An abandoned cart happens when a potential customer adds products from your online shop to their shopping cart but ultimately leaves without going through with the purchase.
This can happen for several different reasons. Some of the most common reasons for customers to abandon their carts include a complex checkout process or being required to create a customer account before they can check out, unexpected shipping costs, and concerns about the security of the site. If you are running an eCommerce store, then you are probably already familiar with cart abandonment. On average, around seven out of ten online shoppers do not complete their purchase.
When a customer abandons their cart, you can send them an abandoned cart email. This is a strategy that you can put in place to recover any potentially lost sales by convincing your customer to complete their purchase with a follow-up message.
An abandoned cart email is a type of autoresponder or pre-prepared email that is automatically triggered when the abandoned cart occurs.
What is an Abandoned Cart Email?
An abandoned cart reminder email template allows you to create a workflow that will automatically send a follow-up message to a customer who has left your website without following through with purchasing the items that they added to your cart.
You can set this message to display the contents of your customer’s cart to remind them that they were shopping for it. It can be a helpful tool for reducing the number of incomplete orders that your business gets, and ultimately increase your sales by providing customers with some extra encouragement to buy that item they were interested in.
There are many different ways that you can optimise your eCommerce store to increase conversions. However, no matter which strategies you have in place, you can always expect that there will still be some customers who do not go through with their purchase; this is something that no eCommerce store can completely avoid.
Abandoned cart emails provide you with a strategy that you can use to effectively recover lost sales and increase conversions.
Normally, the customer journey for an abandoned cart email will include the following:
- A customer visits your store
- The customer adds items to their shopping cart
- As a part of the checkout process, or before, the customer is asked to fill in their email address
- The customer leaves the site before they make the purchase
- After a set period of time, they will receive an automated email reminder about the abandoned cart
- If the email is successful, the customer returns to your site where they complete the purchase
In order to successfully send abandoned cart emails, you will need to collect the customer’s email address. You can do this either by optimising the checkout process or using exit-intent popups that will be shown when the customer is about to leave your site.
The more emails you can capture, the more carts and revenue you may be able to successfully recover.
Why Send Abandoned Cart Emails?
If you run an eCommerce store and are worried about the rate of abandoned carts that you are seeing, there are several reasons to consider sending abandoned cart emails.
Abandoned cart emails are actually responsible for around thirty percent of all eCommerce revenue, according to research, so they are definitely worth setting up. Along with helping you increase conversions, abandoned cart emails can also help your business with a range of further benefits.
What are the Benefits of an Abandoned Cart Email?
The benefits of sending abandoned cart emails include:
Improve the Customer Experience
Even if you send an abandoned cart email that does not result in your customer going back to complete their purchase, it can help you collect vital information.
The information that you collect can help you understand why the cart was abandoned in the first place, allowing you to make the changes and adjustments necessary to improve the experience for your customers and reduce cart abandonment overall.
Save Money and Time
When you have an automated email workflow for cart abandonment, you will be able to spend more time focusing your efforts on other marketing tasks for your business. Once you have set up abandoned cart emails, you can use them to help retain your existing customers rather than spending a lot of money and time on acquiring new customers.
Improve Customer Relationships
Abandoned cart emails are very relevant for customers since they are personalised to their shopping history. Therefore, they can be a way to show the customer that you both understand and value their needs, which can support you in building a lasting relationship with your customers.
Tips for Setting Up Abandon Cart Emails
With over 80% of online shopping carts abandoned by the customers before they complete a sale, your sale numbers might be only one-tenth of what they could be if you have not yet set up abandoned cart emails.
While it might not be possible to persuade every customer who abandons their cart to go through the checkout process and increase your sales, it is worth putting the effort in to resolve as many hesitations as possible.
Some tips to keep in mind to get the best results with abandoned cart emails include:
Provide a Reminder
It’s possible that some carts are abandoned because the customer is distracted. In other cases, they might just need some time to think about the product before they decide if it is worth buying or not. It might take a few hours after the cart is abandoned for them to be reminded of why they liked the item in the first place.
Customers can abandon their carts for many different reasons – for example, they might still want to buy, but abandoned their cart due to a knock on the door or their internet being cut off.
Saving their cart and sending an email that reminds them of what they planned to purchase with a link to pick back up where they left off is the easiest way to get your customer back.
If you have a B2B store, consider using a B2B purchasing platform to streamline this process and enhance the overall efficiency of your eCommerce strategy.
Perfect Your Email Copy
It is a good idea to view abandoned cart emails as a bonus opportunity for marketing to your customers. If you take great care to ensure that all of your company’s marketing materials are compelling, then don’t slack off when writing your abandoned cart emails.
You should take care to include a subject line that grabs attention, good images, and compelling copy. Don’t be afraid to use bold subject lines and personalise the email, giving the recipient the feeling that maybe they should go back and check.
Include a CTA Button
A call-to-action or CTA button is the button that you use in emails to guide viewers back towards their abandoned cart. This is the part of the email that your recipient needs to engage with in order for them to take the desired action.
CTA buttons can vary in style depending on your branding, but they all share the same goal of getting people back to their online shopping carts where they will complete their purchase. There are tons of options to consider when it comes to the type of CTA that you use.
A standard option like ‘Purchase Now’ or ‘Return to Cart’ can work well, or you can get more creative.
Consider Timing
Studies have shown that the sooner you send an abandoned cart email, the better your results are likely to be. Email marketing company Rejoiner confirmed this with studies that analysed abandoned cart emails sent using its platform with the main goal of finding the best timing to drive revenue for their clients.
They found that clients who sent a follow-up email after the cart had been abandoned for one hour got an average conversation rate of sixteen percent. The one hour point appears to be the sweet spot, with marketers seeing worse results when sending sooner, and even worse results for those who waited longer.
The study also found that while the first email is usually the most effective, it is not always going to recover all of the sales lost through cart abandonment. They recommend a three-part email series with the first email sent one hour after the cart is abandoned, the second email the next day, and the third email after three days of the cart being abandoned to get the best results.
Offer a Discount
Finally, bear in mind that many customers might abandon their carts when they discover that the final price is more than they were expecting. People don’t always consider costs like calculating sales tax or shipping when they are adding items to their cart.
So, it’s no surprise that the cost is a top reason for many cart abandoners. Offering a discount is a simple way to recover any potential customers who may have been put off by the price.
With abandoned carts causing huge eCommerce sales losses, understanding how to use abandoned cart emails to encourage your customers to come back and complete the purchase is a crucial part of increasing revenue for your online shop.