After running email marketing campaigns for e-commerce brands and Shopify stores for more than 20 years, one thing stands out as the single biggest missed opportunity:

Not doing email marketing properly.

If you’re a Shopify store owner, email marketing is not just an optional channel—it’s a critical lifeline. But here’s the kicker: not all email marketing is created equal. There are two fundamentally different approaches that successful Shopify stores are taking in 2025, and understanding the difference is crucial.

Type 1: Sales Optimization (The Klaviyo Style)

This approach is all about precision, conversions, and maximizing sales from your existing customers. It’s not about newsletter growth. 

Klaviyo excels at this style of email marketing with its deep Shopify integration, advanced segmentation, and targeted automation. Think of it as finely-tuned machinery built specifically to:

• Increase conversions with timely discount coupons and personalized promotions.
• Retarget cart abandoners and upsell effectively.
• Analyze detailed buyer behaviors to trigger perfectly-timed marketing sequences.

Klaviyo is a conversion powerhouse, and if your goal is immediate revenue growth from your existing audience, it’s your go-to.

Type 2: Audience Growth & Brand Building (The Beehiiv Style)

This approach is less about direct sales and more about building a larger, more engaged audience through great content. Beehiiv is perfect for this strategy. Each email serves as an evergreen, SEO-rich blog post, allowing you to reach beyond your current subscriber base organically. With Beehiiv, your emails can:

• Generate long-term traffic from search engines.
• Engage readers with content that builds trust and loyalty.
• Expand your audience using built-in growth tools like ads and boosts.

It’s a softer sell, yes, but over time it leads to a larger subscriber base and a deeper, more loyal customer relationship.

Quick Comparison: Beehiiv vs Klaviyo

• Klaviyo: Best for immediate conversions, sophisticated segmentation, personalized offers, and maximizing revenue from existing customers.
• Beehiiv: Ideal for brand-building, audience growth, SEO benefits, and creating engaging, content-rich newsletters that attract a broader audience.

Visuals, AI, and the Future of Email

Insert AI-generated email banner example created with Cartario here.

One of the most overlooked yet powerful aspects of modern email marketing is visual identity. In 2025, the ability to generate high-quality, branded visuals quickly with AI is a massive advantage—and this is where platforms like Beehiiv really shine.

At Cartario, we help Shopify store owners and content creators generate stunning, on-brand visuals using AI. Whether it’s newsletter banners, custom illustrations, or product lifestyle shots, the visual layer strengthens your brand voice and makes emails more engaging.

When paired with a platform like Beehiiv, which lets each email live as its own SEO-optimized blog post, you’re not just sending emails—you’re building a content ecosystem that works for you long-term.

Combine that with Beehiiv’s paid ads and Boosts feature, and you’ve got a powerful content + growth flywheel that’s hard to beat.

The Real Mistake Shopify Owners Make

The biggest error I see isn’t choosing the wrong platform—it’s not understanding that these two types of email marketing both matter and are complementary. Neglecting either strategy means leaving money on the table:

• Focusing only on promotions might boost short-term sales but limits long-term audience growth.
• Focusing solely on content might build a big list but leaves immediate revenue opportunities unexploited.

Insert side-by-side visual comparison of Beehiiv vs Klaviyo use cases here.

The Bottom Line

Sign up for a free Cartario account here to start generating stunning AI visuals that elevate your brand and your emails.

And if you want to see how we do it ourselves? Sign up for our AI Growth Guys Newsletter — it’s powered by Beehiiv. We don’t just talk about this stuff, we actually use it.

In 2025, smart Shopify store owners leverage both email marketing strategies:

• Klaviyo: Maximize revenue from your current customer base.
• Beehiiv: Attract and nurture a broader audience with engaging, SEO-driven content.

At AI Growth Guys, we know from over two decades of experience that effective email marketing is worth far more than hiring another marketing professional to sit in your office brainstorming ideas.

If you’re ready to make email marketing your top-performing sales and growth channel, contact us. Let’s put your email strategy to work.