The Klaviyo Deliverability Checklist We Run Every Month

If your emails don't land in the inbox, nothing else matters. Not your subject lines, not your design, not your offers. You could write the perfect email and it would generate zero revenue sitting in spam.

Deliverability is the most overlooked part of email marketing because it's invisible. You don't know when your emails start going to spam. There's no error message. Revenue just slowly declines and nobody can figure out why.

We've seen it happen to brands doing $50K+/month in email revenue. Deliverability slips, spam placement increases, and within 60 days email revenue drops 30-40%. The fix takes weeks. Prevention takes 30 minutes a month.

Here's the exact checklist we run for every Klaviyo account we manage.

Section 1: Authentication (Check Quarterly, Fix Immediately)

SPF Record

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) tells inbox providers which servers are authorized to send email on behalf of your domain.

How to check: Go to your domain's DNS settings and look for a TXT record containing v=spf1. It should include Klaviyo's sending servers.

If you're using Klaviyo's shared sending domain, this is handled for you. If you're on a dedicated sending domain (which you should be if you're sending more than 50K emails/month), verify that the SPF record includes Klaviyo's IP addresses.

Pass/Fail: Either it's there or it isn't. If it's missing, fix it immediately.

DKIM Record

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) adds a digital signature to your emails that verifies they weren't tampered with in transit.

How to check: In Klaviyo, go to Settings - Domains. Your sending domain should show a green checkmark for DKIM. If it doesn't, you need to add the DKIM records to your DNS.

Pass/Fail: Green checkmark = pass. Anything else = fix it today.

DMARC Record

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) tells inbox providers what to do when an email fails SPF or DKIM checks.

How to check: Look for a TXT record on _dmarc.yourdomain.com. A basic DMARC record looks like: v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc-reports@yourdomain.com

Recommendation: Start with p=none (monitor only) and move to p=quarantine or p=reject once you're confident all legitimate email sources are authenticated. Yahoo and Gmail now require DMARC for bulk senders.

Pass/Fail: Having a DMARC record is required. Not having one will hurt deliverability.

Dedicated Sending Domain

If you're sending more than 50,000 emails per month, you should have a dedicated sending domain in Klaviyo rather than using Klaviyo's shared domain.

Why: With a shared domain, your reputation is tied to other Klaviyo senders. If another brand on the same shared IP spams, it can affect your deliverability. A dedicated domain gives you full control over your sending reputation.

How to check: In Klaviyo, go to Settings - Domains. You should see your own domain (e.g., mail.yourbrand.com) listed as the sending domain, not Klaviyo's default.

Section 2: List Health (Check Monthly)

Bounce Rate

Target: Below 2% per campaign

How to check: In Klaviyo, look at the bounce rate on your most recent campaigns. Klaviyo auto-suppresses hard bounces, so this should stay low. If it's above 2%, you might have a list quality problem.

If it's high:

• Check if you've recently imported a list (imported lists often have stale addresses)
• Verify your sign-up forms aren't collecting typo-filled email addresses (add confirmation or double opt-in)
• Look for patterns in bounced domains (are they all from one provider?)

Spam Complaint Rate

Target: Below 0.1% (1 complaint per 1,000 emails sent)

How to check: Klaviyo shows spam complaint rates in campaign analytics. Also check Google Postmaster Tools if you have it set up (you should).

This is the most critical metric. Gmail's threshold for sending reputation damage is 0.3% spam complaint rate. If you're consistently above 0.1%, you have a problem.

If it's high:

• Are you emailing people who didn't explicitly sign up? (Purchased lists, scraped lists, old lists from a previous platform)
• Is your unsubscribe link easy to find? (If people can't find the unsubscribe button, they hit "spam" instead)
• Are you sending too frequently to unengaged subscribers?
• Is your content matching subscriber expectations?

Unsubscribe Rate

Target: Below 0.3% per campaign

How to check: Campaign analytics in Klaviyo.

Context matters: An unsubscribe rate of 0.2% on a well-segmented campaign is fine. An unsubscribe rate of 0.5% on a blast to your entire list means your content isn't resonating or you're emailing too broadly.

Unsubscribes are actually better than spam complaints. Someone who unsubscribes is leaving cleanly. Someone who marks you as spam is damaging your reputation on the way out.

List Growth vs Churn

What to track: Net list growth = new subscribers - (unsubscribes + bounces + manual removals)

Healthy benchmark: Net positive growth every month. If your list is shrinking, you have either a churn problem (too many unsubscribes) or an acquisition problem (not enough new sign-ups).

Monthly calculation:

• New subscribers this month: ___
• Unsubscribes this month: ___
• Hard bounces this month: ___
• Net change: ___

If your churn rate (unsubscribes + bounces as a percentage of total list) exceeds 2% per month, investigate.

Section 3: Engagement Metrics (Check Monthly)

Open Rate (With MPP Context)

Benchmark: 25-40% for well-segmented campaigns (heavily inflated by Apple MPP)

What matters more: The trend. If your open rate was 35% three months ago and it's 28% now, something changed. Maybe deliverability slipped. Maybe your subject lines got worse. Maybe your sending frequency or segmentation changed.

Track non-Apple opens separately if possible. Klaviyo allows you to create segments based on email client, so you can look at Gmail-only and Outlook-only open rates for a more accurate picture.

