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Customers abandon your cart for various reasons. Use these email marketing best practices to lure them back to their cart.
Author: Sharon Paul, 13 June 2018
Although email is one of the most traditional marketing channels, it’s proven to be the most convincing communication medium out there. With the increased shopping cart abandonment rate, the key is to have the perfect cart abandonment email campaign strategy which will engage customers and encourage them to make a purchase. A BI Intelligence report estimates that 3/4 of all shoppers that abandon their cart plan on returning to the website. In conjunction, according to SaleCycle, nearly 40.5% of cart recovery emails are opened with 28.7% of clicks leading to a recovered purchase. Can you imagine the amount of money that you would be leaving on the table without a proper cart recovery email strategy?
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Timing is everything! It’s extremely important that you send more than one cart abandonment reminder email without much delay to remind customers about their cart. It’s only a matter of time which can bring back a customer and complete the checkout. You never know the exact reason why the customer left your store which is why a cart abandonment email is more powerful when sent within the first few hours of abandonment.
| Email Stages | Time | Possibility of Conversion |
|---|---|---|
| 1st Email | Within 1 hour of abandonment | 20.3% |
| 2nd Email | Within 48 hours – with a sense of urgency | 17.7% |
| Final Email | Sent after 72 hours – include incentives such as coupon codes or free shipping to seal the deal | 18.2% |
02
Nearly 33% of email recipients open an email because of the subject line. Email subject lines can make or break your cart recovery email campaigns. Your subject line can be cute and funny or to the point. Make sure to choose a catchy subject line that best reflects your brand, creates a sense of urgency, curiosity and is compelling enough to get people to click through.
Examples of some good abandonment cart email subject lines that convert:
03
Great copy is another step closer to a successful abandoned cart email strategy. After shoppers open your email, it’s ideal to have clear and precise email copy with an actionable CTA that encourages them to checkout. For this purpose, your email copy should focus on a single goal that includes all the necessary elements that motivates the customer to buy.
Look At Chubbies…
We like their sense of humor! The CTA is extremely compelling and is worded in a way that will appeal to their audience.
Asos has included their brand image because their email is extremely similar to their homepage. It is not only visually appealing, but it also reminds their customers about free delivery and easy returns.
04
More than 50% of emails are open on a mobile device which tells out a strong message to optimize your abandoned cart recovery emails on mobile devices. According to MoPowered, 30% of mobile customers will abandon their shopping carts if the emails are not mobile friendly. It’s important to make sure that you have a mobile optimized website and marketing communications to bring back your tech-savvy millennials!
05
More than half of all customers who return to their abandoned cart will end up spending more than they intended. Adding product recommendations is a great way to have customers browse relevant products and increase their cart size. Using tools like TargetBay can help you understand your customer interests and shopping behavior better and send them relevant product recommendations directly to their inbox.
Opinions matter!
Customers take product reviews quite seriously which is why product reviews and ratings play a crucial role in the decision-making process. 61% of customers read online reviews before making a buying decision. eCommerce personalization tools like TargetBay allows you to drag and drop product reviews and ratings into your abandoned cart recovery emails. This boosts customer’s confidence in the products they have chosen and eases their buying decision.
07
Your tech-savvy customers would have selected products on their mobile phone and completely forgotten about them. Meanwhile, they receive your abandoned cart email on their tab and would quickly want to make the purchase before they carried away. This emphasizes the importance of creating email designs which can be accessed across devices and platforms. Optimizing your emails for different devices significantly impacts customer’s shopping experience and increases conversions.
08
Creating a sense of urgency is a proven tactic to help push users to act. When customers realize that they do not have unlimited time and that they could lose out on their favorite product in some time, it urges them to checkout at that very moment. The fear of missing out (FOMO) aspect pushes customers to checkout immediately. With TargetBay, you can send reminder emails by setting up expiration dates on the discount offers or coupon codes.
Customers who leave their cart due to technical issues would want to get in touch with you to continue their checkout process. Be sure to include your contact information so that customers can quickly contact the relevant person/department and continue with their checkout process.
