Introduction
Surely the title strikes you as odd. How is it possible to turn the abandoned cart nightmare into an opportunity for your e-commerce revenue?
First things first, cart abandonment means that an online customer leaves a website without purchasing the product added to their cart. When your cart abandonment rates are high, it might indicate problems with your website checkout process or your user experience.
You’ll be surprised to hear that the average cart abandonment rate is almost 75%, meaning that 3 out of 4 shoppers exit your website before buying. This has a major impact on your email marketing efforts. Abandoned carts are lost money for your business.
(Source)
However, cart abandonment can be a blessing in disguise, a lost opportunity that you can turn into a success story. All you have to do is create an abandoned cart email strategy. In this post, we will outline how an e-commerce business can enhance its revenue through 8 cart abandonment tactics.
Main cart abandonment reasons
Before finding the solution, you need to look into why the problem exists. Let’s review the main reasons why website users decide to abandon their shopping carts.
- Unclear pricing or unexpected costs
Probably the most common reason for cart abandonment. Previous knowledge of final costs and a clear pricing policy helps potential customers finalize their orders.
- Not trusting platform security
High-quality security is a prerequisite for any online shopping experience. If visitors don’t trust your website to be safe to purchase from, they will never opt for filling in sensitive information.
- Inconvenient delivery times
When people shop online, they want the entire process customized to their needs. This involves convenient delivery times and a reasonable time frame for the items selected to be delivered.
- Account creation
Forcing leads to create an account puts an extra step between them and the desired product. This is perceived as a disturbance, preventing one-time customers from completing their orders.
- The Slow and complicated checkout process
Online shopping must be quick and simple. Shoppers abandon their carts without hesitation when the checkout is time-consuming and the unnecessary steps tire them out.
Ways to benefit from cart abandonment
- Timing is everything
When people leave their shopping carts before checkout, it seems that you have a small window of time to win them back through an abandoned cart email campaign. As with all efforts in eCommerce marketing, time is money.
The ideal option is to send a recovery email within an hour after the abandonment. The more quick reflexes you have, the better your chances of boosting your revenue. Abandoned cart emails must follow up shortly after a visit to your website leads to an abandoned basket. You can also use a push notification sent immediately to remind them what they left behind.
If, however, your brand has to do with high-priced products or services, consider readjusting the time frame for sending a similar campaign. Decision-making tends to take longer in these cases since people tend to cross-check prices or consult with family/friends.
Always remember, though, that after the 24-hour time frame, the success rate of abandoned cart emails drops dramatically.
- Monitor reports and customer data
In cart abandonment, it’s crucial to check relevant reports and visitor information since these statistics enlighten you regarding trends and patterns.
Monitor the various factors affecting your cart abandonment to have a better understanding of the challenges ahead: your industry, products, checkout process, pricing strategy, audience behavior. You can benefit from sales analytics to see which customers tend to abandon their carts and segment them accordingly or check which devices show high abandonment rates.
Answer the key questions before creating an abandoned cart campaign. Who are you reaching out to? When you figure that out, investigate why your shoppers abandon their carts. Create polls or surveys to get relevant data. Then, study how these metrics influence your customer experience and, subsequently, their shopping behavior.
- Offer incentives
Given that your visitors have already been on your website and placed an order in their cart, you know beforehand your products grabbed their attention. Now is the perfect time to show them why they need to return and buy from your brand.
Consider why the carts might have been abandoned before going forward. As displayed above, most people do so due to unexpected costs. What better way to bring them around than offering some incentives like a discount or free shipping costs?
Keep in mind, though, that proposing incentives right from the start might create unnecessary costs for your company, leading customers to take advantage of it. Rather than that, think about offering discounts or offers in the second email, indicating how urgent it is to take the action required. Ensure that your leads realize the value of your move so that they don’t think of it as a repeated tactic but as an exclusive, one-time opportunity.
- Don’t just send one email
An email sequence is a must-have for your cart abandonment strategy to work. Sending a second email during the following 24 hours makes a difference, especially if you dispatch it at the same time as when your customers left their cart. It has proven to increase revenue by up to 50%.
