Marketing With Laryssa

Klaviyo has been rolling out something called Composer in beta - an AI agent that promises to build entire marketing campaigns from a single prompt. Audience, copy, design, segmentation, all of it. The promise is impressive. So I got access on a real client account and tested it myself. And my honest take is more nuanced than the hype - and more useful than the skeptics would have you believe. The...

$6,000 in Klaviyo. $600 in Google Analytics. Same campaign. Same week. Real numbers from a real account my team took over. If you've ever stared at two reports that should say the same thing and thought - is someone lying to me? - this episode is for you. Nobody is lying. But what's actually happening is something every ecommerce brand sending marketing emails needs to understand. Those two tools...

The moment someone signs up for your emails is the highest attention moment you will ever have with that subscriber. They just said yes. They're interested. They're engaged. And most brands are using that window to send two, maybe three emails - and then calling it done. That's a problem. Because the subscribers who buy from email one were already close to purchasing anyway. The discount and the t...

Segmentation sounds like the answer to everything. The right message to the right person at the right time - that's the dream. And to be clear, I'm a segment stan. Smart segmentation is one of the most powerful things you can do for your email program. But the conversation around it is almost always one-directional: more segments, more targeting, more personalization. And at a certain point, that...

The call to action is the last thing someone reads before they click - or don't. And for something that important, it gets surprisingly little strategic thought in most email programs. What I see instead is one of two extremes. Either the CTA is completely ignored - "Shop Now" slapped on every button, same wording across every email, no thought given to whether it's actually doing its job. Or it's...

Popups have a reputation. We've all landed on a site, barely had a second to look around, and been hit with a full-screen form asking for an email address before we even know what the brand sells. That's not a popup problem - that's a strategy problem. A well-timed, well-designed popup is one of the most effective list growth tools an ecommerce brand has. Avoiding them because you don't want to se...

Most brands have heard of domain warmup. When you're setting up a new Klaviyo account, you don't just blast your entire list on day one - you start small, build gradually, and let inbox providers get to know you as a sender. That part tends to make sense to people. What doesn't get talked about nearly enough is what comes after that. Warmup isn't a one-time thing you do at the beginning and then f...

A big email list feels like proof of something. Momentum. Years of work finally paying off. And that number sitting at the top of your Klaviyo dashboard can feel like a badge of honor - especially when you remember all the pop-up forms, giveaways, collaborations, and events that built it. But what if that number is giving you a completely false picture of how many people actually want to hear from...

Klaviyo makes it easy to set up a win back flow. There's a default template ready to go, so most brands turn it on, move on, and assume it's working. And technically it is - it's running. But running and working are two very different things. When I go into a new client's account and look at their win back flow, what I almost always find is something that was set up once, never really thought thro...

This month marks 10 years since I officially started Joy Joya. And I've been sitting with that for a while, trying to figure out what I actually want to say about it. There's a version of this episode that writes itself - the highlight reel, the wins, the listicle wrapped up in a bow. I didn't want to do that. What I wanted to do was be honest, because that's more useful. So that's what this episo...

Almost every brand sends last chance emails. End of a sale, final hours of a promotion, last day before something's gone. They're a completely normal part of any email calendar. And yet - we've all been on the receiving end of one that felt off. A little frantic. A little hollow. Like the brand was more stressed about hitting a number than genuinely trying to help you not miss something. The diffe...

There's a lawsuit in the news right now involving a major retailer and their email marketing. I'm not going to weigh in on the legal debate - but it did make me want to talk about something I think gets overlooked when email programs are moving fast. Email is permission-based marketing. Someone gave you their address and said yes, you can communicate with me. That's not a small thing. And it comes...

Lists and segments both group people. They both show you a number. They both show up when you're sending emails. So it's easy to assume they're basically the same thing with different names - especially when you're moving fast and just trying to get a campaign out the door. But that assumption is one of the most common structural mistakes I see inside email accounts, and the tricky part is that no...

