25 Abandoned Cart Email Cases & Tips from the Pros

1. Send Your Initial Email Within 24 Hours of Their Last Visit

Gary Nealon, President, Nealon Solutions

As both an ecommerce store owner and marketer, my best tip for managing cart abandonment would be to ship a abandoned cart email within 24 hours of their last visit to the site. In that email, make it super easy for them to get back to your site and their shopping cart using a one-click option to return to their cart and purchase the items they left behind. Simultaneously, you should be running retargeting advertisements for the goods they didn’t purchase and your arguments against their objections for buying. After the first left handed cart email, you are able to follow it up with an email sequence that mirrors your targeting ads.

2. Make it Easy for Customers to Check Out

Maria Mora, Content Director, Big Sea

A click in the abandoned cart email should automatically direct the consumer to a populated cart. The simpler you make it to check out, the more likely it is that your email will convert. Eliminate barriers to purchase by making the experience as elegant and compact as possible. And remember, many users are on their phone. Your mobile experience should be optimized the prevent frustration and further abandonment.

3. Analyze the Cart Contents

Greg Zakowicz, Sr.. Commerce Marketing Analyst, Oracle + Bronto

Look at looking at what is from the cart to determine the motivation and barriers of the abandoner. For instance, the consumer abandoning a $400 cart is probably quite different than the one abandoning a $25 cart. They have different needs and reasons for not completing their purchase. Examine the information from in the cart. This can include, but not limited to, product SKU, category of merchandise sale date, sex of product, or allowance of products. This info can dictate what you message to the abandoner.

For instance, do you need to tout free shipping around $35 for a 400 cart? Do you have to mention specific information for certain products (e.g. installation and haul-away solutions for appliances)? Are you looking to communicate customer service numbers so they can receive human help choosing a select group of products? Do you need to concentrate on the feeling of urgency knowing the sale ends soon? These can help make the message more helpful for your would-be buyer.

Shipping prices is one of the major pain points of consumers. Check out Fit Small Business’ article on how to supply free transport to your products.

4. Follow Up with an Abandonment Facebook Message

Jeff Moriarty, Marketing & Website Development, Moriarty’s Gem Art

In addition to sending out an e-mail, we sent out an abandonment Facebook message too. While we have seen sales coming through this station now, we did not expect our email open rates to increase too. We consider this additional notification increased the awareness of the cart that they left, and subsequently, they opened their abandonment email more frequently, which has led to more sales. We’ve just been testing this for a few weeks with a single client, but will continue to test this with more customers to find out whether it proves the same across multiple businesses. I’d recommend companies test out not only email abandonment campaigns, but also implement Facebook Messenger abandonment campaigns too.

5. Use Subject Lines with Character

Kevin Tash, President/CEO, Tack Media

Begin with subject lines like,”You left something behind,””Forget Something?” . Conversational subject lines breaks down barriers from other online shops trying to sell you an item. Instead it’s almost just like a buddy reminding you that you’ve left an item behind on your cart. You can also implement humor to the subject lines allowing the user to drop their guard down and differentiate from other mails with more formal subject lines. Some examples include,”Your cart MADE us send this reminder” or”Your shopping cart is lonely!” .

6. Address the Customer’s Reason for Abandoning Their Cart

Kyle Mucha, Co-Founder, Marketpreneurs

My top tips for establishing an abandoned cart email follow up string is to focus on removing the largest reasons why people abandon their carts. Sometimes people are simply too busy to finish their order or maybe there is a technical problem during the checkout process. While other shoppers often abandon their carts because they”were just looking”.There are also people who leave their carts because of sudden or unaccounted for shipping costs. By addressing these motives in your abandon cart emails with the right content, timing and frequency, you remove their pain points and win back lost sales.

7. Inject Humor on Your Text and Images to Split Ice

Ari Banayan, Writer, Habit Nest

I can not stress the importance of incorporating comedy into your drip campaigns. Comedy breaks the ice and, frankly, it gets conversions. Our left cart email now converts into sales 22 percent of their time! It has been huge for us and has allowed us to select a lot of money that was otherwise sitting on the table.

