Email Built On Flows, Deliverability, And Numbers That Still Mean Something

Automated flows, campaigns, and the unglamorous authentication work that decides whether any of it arrives. You own the list, the platform, and every template.

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Komplex runs email marketing from Austin, Texas, with a presence in New York City and Reykjavik. We are a Google Partner and have run digital work for companies from local service businesses to global retail brands. The work covers program design, automated flows, campaigns, platform setup and migration, deliverability, and list growth, on Klaviyo, HubSpot, Mailchimp, and ActiveCampaign. One senior lead owns the strategy, the writing, and the reporting, and stays on the account.

Google Partner

Founded In 2014

You Own The List

No Long Contracts

Your Open Rate Stopped Meaning Anything In 2021, And The Rules Changed Again In 2024

Apple began pre loading images for Mail users in 2021, which registers an open whether or not a human looked at anything. Apple Mail now accounts for more than half of all email opens, so more than half your reported opens can be a machine. That did not make email worse. It made one number worthless while everyone carried on reporting it, and it is still the headline metric on most agency dashboards. Clicks, conversions, revenue per recipient, and replies survived. Open rate is now a rough deliverability signal and nothing more.

Isometric illustration of a marketer reviewing keyword research as Komplex ranks number one in search results.

Meanwhile The Inbox Providers Turned Best Practice Into Requirements

From February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo began requiring bulk senders to authenticate properly, offer one click unsubscribe, and keep spam complaints under a set threshold. Microsoft followed and started rejecting non compliant mail to Outlook and Hotmail addresses in May 2025, with a specific error code rather than a silent drop. Enforcement has tightened since. None of this is advice any more, and a list that grew before 2024 is the one most likely to be quietly failing it.

Ask About Your Setup

Email Marketing Services, From The Authentication Up

Eight lines of work. The order matters more than the list does, because sending more to an inbox you cannot reach makes everything worse.

Deliverability And Authentication

SPF, DKIM, and DMARC set up properly, one click unsubscribe in place, complaint rate monitored, and reputation watched. This comes first because nothing else works without it.

Program Design

The list, the segments, the flow map, and the calendar. What gets sent, to whom, triggered by what, and how often anyone can hear from you.

Automated Flows

Welcome, abandoned cart and browse, post purchase, win back, replenishment, and B2B nurture. A small share of sends and a large share of the revenue.

Campaigns And Newsletters

The scheduled sends. Written by the same person who writes your ads, so the two do not sound like different companies.

Platform Setup And Migration

Klaviyo, HubSpot, Mailchimp, and ActiveCampaign. Moving between them with the list, the flows, and the reputation intact rather than starting over.

List Growth

Signup forms, timed prompts, and lead magnets that ask for something a visitor will actually trade. The page side of this sits with conversion work.

SMS As A Line Item

Where it fits, and it often does not. Consent, quiet hours, and carrier registration are real obligations rather than settings, so we scope it beside email rather than selling it as its own thing.

Reporting That Survives A Question

Revenue per recipient, flow revenue share, list health, and clicks. Open rate reported for continuity and never used to make a case.

Start With The Free Audit

Send the platform login and your last three campaigns. Most of what is wrong is visible in an hour, and authentication is visible from outside.

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WHERE EMAIL REVENUE ACTUALLY COMES FROM

Five Automated Flows, What Each One Does, And Which Carry The Revenue

Across published platform data covering well over a hundred thousand brands, flows are a small fraction of everything sent. They are about two fifths of what email earns. Here is the shape of that, flow by flow.

Flow	What it does	When it fires	How it usually performs
Welcome	Introduces the brand and sets the expectation for what arrives next	Immediately after someone joins the list	High engagement because interest is at its peak, and the single best place to earn a second open
Abandoned cart	Recovers a purchase that was interrupted rather than abandoned	Within hours of someone leaving items behind	Consistently among the highest earning flows per recipient, and the strongest performers earn many times the average
Browse abandon	Catches interest that never reached the cart	After repeated views without an add to cart	Lower per recipient than cart, and it reaches a much larger group, which is where its value sits
Back in stock	Tells someone the thing they wanted is available	When inventory returns on a watched item	The highest revenue per recipient of any flow in published benchmarks, because the intent was already established
Post purchase and win back	Keeps a buyer, then goes after one who drifted	After delivery, and again once a repurchase window has passed	Modest per send and cumulative over time. This is where retention quietly happens

Which Of These Are Running For You?

Most accounts have two of the five, usually welcome and cart, and both were set up once and never revisited.

Check My Flows

REQUIREMENTS, NOT SUGGESTIONS

Six Things The Inbox Providers Now Require Of Bulk Senders

These stopped being recommendations in 2024. A list built before then is the most likely to be failing one of them without anyone noticing.

Authenticate Properly

SPF, DKIM, and DMARC all published and aligned. A missing DMARC record turns up more than any other fault, and fixing it is a small job with a large consequence.

One Click Unsubscribe

In the message header rather than the footer alone. It has to work in a single action and it has to process within a couple of days.