Plain text emails can feel almost too simple. No design, no product blocks, no polished layout. So why do they sometimes outperform emails that took way more time to build? A lot of ecommerce brands either dismiss plain text emails as unfinished - or overcorrect and treat them like a silver bullet. The truth is more nuanced than that. Plain text isn't a shortcut. It's a strategic format choice - a...

Episode #375 – Is Your Welcome Discount Hurting Your Email Performance? When it comes to growing your email list, most ecommerce brands are focused on one thing: more. More subscribers. More signups. Higher pop-up conversion rates. But what if the way you're growing your list - especially through your welcome discount - is actually making your email performance worse over time? At first, it can fe...

Episode #374 - The Email Bottleneck That's Quietly Limiting Your Growth When ecommerce revenue stalls, the instinct is almost always the same: we need more traffic. More ads. More eyeballs. More list growth. But what if the real problem isn't how many people are coming in - it's what happens after they arrive? In this episode, I'm breaking down the email bottleneck that quietly limits growth for s...

Episode #373 – Why Your Email Campaigns Might All Sound the Same Seasonal themes can make your email marketing feel cohesive and intentional - but lean too hard into one, and suddenly every email starts sounding the same. If you've ever planned a month of campaigns around a theme like Spring Refresh, Holiday Sparkle, or New Year Energy, you know how helpful it can feel at first. Themes give your c...

Episode #372 – Why Your Abandoned Cart Flow Won't Recover Every Sale Cart abandonment automations are powerful - but they're not a magic net that catches every abandoned cart you see in Shopify. If you've ever opened your Shopify analytics, seen a huge list of abandoned carts, and thought "Why aren't we getting all of these sales back?" - this episode will reset your expectations fast. Because her...

Episode #371 – Is a More Expensive Email Platform Actually Worth It? Is paying more for an email marketing platform actually worth it - or is that just industry hype? I've seen so many ecommerce brands choose tools based on price alone… and then regret it later when their strategy outgrows the platform. In this episode, I break down when investing more makes sense - and when it doesn't. Because yo...

Episode #370 – Why "Just Be Consistent" Isn't an Email Strategy Anymore "Just be consistent" is one of the most common pieces of email marketing advice - and in 2026, it can quietly become a trap when it's misunderstood. For years, consistency meant momentum, visibility, and growth. But today, many founders are stuck sending emails out of obligation instead of intention - and that pressure often l...

Episode #369 – The Fastest Way to Stabilize Email Results (No Fancy Segmentation Required) If your email results feel inconsistent, you might be trying to use every campaign like it's doing CPR — reviving cold subscribers, persuading on-the-fence people, and rewarding the warm people all in one send. That's exhausting, and it rarely works. Segmentation fixes this by doing one simple thing: it lets...

Episode #368 – Stop Overwriting Your Emails (Write Shorter Emails That Get More Clicks) In email marketing, most ecommerce founders don't actually have a copywriting problem - they have an overwriting habit. Your email turns into a mini essay because you're trying to explain, prove, and reassure all at once. But in email marketing, simple, straightforward copy isn't boring — it's persuasive. Clear...

Episode #367 - Unsubscribes Aren't Your Problem…List Churn Without Regrowth Is Unsubscribes can feel personal. Like every time someone leaves your list, it's proof you're doing something wrong. But here's the truth: unsubscribes aren't your problem. List churn without regrowth is. In this episode, I'm breaking down what a healthy unsubscribe reality looks like, why unsubscribes are inevitable (and...

Episode #366 - Your Emails Are Going to Promotions - Now What? There's a whole corner of the internet selling ecommerce founders the idea that one tiny tweak will magically make Gmail favor their emails. And the truth is: chasing that promise usually makes things worse. In this episode, I'm sharing my hot take on Gmail tabs (Primary vs Promotions): why Promotions isn't a penalty box, why "get into...

Episode #365 - What Percentage of Revenue Should Email Marketing Drive? (Benchmarks for Ecommerce Brands) If you've ever wondered, "Is my email program doing what it's supposed to be doing?" — you're not alone. Because everyone throws around percentages like they're universal truth… "Email should drive 30%." "No, it should be 40%." "Wait, mine is 12%… is that bad?" 🎧 In this episode, I'm making t...