As I mentioned in GMail’s spam filter is pretty weird, reliably sending emails is harder than it looks. But email marketing automation is also one of the most powerful tools you can add to your stack.
So, I went looking for a simple, cheap, API-based solution I could plug into poketto.me. Ideally:
✔️ Free for small usage (given my current revenue = zero)
✔️ Easy integration with my stack existing stack (Python backend, Posthog for analytics)
✔️ Scalable once I need more
After asking around, I landed on Klaviyo—a service I vaguely remembered as “just a Shopify plug-in.” Turns out, it’s much more than that. E-commerce might be their bread and butter, but Klaviyo works great beyond that. Here’s how I’m using it with poketto.me:
👉 Welcome emails: For about three months, I manually sent “Welcome to poketto.me!” emails to new users. Now, it’s fully automated. This also lays the foundation for a proper onboarding flow: multiple emails over the first 2–3 weeks, with tips, tricks, and feature highlights.
👉 Launch email: A “poketto.me has launched!” announcement was the bare minimum I wanted for launch comms. But by September, I had way too many users to send from my personal inbox. Plus, I wanted a professional look and feel.
So, I imported all users into Klaviyo, created a Launch Mail Audience list, and spent half a day on templates, branding, and content. Then I hit send 🚀.
👉 Integration: In theory, I could have connected Klaviyo via Posthog data pipelines—but those aren’t included in the free Posthog plan. Instead, I used Klaviyo’s REST API and built my own integration:
🔗 On signup: create a “Profile” in Klaviyo and add the user to the All Users list
🔗 Adding to the list automatically triggers the Welcome Email flow (currently just one email with a 24-hour delay)
🔗 On account deletion: remove the user from Klaviyo again
Simple, clean, and scalable—without paying a cent (yet).
Naturally, the possibilities for further enhancements are endless:
📧 Trigger a sophisticated flow for users who upgraded from free to premium or unlimited
📧 Regular new feature announcements
📧 Semi-automated content newsletters (“Five articles we love”)
📧 …
