Best practices for abandoned cart automation to help you recover lost sales and increase conversions by automatically following up on abandoned baskets.
Anders Stokholm Jessen
Facebook
Do all visitors who add products to their basket on your webshop finalise a purchase? If so, you are either exceptionally skilled or extremely lucky.
For the rest of us, it is necessary to rely on smart strategies to retain visitors and eventually convert them into customers. To achieve the best possible return on investment, these processes should be automated. In this blog post, I will explain Abandoned Cart Automation and how you can make it work for your business.
Abandoned Cart emails – also known as abandoned basket emails – are a form of remarketing where you send an email to a visitor who added items to their basket but left your website without completing the purchase. The email contains the products the visitor left in their basket but did not buy.
By sending an Abandoned Cart email, you make it easier for your visitor to resume their purchase journey.
Important information!
To send an email to a visitor, you must have their email address and, just as importantly, their consent to contact them.
Be clear and concise in your email, ensuring each message has a single objective. If you present visitors with too many options, they face too many decisions. Keep it simple so the only choice is to complete the purchase. Avoid inviting them to both buy the “abandoned” items and follow you on Facebook, or to purchase and also browse sale items. Stay focused and make sure your message is crystal clear!
A single email is easily overlooked and seldom achieves much. Therefore, it is perfectly acceptable to send multiple emails, as long as your message remains targeted and relevant to the recipient. However, be careful!
Do not spam your recipients. Many consumers find Abandoned Cart emails irritating (often because they are poorly executed). We recommend including a maximum of three emails in your Abandoned Cart sequence.
We all know the feeling – scanning your inbox and suddenly an intriguing subject line catches your eye. That is the email you want to read.
So, the top priority is a subject line that stands out. Invest time in finding the right phrasing to achieve the best results (read: open rates).
Depending on how advanced your marketing setup is, you are probably active across several platforms. Consider how your Abandoned Cart flow fits into your overall remarketing activities, for example on Facebook.
What makes most sense? Should those who click your CTA in the Abandoned Cart email land on your homepage, or return directly to the basket they left? The answer is often somewhere in between. Many people research products on mobile but complete the purchase on a computer. Bear this in mind when directing recipients back to your webshop. They should return to the shopping experience – but not to an empty basket if they added the items from another device.
Need a little extra persuasion? Consider offering a small incentive to help your recipients take the final step. We have seen great results with discount codes in Abandoned Cart emails that unlock a gift. It does not have to cut into your profits, but it should be valuable enough to encourage a purchase.
Your Abandoned Cart email sequence should begin relatively soon after a visitor leaves your webshop with products still in their basket. As a rule of thumb, send the first email one hour later. The following day, send a reminder – possibly including a discount or gift code. If you wait too long before starting your sequence, you risk the customer buying elsewhere.
Bombarding customers with multiple messages at once creates confusion, not conversions. Stay disciplined and only offer a single, clear option. If you overwhelm them, you lose focus. Abandoned Cart emails have one goal – driving revenue. Stick to it.
No one likes to be spammed with emails – your visitors and customers included. As mentioned before, one email is rarely enough, but sending too many can backfire. In the worst case, you could lose a loyal customer. Send no more than three emails, and always ensure they are relevant.
There should be no doubt about who is sending your emails. Stay true to your brand identity in both design and visual presentation. If you typically use humour, authority, or other stylistic elements in your communication, continue this in your Abandoned Cart emails.
Otherwise, recipients may not recognise you as the sender, and your emails could lose their impact.
It is good to offer a small incentive to convert from an email, but do not overdo it. You do not want to train your customers to only buy when there is a discount.
Think of incentives as a final nudge for customers who are already considering a purchase.
R-E-L-E-V-A-N-C-E – and much of that depends on timing. If you are too slow to send your emails, you lose relevance.
Act quickly. Most email platforms, including Mailchimp, let you send an email just one hour after a basket has been abandoned.
REMEMBER!
Your recipients have placed their trust in you by providing their email address and consenting to receive your emails. Do not abuse this trust.
Do not spam them, keep your message clear, and always ensure relevance!
With these points in place, you are ready to create effective Abandoned Cart Automation in your preferred email platform – whether that is MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, or another platform entirely.
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