Klaviyo Takes Its Creative Standard From The Consumer Brands On Its Customer List

Two business-software companies will describe themselves in almost the same words, down to the same few adjectives. A buyer reading both websites comes away unable to separate them on what the products actually deliver, ultimately choosing the company they've heard of before. Consumer brands have spent decades getting creative enough to ensure they're the familiar choice, and savvy software companies have now started borrowing their playbook.

Jamie Domenici is Chief Marketing Officer at Klaviyo, a B2C CRM platform consumer brands use to manage their relationships with shoppers. Domenici joined in 2023 and helped take the company through its IPO. Before that, she served as CMO at GoTo after more than a decade at Salesforce. Spencer LaVallee co-founded the creative strategy company Gus and also serves as Chief Creative Officer. Domenici commissioned Klaviyo's Your Brand's Best Friend campaign launched this fall, and LaVallee led the creative work.

"The business professionals on the other end of the communication are humans just like you and me. They have senses of humor, they have values, they want to be entertained. We're actively trying to make sure we're talking to the person on the other end and not the employee," says LaVallee. The campaign was Gus's first project for Klaviyo, and Domenici had been studying how her own customers advertise to shoppers.

Clever, relatable, and B2B

Domenici lists "clever" and "relatable" among Klaviyo's brand attributes, and what she wants most from a campaign is for more people to have heard of the company. She takes her examples from her own customers. "I'm a B2B marketer who sells to B2C companies," she says. "I think B2C companies do a great job at their brand and having fun and bringing their brand to life. Our customers really inspire us a lot, which is a great place to be."

Companies selling AI products have all settled on the same language, and Domenici runs into it where she lives in San Francisco. She also expects the buying to change, with software agents placing orders for other software agents. "I drive down the road every single day and I see billboard after billboard that says, 'agent AI, agent AI inference,'" she says. "Literally, that's how my kids go to school. The world is becoming agentic, which I think is exciting, but I still think how you stand out, how you relate, how you cut through the noise, that's what marketing is all about."

Business software is usually sold by explaining what it does. LaVallee calls the tone that comes with it a default setting, and he acknowledges that there's a time and a place for it. "There seems to be this default setting, this default reaction when people are thinking of B2B advertising, that it's all business," he explains. "We need to talk about the results and the functions and the features and carry ourselves with this level of seriousness and sophistication, really putting on these airs, if you will."

Becoming best friends

Klaviyo spent the year before this campaign explaining what a B2C CRM is and getting its name known. For Your Brand's Best Friend, the company copied the way its own customers advertise, since those customers take bigger creative risks than software firms do. Domenici likens it to a retail purchase, where a shopper's buying for themself and the sale is an emotional one. "We steal from B2C," she says. "Our customers take risks, they build on that emotional connection. We wanted to connect with our buyer the way they're connecting with their customers."

Other software companies naming their AI agents landed on "sidekick." Domenici had been using a different word for three years already, having called her head of sales her "bestie," and the campaign built on that concept. "We were intentional about the best friend piece, because we thought it was a bit more human. Nobody was going down that route of building upon that best friend relationship that you have, the trust that you have," she says. "That was another really important undertone for us to communicate."

The creative team built the idea around a work friendship, and LaVallee wanted customers to think about Klaviyo the way they think about that person. Klaviyo's own marketing agent is called Composer, and Domenici describes it telling a marketer which campaigns to build and then building them. Gus pushed the company out of its comfort zone, and LaVallee credits his client for trusting them. "Everyone knows who their work best friend is, that person that you're happy to see every day at the office, your compatriot that you rely on," he notes. "If we can make Klaviyo imbued with those same attributes, this is a key collaborator for you that you can rely on and know it has your back."

Proof past the funnel

A brand campaign still has to answer to a number, and Domenici tracks organic traffic against what the company spends. The other test is whether a marketer comes away thinking of Klaviyo truly as their brand's best friend. She's also clear about what the numbers can't tell her. "We did build out a whole full funnel where we said assumption A on the top of the funnel should result in assumption B, middle of the funnel, which is traffic to our website and then conversions beyond that," she explains. "It's always hard with brand to say spend a dollar, you get a dollar in this payback period."

Domenici offers an anecdotal story alongside hard numbers. At a dinner in New York, a senior executive recognized Klaviyo from its advertising, and he worked outside retail, a sign the campaign is widening who knows the company. "Someone came up to me and said, 'hey, Klaviyo, I've seen your ads, they're great,'" says Domenici. "I did not know this person. They are a C-suite executive. They watch where we've been advertising, and because of that, he knew us."

Klaviyo tests and changes its marketing faster than ever before, and Domenici credits AI for that. "Great brands have longevity," she concludes. "I think the BFF campaign will be a part of who and how we show up, and the nature of a relatable brand that you can understand and that crosses the line between B2C and B2B will hold true. But do I see us talking about BFFs for three to four years with a jingle? Not necessarily. I like to evolve constantly."