Stay Under The Complaint Threshold

Gmail expects bulk senders to keep spam complaints below three in every thousand, and the practical target is well under that. Cross it and delivery degrades before anyone tells you.

Keep The List Clean

Remove people who never open, verify addresses at signup, and stop mailing a domain that has stopped accepting you. Sending to a dead list is the fastest way to poison a good one.

Warm A New Sending Setup

New domains and new platforms need volume introduced gradually. Migrating a large list to a fresh sending identity and mailing everyone on day one is how a reputation gets destroyed in a week.

Watch The Reputation

Google Postmaster Tools shows what Gmail thinks of you, and it is free. Most accounts we inherit have never had it connected, which means nobody has seen the one dashboard that matters.

Not Sure Whether You Pass?

Authentication is checkable from outside without any access at all. The free audit starts there.

Check My Authentication

What Does An Email Marketing Agency Do?

An email marketing agency plans, writes, builds, and runs the email a business sends to its own list. The work splits into two halves. Flows are automated messages triggered by something a person did, such as joining the list or leaving a cart. Campaigns are scheduled sends to a segment, such as a newsletter or a promotion. Around those sit deliverability, list growth, segmentation, platform setup, and reporting.

The split matters commercially, because published platform data consistently shows flows producing a large share of email revenue from a small share of total sends. An agency that only sends campaigns is leaving most of it alone. Komplex runs this from Austin, Texas, on Klaviyo, HubSpot, Mailchimp, and ActiveCampaign, and the client owns the platform account throughout.

WHO SENDS WITH US

Email For Ecommerce, B2B And Software, Home And Kitchen, And Subscription

What email is for changes completely by sector. Our accounts have covered footwear, skincare, software, telecom, and kitchens and home improvement.

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Ecommerce And DTC

Flows carry it. Cart, browse, back in stock, and post purchase do more than any newsletter, and the product feed quality decides how well they work.

B2B And Software

Nurture rather than revenue per send, measured in whether sales gets someone worth calling. A list of four hundred right people beats forty thousand wrong ones.

Home And Kitchen

Slow decisions with a showroom trip in the middle. Email keeps the brand present between visits without demanding a decision.

Subscription And Retention

The renewal, the lapse, and the win back. This is the least glamorous email work and the most directly tied to revenue.

THE NUMBERS

Four Figures That Explain Why The Work Is Shaped This Way

Two are about where the revenue is and two are about what changed underneath. Each carries its date.

Across published data covering more than 180,000 brands, flows were around 5 percent of sends in 2026. They produced close to 41 percent of email revenue.

The same data puts revenue per recipient on flows at roughly eighteen times the figure for scheduled campaigns.

Apple Mail accounted for about 62 percent of email opens measured in July 2026, which is why open rate stopped being a reliable metric.

Since February 2024 Gmail has required bulk senders to authenticate, offer one click unsubscribe, and hold complaints under three in a thousand. Enforcement tightened from November 2025.

HOW WE WORK

Fix The Delivery, Build The Flows, Then Start Sending

Four stages in a deliberate order. Sending more email into an inbox that has stopped trusting you makes the problem worse, not better.

Audit The Account
Authentication, list health, complaint rate, flow coverage, and what the reporting currently claims. This is the free audit and it comes before any commitment.
Fix The Delivery
Records published and aligned, unsubscribe in the header, dead addresses removed, and reputation monitoring connected. Unglamorous and it comes first for a reason.
Build The Flows
Welcome and cart first because they earn soonest, then browse, back in stock, post purchase, and win back. Each one written, built, and tested with a real send.
Start Sending
Campaigns on a rhythm your list can carry, with segments that mean something. Reported on revenue per recipient rather than on a number Apple decides.

See What The Account Is Actually Doing

The audit comes first and costs nothing. It checks the authentication from outside and the flows from inside.

Start With The Free Audit

FREE EMAIL AUDIT

Get A Free Email Audit

We check the authentication records from outside, then look at list health and complaint rate. Then which flows exist, how the segments are built, and whether the reporting would survive a hard question. The write up says what is a risk now, what is leaving money alone, and what looks untidy but works. If the honest answer is that your list is too small to be worth an agency yet, that is what it will say. There is no charge, the findings are yours whatever you decide, and the same audit sits inside our free marketing audit.

Your email auditFree

SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records
One click unsubscribe in the header
List health and complaint rate
Which flows exist and which are missing
Segment structure and overlap
What the current reporting can claim

1
Tell us about the account
The platform, roughly how big the list is, and what you have sent lately.
2
We look
Authentication needs no access at all. Read only platform access shows the flows, and nothing gets changed. An NDA is available on request.
3
You get the scorecard and a call
A written scorecard ranked by impact, then a call to walk through it.

Ready To Find Out What Is Not Arriving?

There is no fee and no obligation, and everything the audit finds belongs to you.

