Are you spending loads of your hard-earned money on driving more visitors to your Easy Digital Downloads WordPress website using various eCommerce paid tools and or via Facebook Ads or Google Adwords, yet not seeing the revenue follow? For most eCommerce businesses, one of the biggest leaks in their sales and marketing funnel is shoppers who add products to their cart, but then abandon them at checkout.
Cart abandonment is a rising challenge for all retail marketers as well as the most common and most inevitable scenario. SalesCycle reported that approximately 75.6% of carts were abandoned in 2018 and unfortunately, this is a number that has slowly been increasing in recent years. That means that only 1 in every 4 customers actually finishes their purchase.
This is why marketers usually turn towards emails to help recover these abandoned sales. Good Abandoned Cart Emails are so important for eCommerce marketers. With a great eCommerce marketing automation strategy (including the timing and message), they can set it up and have it recover sales on autopilot. This type of eCommerce email is one of the most effective, revenue-generating emails that you can send to prospects.
But if you’ve never set up a cart abandonment email, or you’re not satisfied with your current results, you’re probably wondering what makes great cart abandonment emails. That’s what we’ll be looking at today.
What are Abandoned Cart Emails?
Abandoned Cart Emails are messages sent automatically whenever a customer comes to your webstore and adds an item to their cart, but doesn’t buy the item. These emails can also be triggered when the customer abandons the checkout flow.
In other words, this is a follow-up email sent to someone who has added items to their cart and gotten through a portion of the checkout and then left the site without purchasing. Abandoned cart emails work to remind customers of items they left in cart – enticing them to come back to purchase what they are already so close to buying.
Consider these abandoned cart statistics from Moosend:
There are different types of emails you can send to your customers. But with numbers like that, cart reminder emails give some of the highest returns on your investment.
Now it may not be possible to persuade all cart-abandoners to go through checkout and triple your sales. Some customers may have never had the intention to purchase in the first place. But it’s worth putting in the effort to resolve as many lingering hesitations as you can because a significant percentage of them are persuadable.
Why do customers abandon their carts?
We can’t eliminate shopping cart abandonment. But, we can try to understand its root cause so as we can properly plan ahead and deal with it. Here’s a survey Baymard Institute has conducted containing reasons for Abandonment during Checkout.
Now we can rehab our webstores by taking into consideration the above cart abandonment reasons. Work your way on making your checkout process smooth and hassle-free. But again, shopping cart abandonment cannot be totally eliminated. Other reasons why they abandon their carts are: visitors are just browsing, found a better price elsewhere and maybe suddenly have decided against buying it.
Abandoned Cart Email Best Practices
Even though we can’t eliminate cart abandonment entirely, we can minimize the likelihood of it happening – by using abandoned cart emails. Good abandoned cart email is one of the most effective, revenue-generating emails that you can send to prospects.
And in this article, we will show you some outstanding cart recovery email strategies that will help you lower your cart abandonment rate and increase your bottom line.
In order to be successful, there are some important things you need to include in your cart abandonment emails. They are enumerated as follows:
- High converting subject lines
- Include abandoned product
- Keep email simple and personal
- Offer Discount Codes/Coupons
- Mail Frequency and Creating Urgency
- Add CTA buttons and Contact Details
- Trust and Credibility through Product Reviews / Social Proofs
- Display your other products
Let’s explain each of the above Abandoned Cart Email Best Practices.
Unique and Effective Subject Line
If you like the subject line, and if you trust the sender, you will open it. If not, the chances are high that you won’t open it. In fact, 35% of email recipients open an email based on subject line alone.
This means that a good and effective subject line for abandoned cart email can grab the attention of the customer and increase open and click rates.
When recipients read your subject lines, they should be reminded of what they left behind. A well-written subject line for abandoned cart email can go a long way toward piquing the interest of reluctant customers.
Include abandoned product
Showcase exactly what was left behind in your customer’s cart. Reminding the product what they have missed out is very important. Make sure to add the product along with the product image, description, benefits, and features, etc. It’s not enough anymore to just include the name of the product. The image is a must along with the product details.
People might not remember what products had them clicking the “add to cart” button. After all, they may not really remember what product they abandoned if they had a particularly busy looking and scrolling through different webstores.
Keep email simple and personal
Besides attractive images and contrasting CTA buttons, it’s important that you have a convincing and personalized text and content that’s ultimately pushing towards conversions. With 94% of businesses saying how critical email personalization is to their success, basic personalization such as including the customer’s first name in the salutation or subject line is proven effective and very important.
