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Browse abandonment is where stores recover an extra 3-6% of email revenue most don't even know exists. Done wrong, it cannibalizes the cart flow. Done right, it's pure incremental revenue.
Who this is forStores with Klaviyo + working welcome and cart flows that want the next layer of automated revenue. Browse abandonment requires identified browsing to be enabled — without it, the flow can't trigger.
What you'll need
Step 1
Browse abandonment fires only for known profiles. If identified browsing is off, the trigger never fires.
Klaviyo → Account → Settings → Tracking → confirm "Enable cookie tracking" + "Identified browsing" are both ON.
Test by subscribing via your popup in incognito, then visiting a product page. Within 60 seconds, your profile (Profiles → search by your test email) should show a "Viewed Product" event.
If "Viewed Product" doesn't fire, identified browsing isn't working. Most common cause: an aggressive cache or privacy plugin stripping the Klaviyo cookie. Disable cache for klaviyo.com calls and re-test.
Step 2
Klaviyo → Flows → + Create Flow → From Scratch → Trigger: Metric → Viewed Product.
Klaviyo → Flows → + Create Flow → From Scratch.
Trigger type: Metric → Viewed Product.
No trigger filter (we filter at the flow level next). Save.
Step 3
This is where browse-abandonment lives or dies. Suppress: cart flow members, recent buyers, repeat browsers.
Flow filter 1: 'What someone has done' → Started Checkout → has not done in the last 7 days. This prevents overlap with the cart flow.
Flow filter 2: 'What someone has done' → Placed Order → has not done in the last 30 days. Don't browse-target someone who just bought.
Flow filter 3: 'What someone has done' → Viewed Product → has not done more than 3 times in the last 24 hours. This prevents over-firing on someone refreshing a product page.
Flow filter 4: Profile property → Email Marketing Consent → equals 'subscribed.'
Optional flow filter 5: Profile property → "Total Number of Orders" → equals 0. Some teams run a separate browse flow for first-timers vs. repeat customers; for first-time-only, add this filter.
Save all filters.
Step 4
Time delay: 3 hours after Viewed Product. Subject leans into curiosity, not urgency.
Add a Time Delay block: 3 hours after the trigger.
Add an Email block.
Subject: 'Still thinking about [product]?' or 'Curious about [product]?' — use Klaviyo dynamic content to pull the product name: {{ event.ProductName }}.
Body: a dynamic Product Block of the viewed product, 2-3 lines of product copy, customer review (if available), CTA to the product page.
No discount. The browser hasn't shown high enough intent for a discount — they may just be window-shopping.
Step 5
Time delay: 45 hours after Email 1 (so 48 hours total). Show the original product + 2 related products.
Add Time Delay block: 45 hours after Email 1.
Add Email block.
Subject: 'In case you missed it' or 'Have you seen these?'
Body: viewed product + 2 related products (use Klaviyo's "Related Products" block for auto-recommendations, or pick manually if catalog allows).
No discount on this email either. Browse abandonment is a soft-touch flow.
After this email, end the flow. Don't extend to a third email — past 48 hours, browse-recovery rate is below 1% and unsubscribes outweigh the lift.
Step 6
Smart Sending prevents double-sends. Conversion exit removes converters from the flow.
On each email: enable Smart Sending (16-hour throttle).
Flow Settings → Enable Exit on Conversion → Placed Order, 7-day attribution window.
Conversion Tracking → Placed Order added as the conversion metric.
Step 7
After 14 days, check whether browse flow recovery is INCREMENTAL or cannibalized from cart flow. Run a holdout test if possible.
Activate the flow.
Wait 14 days. Open Flow Analytics → check Placed Order Rate per email. Healthy benchmarks: Email 1 = 1-3%, Email 2 = 0.5-1.5%.
Compare cart-flow revenue 30 days before vs. 30 days after launch. If cart revenue drops by more than the browse-flow gain, you have cannibalization — strengthen the suppression filters.
For larger stores (5K+ Viewed Product events/week), run a 50/50 holdout: half the audience gets the flow, half doesn't. After 30 days, compare Placed Order Rate. If holdout is within 1 point of treatment, the flow isn't incremental — refine or kill it.
Common mistakes
No suppression for cart-flow members
What goes wrong: Browsers who add to cart in the next 7 days get both browse and cart emails, often within hours of each other. Unsubscribes spike. Net effect of browse flow goes to zero or negative.
How to avoid: Flow filter: Started Checkout → has not done in the last 7 days. This single filter typically determines whether browse flow is incremental or cannibalizing.
Discount in Email 1
What goes wrong: Browsers haven't shown buying intent yet — discounting them trains the audience to "browse and wait." Margin erodes 5-10% over 90 days. Drops repeat-purchase rate.
How to avoid: No discount in browse abandonment. If you need a discount mechanism, save it for the cart flow only.
Triggering on every Viewed Product (no rate limit)
What goes wrong: A power-shopper who views 12 products in a session triggers the flow 12 times in a row. Spam-feeling. Unsubscribe rate spikes.
How to avoid: Flow filter: Viewed Product → has not done more than 3 times in the last 24 hours. Klaviyo's flow trigger throttling at the profile level handles the rest.
Not filtering out recent buyers
What goes wrong: Customers who bought yesterday and are browsing for their next purchase get 'curious about [product]?' emails for things they're casually looking at. Brand feels intrusive.
How to avoid: Flow filter: Placed Order → has not done in the last 30 days. Adjust to 60 or 90 days for high-AOV brands with longer repurchase cycles.
Sending Email 2 too late
What goes wrong: Past 48-72 hours after Viewed Product, the browser has forgotten the product entirely. Click-through and recovery rates drop to under 0.5%. Net negative on flow performance.
How to avoid: Cap browse-abandonment flows at 2 emails over 48 hours. If you want more touches, route the profile to a different nurture flow based on segment.
Recap
Done — what's next
How to build a Klaviyo welcome series flow that actually converts
Read the next tutorial
Hand it off
Browse abandonment is the third-layer flow — it adds 3-6% incremental revenue when built right and zero when built wrong. A specialist will get the suppression and timing right on the first build, typically $300-500 at $14-16/hr.
See specialist rates
Browse abandonment fires when someone views a product but doesn't add to cart. Cart abandonment fires when someone reaches checkout but doesn't complete. Browse has lower intent — so cadence is shorter, no discounts, and tighter suppression. Cart has higher intent — longer cadence, optional discount in last email.
Identified browsing — a cookie set when a profile subscribes via signup form or signs in. After cookie set, Klaviyo can match anonymous Viewed Product events to the profile. Anonymous visitors who never subscribed are invisible to browse-abandonment flows.
Probably not. Browse-abandonment trigger volume scales with traffic, not list size. Under 1K subscribers means you're getting <50 Viewed Product events from identified profiles per week — not enough for the flow to be meaningfully incremental. Focus on welcome and cart first.
3 product views in 24 hours is the standard. For larger catalogs (1K+ SKUs), 5 views in 24 hours works. The goal is to filter out browsers comparing products, while still triggering for someone seriously evaluating one product.
Partially. Extend the cadence: 24 hours for Email 1, 96 hours for Email 2. Suppress not just Started Checkout but also 'Contacted Sales' or any high-intent custom metric. For high-AOV B2B, browse abandonment is often more useful as a sales-alert signal than a flow.
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