Email Campaigns vs. Flows: Key Differences & When to Use Each

When ecommerce brands think about email marketing, the first thing that usually comes to mind is automated flows — abandoned cart reminders, welcome series, post-purchase follow-ups. These are powerful, high-converting automations that drive revenue on autopilot. But there’s another pillar of email marketing that’s often taken for granted, and without a well-optimised campaign, your email program will never reach its full potential.

Campaigns are the heartbeat of email marketing. They’re how you stay top of mind, build relationships, and nurture trust with your audience. Done right, campaigns don’t just sell products — they create loyal customers who look forward to hearing from you.

What is an Email Campaign?

An email campaign (also called a broadcast or newsletter), is a one-time, broadcast-style email sent to your list (or a segment of it) on a specific date and time. Unlike automated flows, which are triggered by user actions (like abandoning a cart), campaigns are scheduled and sent on your terms.They’re planned around your marketing calendar or specific promotions, not triggered by a subscriber’s individual actions.

Campaigns are designed to deliver fresh, relevant, and timely content that doesn’t belong in automation. Think of them as your brand’s digital magazine — a consistent way to communicate, share stories, and drive sales. Think flash sales, product launches, holiday sale announcements, seasonal promotions, or trending cultural events. Unlike flows, which run in the background, campaigns give you the agility to strike while the iron is hot.

A powerful email marketing strategy blends multiple campaign types to educate, engage, and convert customers:

Snackable campaigns deliver short, bite-sized content designed to educate, entertain, or inspire your audience in a fun and relatable way. Instead of pushing a hard sell, they spotlight your product naturally—often through everyday scenarios or user-generated content that shows how it solves real problems. The goal is to nurture ongoing engagement, build trust, and keep your brand top-of-mind without overwhelming subscribers. Aim to send these campaigns 1–2 times per month to maintain consistent, value-driven touchpoints.
Engagement campaigns are designed specifically to boost interaction and click rates, often driving customers to deeper brand experiences like blog posts, tutorials, or videos on your site. Send these campaigns 2-4 times per month
Traffic-driving campaigns focus on major initiatives such as a product line launch or collection reveal, building excitement and pushing shoppers to your website—without relying on discounts. The goal is to boost site traffic, increasing order value and customer lifetime value without promotions. This drives organic revenue growth. Send these campaigns about twice per month. After showcasing the benefits of your product, you can create a sense of urgency by promoting your limited stock. This can motivate customers, now aware of the advantages, to purchase before it sells out.
Conversion-driving promotional campaigns spotlight specific products and use incentives such as seasonal sales or limited-time offers to encourage conversions. The goal is to keep your brand top of mind and drive sales by consistently showcasing your products, encouraging customers to convert. Send these campaigns weekly.

When used together, these campaign types create a balanced strategy: snackable content builds trust, engagement campaigns spark interaction, traffic drivers generate anticipation, and promotions seal the deal—while all four work to deepen relationships and drive sales over time.

In contrast, email flows (or automations) are sequences of emails automatically triggered by a subscriber’s behavior, such as signing up, abandoning a cart, or making a purchase. Once set up, flows run in the background continuously.

So think of it like this:

Flows = behavior-based, always-on, personalized sequences.
Campaigns = calendar-based, manual broadcasts to your audience.

Both are critical. Flows nurture and convert based on individual behavior, while campaigns keep your brand top of mind and create excitement with timely content.

The Key Goals of Campaigns

Stay Top of Mind – Keep your brand visible so when customers are ready to purchase, you’re the first option they think of.
Entertain and Inspire – Provide content that informs, inspires, or entertains so people want to open your emails.
Drive Sales – Generate consistent, low-cost revenue by selling to people who already know and trust you.
Strengthen Trust and Credibility – Build a brand voice that feels human, relatable, and reliable.
Gather Data – Each campaign is an opportunity to test, learn, and refine what resonates with your audience.
Capitalize on time-sensitive moments – Campaigns let you deliver messages in real time, outside of your automated flows. By sending a well-timed campaign, you can create urgency, tap into what’s top of mind for your audience, and drive immediate action.