Think of visitors that left your website before shopping as warm leads, with whom you have to develop a nurturing relationship. Perform tests to see how abandoned basket emails work and perhaps decide on whether a third email is essential. Again, timing matters, so opt for sending it a week later to follow your visitors’ routine.
Display the items they left in their basket inside your email; it might prove to be all the push they need to finally make the purchase. Include all relevant product information, along with an image to further motivate them.
One of Moosend’s abandoned cart templates
- Simple and urgent content
What is fortunate about cart abandonment emails is that they must be kept simple. All that matters is that your customers complete the purchase, so focus on that. Create an attractive, difficult-to-miss CTA and link it to the browse page so that your leads notice it and click on it.
Apart from that, make your copy urgent and to the point. The sense of urgency must be included in both your subject line and email content. How long will the items remain in the abandoned basket? Communicate relevant information through the usage of countdown clocks to urge customers to benefit from a limited-time offer. Everyone tends to purchase a product when in fear of missing out.
Make sure you combine the urgency with a subject line crafted to stand out. Think outside of the box by not sticking to the “business as usual” approach. Use your brand tone, straightforward messaging, and creative elements so that the reader feels compelled to buy.
- Social proof
Are you seeking to persuade people to buy from your e-shop? Then, give them proof of what they can gain from it. Your products or services might be exceptional but you need customers’ testimonials to support your brand’s reputation. Social proof is a powerful tool in your arsenal.
It is based on the tendency of people getting influenced by others’ opinions in order to determine whether they will go ahead with buying something. Add a section providing top feedback from customers who also purchased the item in question.
Include a CTA to give them a visible reminder of the action left in the middle. This, along with the appropriate ratings, will give first-time visitors or uncertain leads the nudge to return to their abandoned cart page.
Social proof elements may include:
- Product/Service Reviews
- Industry experts’ social proof
- Badges/Certifications
- Social media comments/posts/tweets
- Overcome customer hesitation
If someone is hesitating about purchasing – for example, if the price is high or they are first-time buyers, the only way to remove uncertainty is through trust. Discounts or offers not only serve as a way for online shoppers to return to abandoned items but also help you build trust.
In case they weren’t ready to make a purchase before, they might need a push to get over the finish line. Eliminating obstacles like shipping costs or creating an account makes customers feel more confident about proceeding.
Do your customers drop out of the checkout at the point of having to create an account? Then, you should consider adding the guest checkout option. There are many reasons for doing so and, as shown in the diagram below, one of them is that individuals might be unwilling to share personal information.
- Focus on what truly matters
Abandoned cart emails are not about sending marketing-related information, promoting upcoming products or services, or communicating events. They are meant to personalize the e-commerce experience by redirecting visitors right back to their basket in order to complete the payment process. Therefore, you wouldn’t want them to be distracted by anything.
Let’s take for example the following abandoned basket email, created by Casper, where we can see a clear, visible CTA, user reviews for the product in question, as well as the brand voice employed to generate trust and consistency.
So, be clear about what your email contains for your reader to know exactly what to expect. Don’t forget to use your brand’s voice in the content. Once more, your CTA must be straightforward, leading directly to the checkout page. Then, all your visitor has to do is click on it, get directed to their basket containing all the abandoned goods, and proceed with the payment through a simplified checkout process.
Final thoughts
Cart abandonment has everything to do with improving your customer experience and ultimately generating conversions for your brand.
Summarizing everything, here is the key takeaway: an effective abandoned basket email should include a visible CTA for customers to return to their cart, a display of all the products inside the basket, while also offering a clear and simple path to completing the checkout.
Read your visitors’ minds; customize the process and give them different options to purchase in a way that meets their needs. Study reports, perfect the content, find the appropriate sending time, hit send. Perhaps not all abandoned cart emails will hit the target, but the fact remains that they will maximize conversions and increase business revenue.
Author
Maria Fintanidou works as a Copywriter for email marketing automation software Moosend, having created the Help Articles (FAQs) and overseen the platform’s translations in Greek and Spanish. She loves exploring new cultures and ways of thinking through traveling, reading, and language learning