Every gift order hands you two customers. Most brands market to one.
The gifter paid. The recipient is holding your product and has never bought from you. This is the playbook the best Klaviyo agencies build for the second one.
Every gift order gives you two people.
The gifter, who paid, who is already in your database and who you market to constantly. And the recipient — who is holding something you made, chose none of it, paid for none of it, and has never appeared in your marketing in their life.
Most brands send that second person a shipping notification and never speak to them again.
Three quarters of them are new to you. They arrived with a personal recommendation from someone they trust, which is the single warmest introduction in marketing, and it costs nothing.
Why they are not just another subscriber
The instinct is to drop gift recipients into the welcome flow. It is the wrong flow, and it reads wrong.
A welcome flow thanks someone for an order they did not place and offers a discount on a "next" purchase they have not made yet. To a recipient, both are slightly baffling.
What they actually are is a third thing: not a subscriber, not a customer. Someone who is holding your product right now, in a good mood, because a person who knows them well decided this was the right thing to give them.
That state does not last. Which is why the timing below matters more than the copy.
Giftnote POV
A gift recipient is not a lead and not a customer. They are a person mid-experience with your product, introduced by someone they trust. Market to that, not to a segment definition.
The sequence
On delivery, the message. Not when the order was placed — when the parcel actually lands. The gifter's words, presented properly, with your brand around them rather than over them. This is the card that came with the present. It should feel like one, and it is where the recipient chooses to opt in.
Three to five days later, the context. They have used the thing by now. Tell them what they have and how to get the most from it. No offer. A discount here prices a relationship that has not started.
Two to three weeks later, the first offer. Now it makes sense, framed as a first purchase rather than a next one, and pointed at the product they already own plus its natural companion. They know one thing about you. Build from it.
The email almost nobody sends
Twelve months after the gift, write to the gifter.
Somebody who bought a birthday present last September has a birthday to buy for this September. The occasion repeats. The relationship repeats. The gifter is already a proven customer with a proven higher order value.
It is the highest-return flow in gifting and it is missing from almost every account we look at.
What this looks like when a brand commits to it
Emma Lewisham, the B Corp certified New Zealand skincare brand, ran a campaign this August built on exactly this logic — 20% back as store credit rather than 20% off, with Klaviyo carrying the communication and a 90-day window to bring people back. Built with Elephant Room, a Klaviyo agency and Shopify Build Award winner.
The mechanic is different from a gift recipient flow, but the thinking is identical: spend the incentive on the next relationship rather than discounting the one you already have.
Premier Catch demonstrates the scale version. One corporate gifting order reaches hundreds of clients, each receiving a branded message with their own name on it, each becoming a contact the brand can actually talk to afterwards. One order, hundreds of introductions.
What makes it possible
None of this works if the recipient does not exist as a profile.
That is the gap in native Shopify. There is no gift message field, no recipient record, and no way to reach the person who received the parcel. They are a shipping address, and shipping addresses cannot be segmented, nurtured or converted.
With Giftnote, the gift event flows into Klaviyo carrying the recipient's details, the gifter's name and the message itself — so every flow above can be built and personalised, and every recipient can be reported on separately from customers who bought for themselves.
That last part is what gets the channel funded. If your reporting cannot tell a gift recipient from a self-purchaser, gifting is invisible, and invisible channels do not get budget.
The four flows worth building
- Gift delivered — the message, presented properly, opt-in captured
- Day 3 to 5 — what they have and how to use it, no offer
- Week 2 to 3 — first-purchase offer anchored to the product they own
- Twelve months on — the occasion reminder, sent to the gifter
Get gift recipients into Klaviyo as their own audience
Book a personalised demo, or install Giftnote on your Shopify store and try every plan free for 30 days.
Frequently asked questions
Should gift recipients go into my welcome flow?
No. A welcome flow thanks someone for an order they did not place and offers a discount on a purchase they have not made. Recipients need their own sequence, starting from the gift itself.
When should you email a gift recipient?
On delivery with the gifter's message, three to five days later with context about the product, and two to three weeks later with a first-purchase offer. Sending the offer earlier prices a relationship that has not started.
Should you email the gifter or the recipient a year later?
The gifter. The occasion repeats for them, not for the recipient, and they are already a proven customer. It is the highest-return flow in a gifting programme and is almost never built.
Can Shopify capture gift recipients without an app?
No. Shopify has no native gift message field and creates no contact record for a recipient unless they buy something themselves. Capturing them with their own opt-in requires a gifting app.
How do you segment gift recipients in Klaviyo?
Build the segment on the gift event rather than on order data. With Giftnote, gift events pass the recipient's details into Klaviyo, so recipients can be separated from self-purchasers and reported on independently.
Why do gift recipients convert well?
Because they arrive holding your product with a personal recommendation attached, rather than clicking an ad. Around 74% are new to the brand, and a meaningful share buy for themselves within 90 days.
