It's no secret that shopping cart abandonment is a huge problem for e-tailers. In fact, the rate of abandoned carts can be as high as 70%! Companies lose valuable sales and revenue. But what if there was a way to combat cart abandonment and recover those lost sales?
Abandoned cart sequences allow businesses to automatically send reminder emails to customers who have left items in their shopping cart. By implementing shopping cart reminders, businesses can recover lost sales and increase profits.
In this article, let's find out how sending abandoned cart emails can also improve customer loyalty and encourage future purchases.
Shopping cart abandonment
Have you ever visited an online shop, added items to your shopping cart, and then left the site without completing your purchase? If so, you're not alone. In fact, one study found that the averagecart abandonment rate is 69.23%.
This trend, normal as it is, is the bane of profitability for the vast majority of e-tailers. This is because in an advertising acquisition, you are paying to bring back prospects who do not buy. By implementing abandoned cart sequences, businesses can recover as much of the lost sales as possible and increase their profits; but understanding the reasons why a prospect may not complete a purchase is essential to the development of any business.
Possible causes and their solutions
There are many reasons why customers abandon their shopping carts. The most common reasons are
- High shipping costs: This is one of the main reasons why customers abandon their purchase. To combat this, e-tailers can offer free shipping or reduce shipping costs for customers who complete their purchase. This encourages customers to complete their purchase without paying additional fees.
- Complicated checkout process: 46% of consumers have abandoned their shopping cart because the checkout process was too complicated. This can be remedied by simplifying the checkout process and making it as easy as possible for customers to complete their purchase. Customers may also abandon their shopping cart if they do not see their preferred payment option available. To combat this problem, online businesses should offer a variety of payment options to make it easier for customers to pay.
- Lack of trust in the brand: 32% of consumers abandoned their shopping cart because they did not trust the company enough to leave their credit card information. This is a significant problem that can be solved by building trust with potential customers. One way to do this is to offer a money back guarantee or provide customer testimonials; social proof and strong branding to establish your brand image and build trust.
- Not ready to buy: 22% of consumers abandoned their purchase because they were not ready to make a purchase. This is a common problem for high-ticket shops that sell high-priced items. In these cases, it is important to follow up with potential customers and offer them incentives to complete their purchase.
Abandoned cart retry sequence
The secret to a good abandoned cart retry sequence is in the timing and repetition. You can, for example, automate a retry scenario to automatically mail your customer a few hours after theyabandon their cart, then the next day and then the following week.
The reminder e-mail
Personalise your cart abandonment emails
The timing of your abandoned cart emails is important, but so is the content. You need to ensure that your mail stands out in their inbox and convinces them to come back and complete their purchase.
Use a catchy subject line: The subject line of your follow-up email is the first thing your customer will see, so make sure it is attention-grabbing and relevant enough to entice your customer to open the email. Here are some ideas:
- "We miss you! Come back and complete your purchase".
- "Don't let your selection go to waste!
- "Is something blocking you? We can help!"
Make it personal: Use the customer's name in the body of the letter and address them directly to increase the chances of conversion.
Include a photo of the item: Seeing a photo of the item they are interested in will help your customer remember what they were looking to buy.
Include a discount: Offering a discount is a great way to entice your customer to return and complete their purchase. You can offer a variety of discounts, such as a percentage off the total purchase, free delivery or shop credit. This will encourage your customer to return and complete their purchase.
Include a CTA: Make sure your email has a clear call to action (CTA) so that customers know what you want them to do. Here are some possible CTAs :
- "Continue -> "
- "I'm enjoying it!"
- "My basket
Use images: Including images of products that have been left in their shopping cart is a great way to remind customers what they are missing. This can often be a hook to encourage them to return and complete their purchase.
Make it mobile friendly: You need to make sure your email is optimised for all screens as more than half of all emails are now read on mobile devices. By optimising the content for all device types, your dunning mail will be easy to read and navigate on small screens.
Tools for creating dunning emails for Wordpress
As we mentioned earlier, there are a number of plugins that can help you automate your abandoned cart email sequences.