8. Come With a Supply…

Kyle Therriault, Executive Vice President, Auto Accessories Garage

With the frequency of cart abandonments at eCommerce, we see conversions from abandonment emails among our most rewarding markets.We find that often carts are abandoned because the customer has made a decision to look around for a better price, or doesn’t want to invest the money at this time. That’s why when we ship out an abandoned cart reminder, we are not just reminding the customer that they haven’t checked out yet — we are also looking to see if we have some applicable discounts or coupons we could apply first. Bringing a value offering to the table makes the sometimes-unexpected email more palatable, and sometimes is just exactly what the client needed to complete their checkout.

9. …But Do Not Send a Coupon Right Away

Amanda Austin, Founder & Owner, Little Shop of Miniatures

I don’t provide a discount before the next of fourth mails in my order. This email is sent out 48 hours after a cart is abandoned. Many clients will purchase without a discount, and thus don’t offer you a discount too premature. I believe it most effective as a”last ditch attempt ” I also suggest making the voucher effective for a short window of time to repeat activity –that the one I send is good for two days only, and I advertise that in the subject line.

10. Display Some of the Items in the Email You Send

Cory Smith, VP of Mail, Metric Digital

If a user places 10 items in their cart, you might not wish to put all those items in the email. It’s good to set some rules set up to ascertain which of the items appear. It might be the last couple of things they included, or the most expensive item, or another filter that you ideally test and establish is the right method for you. Timing is also essential to test. When I start a program using a customer, we send the initial email a few hours after they abandon. Then we may run some tests over the span of a couple of weeks to determine whether this time is ideal. But maybe not too soon after abandonment. It may be too competitive with customers. Some people might be sensitive to the concept that sending an email instantly after abandonment might be somewhat creepy.

11. Position Your Company as a Thought Leader in Your Specialty

Hannah Mongiat, Owner, Speakeasy Social83

For people who still have not purchased 24 hours after sending out the email above, send them the following email. Inside this email, you’ll remind them about the motivator and also have a link to your blog post. The article you highlight should be full of juicy content that provides value to your reader. If you do not have the resources in house to compose a post like this, it can be easily outsourced. Think of it as an investment to recover lost revenue from abandoned carts. A manual or how-to article would be excellent for this type of content.

12. Get Creative with Your Succeeding Emails

Sam Warren, Director of Marketing, RankPay

Making the most from abandoned cart email effort generally means sending a number of emails over the span of a couple weeks. The secret is to be first, entertaining, and don’t repeat yourself ad infinitum. From the time a user is ready to be given a third or fourth email, it is time to mix it up and get creative. Instead of offering the exact same incentive you supplied in earlier mails, try another strategy. Do not be afraid to think beyond the box. I ran one effort for a client last year at which we actually recruited a satisfied client to write the email . Sounds crazy ? But it worked like a charm! The topic line went like this:”I bought the [product name] you have sitting on your cart, this is what I learned…”. Open rates and conversions got a healthy bulge, and we got nothing but positive (and frequently bemused) feedback!

13. Contain a Clear Call to Action in the Email Body

Alexander Bekhterev, Program Manager, Emarsys

There are 3 things to keep in mind. First of all, you should not create your email generic — add the actual products that are abandoned. Second, don’t include too many goods. If I abandoned 15 products, it does not mean that you ought to include every single of them in my cart email (such as Body Shop does). There is no point to add more clutter, plus longer emails may get clipped or filtered. Contain the first five and call it a day. Thirdly, add a very clear call to action. Showing products is good, but if there’s no fast and effortless way for customers to return to your website — they will struggle to complete the purchase. We don’t want that. A glowing button placed next to products or above/below them will do the job. A fantastic example can be Asics abandoned cart emails.

14. Send Out At Least 3 Emails in Your Sequence

Rene Delgado, Senior Managing Partner, Shop Indoor Golf

I would highly recommend sending at least three emails as part of any abandoned cart sequence. You have to remember these are potential customers with a high level of purchase intention. They’re obviously interested in this product. Now you need to make them convert. People are extremely busy these days and have short attention spans. That’s why we enjoy the minimal three email strategy to boost the odds of this email being seen. We typically like to send an abandoned cart email sequence which is made up of 3 emails over a 24-hour period.

15. Apply the 9-Word Mail Strategy

Phil Weaver, CMO, Learning Success Systems

Among the very best strategies for an abandoned cart email is the easy”nine-word email” format pioneered by Dean Jackson. This strategy is typically recommended as a reinitiation email but it works wonders as an abandon cart email. It is simple. Just put their name in the topic line and then the email should read something like”Are you interested in…{add some benefit statement] ~your name” Set it up so a reply to this email goes for a client service. Do not put any links in the email. You want it to look as if somebody just quickly wrote it. People typically respond to some clue as to why they were in the checkout and customer service may respond accordingly. Very much worthwhile for these very high-value site visitors.

