Abandoned Cart Emails

Abandoned cart emails are one of the most powerful elements that you can integrate into your eCommerce website. Every online store will experience abandoned carts and it makes up for a lot of lost revenue.

To combat this, you can integrate a system easily where your website will automatically email the visitor who left their email address and shopping cart and hasn't returned to complete the purchase. This enables you to recapture the visitor and convert them into a sale, quite often before you lose them to a competitor.

You can plan your abandoned cart email sequence so that it automatically sends emails at specific time intervals which enables you to get your visitor back at various stages where they still may be interested in your products or services.

When someone abandons their shopping cart this is a loss of revenue for you. There are ways that you can prevent this by sending automatic emails to the potential customer to encourage them to buy. This type of email can help boost your revenue and bring people back to the shopping cart. Here are some ways that you can write proper emails that can help you make more sales.

Abandoned Cart Email Strategy

Why You Need Abandoned Cart Emails

Shopping cart abandonment is now a step in the buying process. In fact, worldwide cart abandonment across the internet is around 70%. That's a lot of money that is never going through online checkouts, and for various reasons as well. Some of these reasons are understandable, such as people who are just browsing and don't intend to purchase yet. We all do it. Other reasons are actually to do with the eCommerce website and could be entirely preventable.

Here are some of the main reasons why a user would abandon their cart:

  • Shipping Costs
  • Terms of Delivery
  • Contact Information
  • Payment Methods
  • Price Too High
  • Website is Confusing
  • Just Looking
  • No Trust

As you can see, a lot of these reasons are preventable. With the exception of the crowd who are just looking, everything else comes down to the eCommerce website in question.

This means that there could be a lot of opportunity on your website to reduce your cart abandonment and increase your conversions.

This can be done by setting up an automated email system to contact the people who abandoned their carts on your website.

In order to do this, you can use an eCommerce platform such as Shopify or WordPress to build your online store and then integrate abandoned cart email software such as OptinMonster to set up the emails.

Abandoned Cart Emails: Timing and Strategy

Getting the right strategy with the right timing will be everything when to comes to getting a good abandoned cart email conversion rate. If you're using Shopify or WordPress combined with OptinMonster, then you've already got the tools you need to set up an effective system. You now just need to figure out what would work best for your niche and audience and the right way to approach them with your emails. This strategy below is commonly used and you can tweak parts of it to suit you and tailor it to your audience.

Email 1

The first email should show a preview of the products added to the cart by the customer. The visual element is important to entice the user to review their decision. It reminds them of what they wanted and can encourage them to visualize themselves with the item.

Take the opportunity to reassure the customer and let them know they can reply to your email if they have any questions.

Recommended Time: 1 Hour After Abandonment

What It Does:

This time frame is the sweet-spot to get back people who are still ready to purchase but for whatever reason didn’t complete it at the time.

Email 2

Again, you are going to want to attach a preview of the products added to their cart. The second email goes beyond a reminder and is now an extended offer. Propose them, for example, a promotional code or free delivery.

Let them know that this will expire soon, but don’t say when, and that they can return to their shopping cart through the link below to receive this offer.

Recommended Time: 24 Hours After Abandonment

What It Does:

This is another good timeframe and also allows a bit of a cooling off period for the person to regather their thoughts. This allows the customer to ‘sleep on it’ and make a decision the next day but in a slightly different state of mind.

Email 3

This email is letting the potential customer know that the offer you gave them in the previous email is going to expire and they need to take you up on it now.

Let them know that they have X amount of time before that coupon code you gave them will expire.

Recommended Time: 48 Hours After Abandonment

What It Does:

Creates a sense of urgency.
They now have a limit on when this offer will expire and have to do something about it soon.
The time of day you send this email out will decide what timer you set. Don’t let it be overnight so they can go to sleep and forget about it or don’t care anymore in the morning.

Email 4

This can be the last email if you want, or you can leave it at 3 if you think it will work better for your website.

This email is going to let the potential customer know that the coupon code you gave them before has expired.

Let them know that they can subscribe to your newsletter if they want to be alerted of future promotions and that they can send an email to info @ yourwebsite.com if they have any questions.

This is not intended to anger them, because you basically offer two more opportunities for them to get a discount code from you; through the newsletter, or by contacting you through the @info email. Some people will contact you on that email and ask if they can have the promo code again. Say yes, because this enables you to get a sale fast, but inform them that it will expire within 24 hours.

Recommended Time: 72 Hours After Abandonment

What It Does:

It shows that you weren’t just playing games with that discount you offered before and could cause them to feel a sense of loss over it.

It enables the potential customer to subscribe to your newsletter, allowing you to build your list more and potentially convert them later on.

It creates another chance for them to contact you with any presale questions they may have, essentially bringing them back to where they started.

Abandoned Cart Email Tips

Subject Line

Create a compelling subject line that reminds the potential customer that they have items in the shopping cart. The subject line of the email can be critical to gaining the attention of the individual. You should spend some time writing the subject line. You may want to use capital letters as this will stand out in the email that you send to the customer. For example, you might put “Hey (name) You left something in the shopping cart at (store name).”

Call to Action

In the email that you send you should have a strong a call to action that compels the potential customer to purchase the items that are in their shopping cart. You can do this in several ways, for example, you might appeal to their emotional side.

You can tell them that they have items that they need to send for Christmas, birthdays, special occasions, and so on. By reminding the customer that the items in their cart are important to them this is a strong call to action for the customer to come back and finalize their purchase.

A strong a call to action is going to be critical to getting the person to come back to your website.

Remind them of Multiple Payment Methods

If you are selling anything online you should always have multiple payment methods. If you don't have multiple payment methods this can turn off a potential customer. In the email, you should remind them that it's easy to pay for the items in the shopping cart and that you accept a variety of payment methods.

You Should Be Specific

The email that you send to your potential customers should be specific. You should remind them that they have items in their shopping cart that they haven't purchased yet.

The person that abandons the shopping card may just be in a rush and forgot that they had items in it. By reminding them that they have items in the shopping cart you could potentially bring them back to your site and have them purchase those items.

These are just some simple suggestions to improve your abandoned cart emails. You should ensure that you gain the attention of your potential customer to get them to come back to you.

Remind them that they have something in their shopping cart and that those items in the cart are important to them. Make sure you also have a strong a call to action to encourage them to come back and finalize their purchase.