An excellent subject line may contain some important points such as:
- Customize the message by including their names or product names.
- Make use of some great offers to bribe them in opening the email.
- Play the idea “Fear Of Missing Out” (FOMO) to your customers.
- Make it short and simple but alluring enough for them to open the email.
Also, it’s important never to overload readers with information. Instead, focus on what’s necessary for the prospect to return to their cart and complete their order. Writing short emails is an effective way of ensuring that you hold the reader’s attention long enough to do this.
Offer Discount Codes/Coupons
Most customers abandon their carts because the final price is more than what they expected. And there’s a simple way to recover the customers who have been scared away by the final price: issue a discount.
Offering discounts for customers to complete their purchases can really work in your favor. But, be aware of the pitfalls. A common concern is training customers to abandon transactions on purpose to receive a discount.
If you were to offer a discount in your email, it could be the final push they need to complete their purchase. Save your discounts for the end. If you send a sequence of emails, save that coupon code for the very last one. This is your last shot at getting the customer to convert, after all.
Mail Frequency and Creating Urgency
Mail Frequency is a very essential element in your cart recovery process. When to send an abandoned cart email? Many stores prefer sending the cart recovery email right after the visitor abandoned the cart. Sending the email within an hour after the customer abandoned the cart, is the most preferred time because:
- The email will arrive before the customer totally forgets about the cart;
- The customer is still in their “buying” mood;
- The email will arrive before the customer decides to purchase elsewhere.
Also, sending additional email reminders will greatly improve our chances of success. We can earn more revenue from abandoned carts and increase sales conversion by following up with a series of emails.
- Email #2 must be sent after 24 hours, after the first one. Usually, the customers shop at the same time of the day. Also, we’ll remind them once again of their cart contents and of any discounts.
- Email #3 must be sent after 72 hours, after the previous email. Use a persuasion technique of scarcity, by telling customers that the discount will expire soon. This is your last chance of converting the customer.
The most common way in creating a sense of urgency is by putting a limited time offers in the recovery emails we sent – usually free shipping or product discounts. This way, the customers will be more interested to take advantage of the discount and then continue with the purchase as soon as possible.
Add CTA buttons and Contact Details
Bold and attractive CTAs can really grab the attention of the shopper and push them towards an action you want them to take. Make it easy for the customer to finish buying the product. Let them know what they abandoned, show it (with a big image), then put the bold, easy-to-see, contrasting CTA right below that product image.
Another important thing to include in your contact information for people who want to reach out to ask further questions. There are many reasons why shoppers abandon carts. They may have extra questions and it’s a good idea to include your support contact info.
Trust and Credibility through Product Reviews / Social Proofs
Customers have become more careful especially first-time visitors on your website will need a little more convincing before opening up their wallets and proceed to purchase. This is where social proof can help you convert those first-time visitors or skeptical buyers.
The best way to do that is to use product ratings and reviews so that those prospects can see that other people (like themselves) have happily purchased from you before.
When 88% of consumers claim that ratings and reviews influenced their buying decision, this represents a big opportunity for you. Instead of just using this social proof on your website, you can use it in your abandoned cart reminder emails too.
Display your other products
People might have abandoned their shopping cart because they were unsure of their choice — maybe the item isn’t exactly what they had in mind. But, they might be sold on similar items they missed the first time. Sometimes, offering alternatives to abandoned cart items can help return a missed sales opportunity.
With product recommendations, it’s easy to show off other stuff that your customers will love. (They might even like those options better.) Visitors might not have been completely sold on the items they added to their cart, but they might be interested in similar items they didn’t notice the first time on your site.
Conclusion: Start turning missed opportunities into recovered sales!
Too many eCommerce sites let potential revenue fly out the window because they don’t send people a friendly reminder that they left something behind. Improving your abandoned cart recovery is an incremental process that requires many smaller steps.
A good abandoned cart email contains many different elements which vary greatly from business to business. You might need to do a few testing to create an abandoned cart email that works for you and your audience. A great cart recovery campaign can make people remember you. 75% of shoppers plan on coming back to their abandoned cart. Quickly change their “plan” into “did” with abandoned cart emails that work. You see, abandoned cart emails are easy to set up, and really it should be something that everyone does give the high abandonment rates.
We are all aware that cart abandonment is an issue that can never be fully eliminated. But with some effort, we can at least recover a portion of our abandoned carts and to eventually turn those into actual orders. You can also read this article “How to effectively recover Abandoned Carts in eCommerce” to learn more. Don’t forget to apply the strategies above, and get started on recovering sales today.