Campaigns vs. Automated Flows

Campaigns (Newsletters)	Automated Flows
Manually created and scheduled	Triggered automatically by customer behavior
Build relationships, engagement, and brand affinity	Drive conversions at key customer touchpoints
Content can vary (education, entertainment, promotions)	Content is structured, conversion-focused
Keep your brand consistently visible	Capture revenue from specific customer actions
Essential for top-of-mind awareness	Essential for high-intent conversions

📝 Building Habitual Engagement

While campaigns are perfect for one-off events like product launches or flash sales, they’re just as essential for keeping your audience consistently engaged. You won’t have new drops or promotions every week — sometimes, these events are months apart. That’s why it’s important to keep sending campaigns with educational, entertaining, and value-driven content between major events.

You don’t only show up for restocks and sales — you stay present in your subscribers’ inbox with content that keeps them interested and connected. This way, when a big event does happen, your audience already recognizes your brand, trusts you, and is primed to buy.

When subscribers expect your emails regularly, they’re more likely to look out for them and open them. The exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon where repeated contact with something increases a person’s preference for it, simply because it becomes familiar. By sending more quality content to get people familar with you, the odds are they will turn into a fan. This habitual engagement not only improves open rates, but also increases conversions over time. The more often they engage with your content, the more familiar and comfortable they become with your brand — boosting loyalty, repeat purchases, and lifetime value.

Why Campaigns Are Key to Ecommerce Success

Many brands mistakenly believe automated flows will carry their email revenue. But without campaigns, your presence fades. Customers who don’t actively trigger a flow won’t hear from you, and eventually, they’ll forget you exist.

Campaigns solve this problem. They:

Build habits. Sending consistently (3–4 times per week) conditions your audience to expect and look forward to your emails.
Nurture trust. Campaigns allow you to educate, entertain, and share stories, rather than only “selling.”
Protect your deliverability. Regular engagement keeps open rates high and prevents your domain from being flagged as spam.
Drive repeat traffic. They’re the cheapest way to bring people back to your site.

In short, flows make you money, but campaigns build your brand.

The Best Types of Campaign Content

To succeed, campaigns must deliver value every single time. The fastest way to kill your list is to send constant sales pitches. Instead, mix your content with these high-performing formats:

Educational content – How-tos, tips, and guides that help customers get more out of your products.
Storytelling – Share your brand journey, behind-the-scenes content, or customer transformations.
Social proof – Testimonials, reviews, and UGC that build credibility.
Seasonal content – Holiday guides, trending products, or limited-time collections.
Promotions – Yes, discounts and sales have their place — but sparingly, not constantly.

The golden rule: one email, one focus, one takeaway.

📝 Typical Topics for Email Campaigns

Because campaigns aren’t tied to automated triggers, they’re highly flexible. You can use them to:

✅ Announce new products or collections
✅ Run flash sales or seasonal promotions
✅ Share exclusive subscriber-only offers
✅ Send educational content or tips (helping customers use or style your products)
✅ Provide behind-the-scenes stories or founder messages
✅ Highlight customer reviews or success stories
✅ Share press mentions, awards, or milestones
✅ Tease upcoming launches to build anticipation
✅ Run surveys or gather feedback
✅ Invite subscribers to follow you on social or join a referral program
✅ Invite subscribers to follow you on social or join a referral program

What are Email Marketing Flows?

Email marketing flows are automated sequences of emails sent to subscribers after they take a specific action on your website or within your funnel. Unlike broadcast campaigns (one-time emails sent to your entire list), flows are always working in the background, triggered by real-time customer behaviors.

Think of flows as your 24/7 sales and relationship-building assistants — guiding subscribers, answering objections, and driving conversions automatically. In fact, flows generate up to 30x more revenue per recipient (RPR) than one-off campaigns, according to Klaviyo’s email benchmarks report.

What actions can trigger an email flow?