Klaviyo
It is one of the most popular choices among online businesses because it allows you to track purchase abandonments and build follow-up sequences. It's a great tool if you want to start sending out mailings for every abandoned purchase, but it can be expensive if you want to step up your marketing efforts.
Mailchimp
This is another popular tool that allows you to create email sequences and automate your marketing. It has a free plan for small businesses, making it a great option if you're just starting out.
ActivCampaign
It is a comprehensive marketing automation platform that includes abandoned cart recovery among its many features.
This is a great option if you are looking for an all-in-one solution, but it can be expensive.
Autonami
One of the most underrated is Autonami, a marketing automation plugin for WordPress that allows you to create complex marketing funnels and send automated emails based on user interactions.
One of the most popular features of Autonami is the ability to create abandoned cart reminders and automatically send them to customers who have left items in their cart.
The plugin also allows you to create customisable email templates, so you can design your own dunning mail that matches your brand's look and feel.
You can also couple it with Twilio to include text messaging in your follow-up strategy.
SMS marketing
SMS marketing is an underrated dunning channel that can help you recover abandoned shopping carts, but it should be used with caution. By sending automated SMS messages to customers who have left items in their shopping cart, you can encourage them to return and complete their purchase. However, it is important to remember that SMS marketing should only be used as part of a wider strategy,
- The first thing you need to do is make sure you have the customer's permission to send them SMS.
- You also need to ensure that your SMS messages are relevant and not too frequent, as this can quickly become annoying or intrusive.
Abandoned cart retry is a powerful tool to recover lost sales and boost your conversion rate. By pairing relevant and targeted emails with short and engaging text messages, you can increase the chances of convincing customers to return and complete their purchase.
Shopping cart abandonment emails: when to send them?
Timing is crucial, especially when it comes to abandoned cart emails. Make sure you send your first email within 24 hours of the abandoned cart, as this is when customers are most likely to still be considering their purchase. You should then follow up with a second email 48 hours later, and a third email a week later.
After that, you can space out your communications according to your own schedule, but be careful not to send too many or you will become bored.
If you have chosen to integrate SMS marketing into your strategy, do not overdo it and place the first SMS 1 hour after your first reminder and the second and last SMS 1 week later.
Analyse the data collected and refine your sequences
Once you have been collecting data for a while, it is time to analyse it and see where you can improve your strategy.
A/B testing is a great way to do this, as it allows you to test different variations of your dunning sequences to see which ones perform best.
You can also segment your list according to different criteria such as purchase history, location or the type of product they are interested in, and send them targeted emails or SMS.
Finally, don't forget to constantly monitor your results and make changes to your strategy if necessary; the abandoned cart strategy can help a lot, but almost no sequence is perfect the first time.
Improve the deliverability of your e-mails by sorting them
The first thing you need to do is make sure you have double opt-in in place, which ensures that every address collected to build your contact list has been acquired with the user's explicit permission. This way you ensure that you only send your mailings to real registrants.
Sorting your database is the second step to ensure a good deliverability rate of your emails. To do this, you need to identify inactive contacts in your database and remove them from your list. These addresses lower your open rate and therefore have a negative impact on your reputation with ISPs.
You can set up automated processes where, if a prospect has not opened your last 2 or 3 mails, you remove them from your list automatically. You can also try to create a list of people you have removed and try to re-engage them in a targeted campaign.
In summary, what can we learn from the abandoned shopping cart email sequences?
Hybrid cart abandonment sequences are a powerful tool to recover lost sales and boost your conversion rate. By combining relevant and targeted emails with short and engaging text messages, you increase the chances of convincing customers to return and complete their purchase.
Timing is crucial, especially when it comes to abandoned cart emails. Make sure you send your first email within 24 hours of theabandoned cart, as this is when customers are most likely to still be considering their purchase
Remember to constantly monitor your results and make changes to your strategy if necessary. The data collected over time will help you refine yourshopping cart abandonment strategies; buta/b testing should become a real milestone within your processes as no sequence is perfect the first time.