Thinking of setting up your own left cart email campaign? Take the first step by reading Fit Small Business’ post on cart abandonment statistics.

16. Pitch New Product Ideas

Nate Masterson, Marketing Manager, Maple Holistics

Often times, clients will become disinterested in whatever they’d added to their cart, but it doesn’t mean they are uninterested in all your products! By including some best-sellers, new releases or promotions that are present in a cart reminder email, you might not be able to convert a follow-through on which has been left in a cart, but you can alternatively inspire fresh browsing and purchasing. This is especially effective in followup reminders — the longer a client leaves an item in their cart, the less likely they are to eventually purchase it. This is the reason why drawing their attention to fresh items can be so significant and effective.

17. Always Focus Attention on the”Back to Cart” Link

Phil Weltman, Content Marketing Manager, Klaviyo

Your main call to action deserves center stage; other CTAs should not steal your customer’s attention (the 1 caveat to this is if your goods are costly or you know clients often have questions, you may want to have a support or FAQ call to action that’s equally outstanding ). Consider it this way: your target with a left cart email is to push the shopper back into the cart, right? Then why include social buttons in the bottom of the email? It can be tough to cut links that you’re used to seeing there, however, you’ve got to concentrate on the back-to-cart link.

18. Personalize Your Abandoned Cart Emails

Steven Aldrich, Chief Product Officer, GoDaddy

Keep your cart email reminders sweet and short. Show the item and ask if they’d like to come back to their cart. The more personalized the email, the better. Include the client’s name, the thing in their cart, and also a very simple link for the person to do it from the email.

19. Utilize Dynamic Content to Reel Clients Back In

EJ McGowan, VP & Managing Director, Campaigner

Dynamic content may be an integral tool to help email entrepreneurs socialize with customers who left items in their shopping carts. With dynamic content, marketers can make a template message that provides personalized content, such as information concerning left handed buys or new ideas based on shoppers’ interests. Messages should include a link back to complementary things on the website or an individual’s shopping cart. This not only sends a glimpse about abandoned things, but also presents an easy and direct call-to-action encouraging consumers to purchase.

20. Test and Optimize

As with any other advertising emails, abandoned cart mails may depend on customer behavior and preferences, so subjecting your copy to experience A/B split testing will play a significant role in optimizing reaction. Test various elements of your email for example subject lines, CTAs, incentives, design and even the time to continuously make certain your email is optimized to create maximum conversion prices. This article shows you the steps into successful A/B email split testing.

21. Tempt with Associated Items

One reason that clients leave their carts is because they suddenly realized that they’re really not too confident of the item they are buying. 1 easy approach to address this is to add related things in your email to show how it functions nicely with different products that your clients may be more interested in. This helps to bolster their choice in buying and return to their own carts to finish the sale.

22. Segment Your Target Audience by Cart Value

One method of segmenting your target audience for the depart cart mails is by the value of the items which was abandoned in their own cart. This makes it much easier for you to design deals and offers such as reductions or shipping fees depending on their possible buy. High value carts will be easier to identify employing this approach, and also the email sequence will probably be a lot easier to customize.

23. Create Urgency Using Countdown On Emails

Some may think it may be risky, but using countdown in your abandoned cart mails creates the ideal feeling of urgency and urges the client to consider the deal. Countdowns are irresistible especially when coupled with the right use of pictures.

24. Make Sure Your Emails are Responsive

Mobile online shopping are becoming very popular, making all the sense to use marketing emails which are responsive too. To be able to maximize the potentials of cart mails, it’s necessary they are not hard to see regardless of the device that the customers are utilizing. This ensures that your campaigns are seamless since on-the-go shoppers will definitely check their emails with their mobile device.

25. Use a Private Tone to Your Emails

Utilizing a personal tone on your cart emails make them stick out from a receiver’s inbox. One of the numerous interesting findings by advertising scientists include demonstrating that an email that addresses a customer using an easy”You” or by their own original name has a much better chance of being opened and responded. Add it to your subject line or on the body of this email to make it more attractive to potential clients.