Flows are activated by a variety of customer activities, including:

Signing up for your email list (pop-up or content download)
Browsed the site but left without making a purchase
Browsing a product or specific category
Adding items to the cart but not purchasing
Starting checkout but abandoning before completing
Completing a purchase
Becoming inactive over time

Each of these triggers can initiate a highly tailored series of emails designed to move the subscriber closer to purchase or deepen their loyalty.

The benefits of email flows

🚀 Always-on revenue machine

Email flows run automatically, meaning you capture opportunities 24/7 without manual effort. They target people when interest is highest, leading to dramatically better conversion rates.

🧠 Personalized experiences

Because flows respond to specific behaviors, they feel highly relevant. This builds trust and increases engagement.

💰 Huge share of email revenue

For most ecommerce brands, flows account for 30-50% or more of total email revenue, despite often representing fewer sends than campaigns. They’re one of the highest ROI parts of any email program.

💵 Lower customer acquisition costs

By recovering abandonments and nurturing customers post-purchase, flows help you get more value from your existing traffic — reducing your dependence on costly ads.

Why use flows?

Flows ensure that no matter where a customer is in their journey, they’re getting the right message at the right time. Without them, you leave money on the table — missing out on sales from people who were already interested but needed a nudge.

The essential types of email flows

Here’s a breakdown of the most impactful automated flows for ecommerce:

1. Welcome flow

Triggered when someone joins your list.

Sets expectations, introduces your brand story, and often includes a first-purchase incentive (discount).
Crucial for turning subscribers into first-time buyers.

2. Site abandonment flow

Triggered when someone visits your site, signs up to your list but doesn’t view a product.

Re-engages general browsers and encourages them to explore.

3. Browse abandonment flow

Triggered when someone views a product but doesn’t add to cart.

Shows them the product again, highlights benefits, reviews, or FAQs.

4. Cart abandonment flow

Triggered when someone adds to cart but doesn’t start checkout.

Reminds them what they left behind, often paired with urgency or discount incentives.

5. Checkout abandonment flow

Triggered when someone starts checkout but doesn’t complete.

Highest intent segment — helps recover nearly-ready sales.

6. Post-purchase flow

Triggered after a customer buys.

Thanks them, sets delivery expectations, encourages repeat purchases or referrals.

7. Winback flow

Triggered when a customer hasn’t purchased in a set period (e.g. 60-90 days).

Designed to reactivate lapsed customers with new arrivals or special offers.

The Role of A/B Testing in Campaign Success

Every email is an experiment. The smallest change — a subject line, button color, or send time — can dramatically impact performance.

Key elements to A/B test in campaigns:

Subject lines and preview text (fun vs. formal, short vs. long, including emojis or not)
Send times and days
Content type (educational vs. promotional)
CTA design (button vs. text link, placement in email)
Email length (short punchy vs. longer storytelling)

Consistent testing compounds over time, leading to smarter campaigns and higher ROI.

Why Subject Lines and Preview Text Matter Most

Your email could have the most compelling content in the world — but if it doesn’t get opened, it doesn’t matter. Subject lines and preview text are the first impression.

Subject line = the hook that earns the click.
Preview text = the supporting copy that teases the value.

Best practices:

Keep subject lines under 50 characters.
Make them curiosity-driven, benefit-focused, or emotionally engaging.
Use preview text to clarify what’s inside (instead of repeating the subject line).

These two lines of copy can make or break your campaign performance.

✅ In summary:

Campaigns keep your brand top of mind with fresh content, promos, and education — they complement automated flows.
Great campaign content is diverse: founder notes, tips, customer features, new products.
Watching what your audience loves on social, your site, and past emails reveals exactly what to send.
Avoid mindless sales-only blasts — that’s the fastest way to unsubscribes.
For most ecommerce stores, 3-4 emails per week of meaningful content is a sweet spot that drives more revenue than 1-2.
Email marketing flows are the backbone of an effective ecommerce retention strategy. They generate consistent revenue, build stronger customer relationships, and ensure you’re maximizing every hard-won visitor to your site.
If you want a more profitable, predictable business — investing in flows is essential.

📧 Email Campaigns vs. Flows: What They Are and How They Differ