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PRICING

How We Price Email Work

Komplex works on a monthly retainer, sized to the work rather than to a fixed package. We agree what is in scope before anything starts. We are open to other formats where one suits you better. Three things move the number. How many flows need building against how many already work, how often campaigns go out, and whether a migration sits inside the month. Building six flows from nothing is a different job from running a programme that already exists.

Your platform subscription is bought in your name and never marked up, because the account has to be yours for the list to be yours. Some agencies charge a share of email revenue. We do not, mainly because the agency then controls the attribution window that decides its own fee, which is an awkward arrangement for everyone.

The quickest route to a number is a short conversation about the list and what is already running. Tell us both and we will explain how we would scope the first few months.

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What Clients Say About Working With Komplex

The Komplex team helped us reach new audiences and drive higher conversions.

Strategies that delivered results beyond our expectations.

Their expertise helped us scale efficiently, attract more customers, and drive measurable growth.

Komplex played a key role in growing our user base and optimizing our marketing efforts.

Common Questions About Email Marketing

What does an email marketing agency do?

It plans, writes, builds, and runs the email you send to your own list. The work splits between flows, which are automated and triggered by something a person did, and campaigns, which are scheduled sends to a segment. Around those sit deliverability, segmentation, list growth, platform setup, and reporting. The flows bring in a large share of the revenue.

Is email marketing still effective?

Yes, and more than most channels, because you are reaching people who already gave you permission and you are not paying per contact. The tired figure about return per dollar spent gets quoted constantly and is close to meaningless without knowing the list. The more useful evidence is that automated flows produce about two fifths of email revenue from a small fraction of sends.

What is a good email open rate now?

Less useful a question than it was. Apple began registering opens automatically in 2021, and Apple Mail now accounts for more than half of all opens. A large share of the number is machines. Treat open rate as a rough deliverability signal and judge the programme on clicks, conversions, and revenue per recipient instead.

What are the Gmail and Yahoo sender rules?

From February 2024, bulk senders have had to authenticate with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. They also need one click unsubscribe in the header and complaints below three in every thousand. Microsoft brought in equivalent requirements and began rejecting non compliant mail to Outlook and Hotmail addresses in May 2025. Enforcement has tightened since.

Can you guarantee we reach the inbox?

No, and nobody can. Placement is decided by the receiving provider using signals no agency controls, including how your recipients behave. What we can do is get the setup right, keep the list clean, monitor the reputation, and hold the complaint rate where it needs to be. That is the honest version of the promise.

Which platform should we use?

Klaviyo if you are ecommerce and want the flows and the store data joined up. HubSpot if you are B2B and the CRM matters more than the send. Mailchimp for a small general business that wants simple. ActiveCampaign when the automation is complex but the catalogue is not. We will recommend one and explain the trade, then build on whatever you choose.

Our list is small. Is it worth it?

It depends on what the list is worth rather than how long it is. Four hundred people who bought from you are worth more than forty thousand who entered a competition. If the list is too small to justify an agency, the audit says so and tells you what to do about growing it first.

What are flows and why do they matter?

Flows are automated emails triggered by behaviour, such as joining the list, leaving a cart, or a product coming back into stock. They matter because they reach someone at the moment they were already thinking about you. Published platform data shows them producing about two fifths of email revenue while being a small share of what gets sent.

How much does email marketing cost?

It is a monthly retainer sized to the work. What moves it is how many flows need building, how often campaigns go out, and whether a migration is involved. Your platform subscription is separate and bought in your name. The quickest way to a number is a short conversation about the list.

We have Klaviyo and nobody uses it. Can you help?

That is the most common situation we walk into. Usually there is a welcome flow from setup, an abandoned cart nobody has looked at, and a list that has not been cleaned. The first month is normally authentication, hygiene, and getting two flows working properly, which is unexciting and where the recovery actually comes from.

Who owns the list and the account?

You do, always. The platform account, the list, the templates, the flows, and the reporting all sit in your name. The subscription is bought by you rather than through us. We work through access you can remove at any time. On some platforms only the account owner can transfer ownership, which is exactly why the account should never have been ours to begin with.

Can you migrate us to another platform?

Yes, and the part that decides whether it goes well is the sending reputation rather than the data. Moving a list to a fresh sending identity and mailing everyone immediately is how a good reputation gets destroyed. We plan the warmup, move the flows deliberately, and keep the old platform running until the new one is trusted.

How do you measure results without open rates?

Clicks, conversions, revenue per recipient, and flow revenue share, plus list health and complaint rate for the delivery side. Open rate appears in the report because you will see it in the platform, and it never carries an argument. When a month is quiet the report says so, instead of finding a chart to fill the space.

Do you work with companies outside Austin, Texas?

Yes. Komplex is based in Austin with a presence in New York City and Reykjavik, and email work happens remotely by nature. Sending into Europe brings consent rules that differ from the United States. Those get built into the signup and the segmentation rather than bolted on afterwards.

Send The Platform Login And Your Last Three Sends

That is enough to start. Back comes whether your authentication passes, which flows are missing, and what the reporting is currently claiming that it should not.

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