10
Who doesn’t love to have coupons and discounted offers while they shop? Incentivizing your customers is a definite way to bring them back to their cart. But you need to make sure that you play it right because some may misuse your campaign efforts. In the example to the left, Levis nails it and sends out a clear message for bringing shoppers back to their cart ASAP to take advantage of a coupon that would be expiring soon.
A clear CTA reveals the goal of your email. Even with a compelling design copy, if the CTA does not send out the right message then you could end up confusing your customers. Check out Express that includes different actions ensuring that their customers do not get confused.
12
Express is also a great example of increasing customer engagements by leveraging the power of social media. They want their customers to discuss their opinions on social platforms. If you are a brand that actively posts about any upcoming deals, ideas, ventures or more, including your social media links to your emails would help increase your traffic and sales.
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The tone of your message is another element to consider while drafting the copy. Keep it personalized and friendly. It’s good to avoid anything that could agitate customers and make them hostile towards your brand. Moreover, a friendly tone increases the chance for higher customer engagement as it paints a positive image about your brand rather than making them feel they’re being ordered.
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If your abandoned cart recovery email includes the product image, customers will find it easier to figure out what products they had added to their cart. ModCloth does an excellent job with their witty subject line and tone of the email and subtly reminding customers what they have left in their cart.
Hidden prices and surprise shipping costs are some of the most common reasons why customers abandon their carts. In fact, according the Baymard study, 61% of people abandon their carts due to extra charges for shipping or unexpected delivery costs and 41% of shoppers shop with websites that have shipping costs. Bring back your customers by including free shipping in your abandoned cart recovery emails. Huckberry keeps it neat and knows exactly how to bring customers back to their website.
16
Readability of your emails not only depends on the copy or design elements but also on the fonts that you choose. Choose fonts that that differentiates your brand’s image and one that appeal to users. Nasty Gal is a good example of this because they have a unique font that is bold and stands out against the email copy.
You will definitely want them!
Authenticity is everything and having a Unique Selling Point (USP) sets your brand apart. Customers choose you for a reason and reminding them what makes you special can reassure their faith in your brand and incline them to complete their purchase. This also helps you build stronger brand relationships with your customers.
Telling people why you’re unique and different gives them all the more reasons to shop from you. Remember, if you have it, then flaunt it! Net-A-Porter does not fail to show off why they are in demand and why shoppers should purchase from them.
18
The other day I was checking out wallets on a popular eCommerce website. After I added a couple of my personal favorite brands and designs, I exited the website to return later. The following day, I received an abandoned cart email that said “Sharon, someone’s eyeing your wallet”. It was an instant moment of pride that helped me feel confident about my choices. The result was me quickly opening the email and completing my purchase.
Personalized emails have a huge impact on customers regardless of how fancy that you make them. Beardbrand takes personalization to a whole new level by creating a simple plain text email that is quite powerful to capture shopper’s attention, especially the P.S section. Just when you think it’s an ordinary email, you find that the store took a note of your cart and appreciates your choice.
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Regardless of the magnitude of changes that you could make, we highly recommend that you A/B test all email campaigns that you send out. Make A/B testing an integral part of your email strategy just so you know what works and what doesn’t.
Play around the length of the email, content, subject lines, personalization methods, CTAs, images, product recommendations, testimonials and much more. Experimenting with various combinations and variables in your cart abandonment email will help you study both major and minor impacts to your conversion rate and traffic.
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Wish list products are an effective way to let merchants understand customer interests. Even though ‘Save it for later’ or wish lists provides an option to customers to buy later, they can be huge conversion scope for returning customers through wishlist email campaigns by targeting their reasons. Here’s where the campaigns must be planned meticulously because your emails should be able to address the pain points of your customers.
While you’re focused on abandoned cart revenue, it’s also important to pay attention to the products that customers are constantly browsing but fail to add to their shopping cart or save them for later. Capturing your customer’s shopping behavior and targeting them with their favorite products can result in increased sales and revenue.
Shopping cart abandonment can be quite tricky but here at TargetBay we have created an ideal cart abandonment email. Our model will not only provide you with an overview of the anatomy of a cart abandonment email, but it will also give you an overview of best practices that you can use to maximize your results.
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