Click Rate

Benchmark: 1.5-4% for campaigns, 3-8% for flows

Click rate is your most reliable engagement metric because it requires actual human interaction. Apple MPP can fake opens but can't fake clicks.

If click rate is declining:

• Are your CTAs clear and compelling?
• Is your email content relevant to the segment you're sending to?
• Are you sending too many emails (fatigue reduces clicks over time)?
• Has your email design become stale?

Revenue Per Recipient

Benchmark: Varies wildly, but track the trend

Revenue per recipient (RPR) is the ultimate measure of email effectiveness. If RPR is increasing, your emails are doing their job. If it's flat or declining, something needs to change — better segmentation, better offers, better timing, or better content.

Track RPR separately for:

• Campaigns (your manual sends)
• Each major flow (welcome, cart abandonment, browse abandonment, post-purchase, etc.)

Section 4: Sending Practices (Review Monthly)

Segmentation Quality

The question: Are you sending every campaign to your entire list, or are you segmenting based on engagement, purchase history, and interest?

Best practice: Every campaign should go to a segment, not your entire list. Even a simple segmentation approach makes a difference:

• Engaged subscribers (opened or clicked in last 90 days): Send everything relevant
• Semi-engaged (opened in last 180 days): Send only your best campaigns
• Unengaged (no activity in 180+ days): Don't send campaigns at all (let sunset flows handle them)

Sending to your entire list guarantees that unengaged subscribers drag down your aggregate metrics and hurt your deliverability.

Sending Frequency

Check: How many emails did you send per subscriber this month?

Benchmarks:

• 2-3 campaigns per week to engaged subscribers: Fine for most brands
• 4-5 campaigns per week: Aggressive, but can work with strong segmentation
• Daily campaigns: Only works for brands with very high engagement and a content-rich model

The real test: If your unsubscribe rate per campaign stays below 0.3% and your click rate stays stable, your frequency is fine. If unsubscribes spike or clicks drop, you're sending too often.

Flow Performance

Monthly flow check:

• Are all critical flows active? (Welcome, cart abandonment, browse abandonment, post-purchase, winback, sunset)
• Have any flows been paused accidentally?
• Review flow-level revenue — is any flow underperforming its historical average?
• Check for flow bottlenecks (high open rate on email 1, zero opens on email 3 = something is wrong with email 2)

Section 5: Infrastructure (Check Quarterly)

Google Postmaster Tools

What it is: A free Google tool that shows your domain's reputation with Gmail.

How to check: Go to postmaster.google.com and verify your domain. You'll see:

• Domain reputation: High, Medium, Low, or Bad
• Spam rate: Percentage of your emails that Gmail users marked as spam
• Authentication: Whether your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC pass Gmail's checks

Target: "High" reputation and less than 0.1% spam rate.

If your reputation drops to "Medium" or below, stop all non-essential sending immediately and clean your list.

Microsoft SNDS (Smart Network Data Services)

What it is: Similar to Google Postmaster but for Outlook/Hotmail.

How to check: Sign up at sendersupport.olc.protection.outlook.com. Add your sending IPs to monitor your reputation with Microsoft.

Blocklist Monitoring

What to check: Whether your sending domain or IP is on any email blocklists.

How: Use MXToolbox (free) to check your domain against major blocklists. If you're on a blocklist, follow the delisting process immediately.

How often: Monthly for proactive monitoring. Immediately if you notice a sudden drop in open rates or delivery.

The Monthly 30-Minute Routine

Here's the condensed version — the actual routine we run on the first Monday of every month:

First 10 minutes: Metrics Review

• Pull campaign-level bounce rate, spam complaint rate, unsubscribe rate
• Compare open rate and click rate trends to previous month
• Check RPR trend for campaigns and top 5 flows

Next 10 minutes: List Health

• Review engagement tier segment sizes (how many engaged, semi-engaged, at-risk, unengaged)
• Check net list growth (new subscribers minus churn)
• Verify no critical flows are paused

Last 10 minutes: Infrastructure

• Check Google Postmaster Tools reputation
• Verify authentication records are intact (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
• Scan for blocklist issues (MXToolbox)

If everything looks normal, you're done in 30 minutes. If something is off, dig deeper immediately — deliverability problems compound fast.

When to Panic vs When to Monitor

Monitor (don't panic):

• Open rate dropped 2-3% from last month (could be seasonal)
• Unsubscribe rate is 0.2-0.3% on a large campaign send
• One campaign had a higher-than-normal bounce rate

Act now (fix this week):

• Spam complaint rate above 0.1% on two or more campaigns
• Google Postmaster reputation dropped to "Medium"
• Open rate dropped 10%+ suddenly
• Multiple campaigns bouncing above 3%

Emergency (stop sending):

• Google Postmaster reputation at "Low" or "Bad"
• Spam complaint rate above 0.3%
• On a major blocklist (Spamhaus, Barracuda, etc.)
• Sudden and dramatic drop in open rates across all campaigns (suggests widespread spam placement)

Want Us to Monitor Your Deliverability?

This checklist is exactly what we run for every Klaviyo account we manage. Deliverability monitoring is built into our process, not an afterthought.

If your email revenue has been declining, your open rates are dropping, or you're not sure whether your emails are actually reaching the inbox, book a call. We'll do a full deliverability audit and tell you exactly where you stand.