows that actually drive wine club growth, reduce churn, and turn one-time tasting room visitors into customers who buy every season.
Email remains the highest-ROI marketing channel for wineries. Unlike social media, it lands directly in the inbox of someone who has already chosen to hear from you. And unlike a one-off campaign, automated flows keep working in the background — sending the right message to the right person at the right moment, without any manual effort from your team.
The difference between a winery that generates steady online revenue from email and one that doesn't usually isn't the size of the list. It's whether the right flows are live and properly configured. Here's what that looks like in practice.
Why Flows Outperform Campaigns for Wineries
Campaigns — the one-off emails you send to your whole list — have their place. New vintage releases, harvest events, holiday offers. But flows are triggered by behavior, which makes them dramatically more relevant and more likely to convert.
A guest who just visited your tasting room and a wine club member who hasn't ordered in four months need completely different messages. A flow sends each of them exactly what makes sense for where they are in their relationship with your winery. A campaign sends them the same thing.
A flow sends each customer exactly what makes sense for where they are in their relationship with your winery. A campaign sends them the same thing.
The Essential Flows Every Winery Needs
Welcome Series
Your welcome flow is the most important email sequence you'll ever build — and the most neglected. When someone joins your list, they're at peak interest. A strong welcome series runs 3–4 emails over 7–10 days: introduce the winery and the people behind it, spotlight your bestselling wines with direct links to buy, and extend an invitation to join the wine club.
For wineries connected to Shopify via Sesami, you can segment the welcome flow by entry point — someone who booked a tasting gets a different welcome than someone who found you through organic search. That personalization alone significantly improves open rates and first purchase conversion.
Post-Visit Tasting Room Flow
This is the highest-leverage flow for any winery with a tasting room, and almost no one has it properly configured. When a guest books via Sesami and that booking syncs into Shopify, Klaviyo can trigger a post-visit sequence automatically within hours of their appointment.
The sequence: a same-day thank you with a recap of what they tasted and direct buy links, a follow-up three days later spotlighting the wine they seemed most excited about, and a wine club invitation on day seven with a first-shipment offer. Wineries that run this flow well consistently see 20–30% of tasting room visitors convert to online purchasers within two weeks.
Wine Club Welcome & Onboarding Flow
Most wineries send one welcome email when someone joins the club. That's not enough. The first 90 days of a wine club membership are when churn risk is highest — members who don't feel connected to the winery in the early weeks are far more likely to cancel before their second shipment.
A proper onboarding flow runs for 60–90 days and covers: a warm welcome with the story behind the club, what to expect from the first shipment, food pairing suggestions, a behind-the-scenes look at the current vintage, and a check-in email at day 45 asking for feedback. This sequence turns a transactional club sign-up into an actual relationship.
Abandoned Cart Flow
Someone who puts a bottle in their cart and doesn't check out is one step away from buying. An abandoned cart flow recaptures that intent — typically three emails over 24 hours: an immediate reminder (no discount), a follow-up 12 hours later with a light nudge, and a final email 24 hours out with a small incentive if they still haven't converted.
For wine, cart abandonment rates can be high because of age verification friction and shipping cost concerns at checkout. Your abandoned cart emails should directly address these — reassure the customer on shipping, and remind them of the value of buying direct from the winery versus a retailer.
Post-Purchase Upsell Flow
When a customer makes their first online purchase, they're at another peak of engagement. A post-purchase flow runs 2–3 emails after the order: a thank you with the story behind what they bought, a complementary wine recommendation (if they bought a Cabernet, suggest your Syrah), and a wine club pitch framed around the savings and early access they're missing out on.
The key is timing and relevance. These emails should feel like they're coming from someone who knows what the customer bought — not a generic "thanks for your order" sequence. Klaviyo's dynamic content blocks make it straightforward to pull in the specific product details.
Win-Back Flow
Customers who haven't purchased in 90–120 days are drifting. A win-back flow re-engages them before they're gone entirely. The sequence: a "we miss you" email with a curated selection, a second email highlighting what's new since their last order (new vintage, new label, upcoming release), and a final email with a time-limited offer to create urgency.
For wine club members specifically, a separate win-back flow should trigger when engagement drops — no opens in 60 days, no clicks in 90. The tone here should be warmer and more personal than a standard win-back, since these are your most loyal customers and you want to re-engage the relationship, not just the transaction.
Browse Abandonment Flow
A visitor who browses your Chardonnay page three times and never adds to cart is telling you something. Browse abandonment flows send a targeted follow-up based on what they looked at — not a generic "you might like this" email, but a specific message about the wine they kept coming back to.
For wineries with a Shopify storefront, browse abandonment data flows cleanly into Klaviyo and makes this one of the easiest flows to set up with a high return. It works especially well for premium or limited-release wines where a potential customer needs a gentle push to commit.
Getting the Segmentation Right
Flows are only as good as the segmentation behind them. The most common mistake wineries make is sending the same flow to everyone on their list regardless of their relationship with the winery. A wine club member who visits three times a year should not be receiving the same post-visit email as a first-time visitor who booked through a Google search.
At a minimum, your Klaviyo segments should distinguish between: wine club members vs. non-members, tasting room visitors vs. online-only customers, active purchasers (bought in the last 90 days) vs. lapsed customers, and high-value customers (average order value above a threshold you define) vs. casual buyers.
When your Shopify store is properly connected to Klaviyo, these segments build themselves from real purchase and visit data. You don't need to manually tag anyone — the data does it automatically every time a customer interacts with your winery.
What Proper Klaviyo Configuration Looks Like
One thing worth being direct about: Klaviyo is not a plug-and-play tool. Installing the Klaviyo app on Shopify connects the data, but it doesn't build the flows, configure the segments, or write the emails. Most wineries that have Klaviyo installed but aren't seeing results from it fall into one of two categories: they set it up once and never optimized it, or they built the basic flows but skipped the winery-specific segmentation that makes the difference.
A properly configured Klaviyo account for a winery should have the tasting room booking data (via Sesami) flowing into customer profiles, wine club membership status as a segment filter, purchase history driving the post-purchase and win-back flows, and browse behavior powering the abandonment sequences. Getting all of this connected and tested correctly is the work that turns Klaviyo from an email tool into a revenue engine.
Signs your Klaviyo setup needs attention
- Your welcome flow is a single email, not a series
- You have no post-visit flow triggered by tasting room bookings
- Wine club members and non-members receive the same emails
- Your abandoned cart flow has fewer than three emails
- You've never set up a win-back flow for lapsed customers
- Your Klaviyo segments don't include tasting room visit data from Sesami
If most of these apply, your Klaviyo account is set up but not working. The flows exist in outline — they just haven't been connected to the customer data and winery-specific logic that makes them convert. That gap is fixable, and it doesn't require rebuilding from scratch.