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As satisfying as it is to run an online store, it can also be a frustrating experience when you look at your statistics and realize your store suffers from abandoned cart syndrome. Abandoned carts are nothing new in the e-commerce world and are a problem nearly every e-commerce owner must face. According to Baymard Institute, the average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate is 69.23%. Another report by Business Insider Intelligence shows that nearly $4 trillion worth of merchandise will be abandoned in online shopping carts.
But, there is a silver lining, too. The same report by Business Insider Intelligence also shows that not every abandoned cart should automatically be considered a lost sale as almost ¾ of online shoppers say they plan to return and finish the purchase.
When you take a moment to consider the statistics above, it’s easy to understand why you need to add abandoned cart emails to your marketing strategy. However, sending an abandoned cart email that translates into a recovered sale requires some planning to come up with the perfect timing to send them.
Do Abandoned Cart Emails Work?
Before getting into the abandoned cart email planning and strategy, a few of us might have this doubt, “do abandoned cart emails work?”
The effectiveness of abandoned cart recovery email is not an exaggeration it is a real fact. Klaviyo, after analyzing 9,346,675 abandoned cart recovery emails and found-
- Open rate: 41.18%
- Click rate: 9.50%
- Revenue per recipient: $5.81
Whereas regular marketing emails saw only 21% of open rates; a stat shared by MailChimp.
Knowing that perfectly tailored abandoned cart recovery emails can bring in results, we’ll discuss how many abandoned cart emails you should send as well as how often you should send them to avoid overwhelming and annoying your customers. Let’s dive in!
Abandoned Cart Email Best Practices
Sending an abandoned cart email with too much info and also sending too many emails might not help you achieve your goal. Marketing experts have done many trials & errors and stuck to a plan that really worked for them, those are considered as the best practices. Here are a few simple yet effective abandoned cart email best practices you can follow-
- Use a simple email design – Implementing a clean distraction-free email design or template will help the audience grab your offer easily.
- Use interactive product images/videos that explain the features clearly and give a better understanding to the customer.
- Use personalized subject line. Emails with a personalized subject line have a 26% more open rate than the ones without personalization.
- Provide offers and incentives to encourage the users to complete the order.
Even though designs, discounts, and subject lines work better, we should know how many follow-up emails we should send, what should be included in each email, and when to send them. That’s the question we are going to answer in the next section.
How Many Abandoned Cart Emails Should You Send?
According to Kissmetrics and Rejoiner, the recommended number of abandoned cart emails to send out is three. All of those emails will feature items left in the cart as the main star of the emails, but the timing on them will vary.
Additionally, you can and should consider extra incentives in an attempt to convince the customer to come back and complete the purchase. We’ll cover the specifics of each email below, but first, there are two important considerations to keep in mind.
Find Out Where Customers Are Abandoning the Cart
It’s important to determine where in the checkout process you lost the customer. By doing so, you can better tailor the abandoned cart emails and see what type of incentive you can offer to convince them to come back.
For example, if the customer abandoned their cart after they calculated shipping, you could send them an abandoned cart email that lures them back with limited-time free shipping. Or, if they left before even getting to the shipping fees, perhaps your checkout process is too complicated, which means you should look into simplifying and streamlining the checkout experience.
Don’t Waste Time
The second tip is not to waste time. Send the first abandoned cart email within the first few hours of a customer abandoning the cart. This allows you to catch their attention before they walk away from their computer while the product is still on their mind. For example, our plugin Abandoned Cart Pro sends the first email within 15 minutes of the cart being abandoned.
With those out of the way, let’s discuss the contents and the timing of each email.
Email #1: Remind and Help
The first abandoned cart email you send should serve as a reminder of the items they left in the cart and offer to help resolve any potential difficulties the customer may have encountered. This email should be sent within the first couple of hours after cart abandonment, however, you shouldn’t aim for a hard sale push.
Use this email as an opportunity to build a relationship and get feedback. Ask them if they ran into technical problems and link to your support channel so you can help them resolve the issue and win their trust.
As far as the visual design goes, including an image of the items left in the cart serves as a great memory and desire trigger, reminding them of how much they wanted those items in the first place. You also need to include a prominent call-to-action button that takes them straight to their cart. If you’re adding a product image, ensure it is clickable and links back to their cart.
Email #2: Introduce Urgency
The second email you send should go out 24 hours after the first email. Here, you can remind them they left items in the cart and add a sense of urgency by letting them know their cart will soon expire.
If you’re running any type of sale or promotion, be sure to mention that in the email so the customers know special discounts and pricing may not be available if they wait too long.
As far as visuals go, adding a product image paired with a noticeable CTA is recommended, however, you can also add a counter using a tool like MotionMail to increase the sense of urgency.
Email #3: Add an Incentive or Proof
The last email in your abandoned cart sequence should be sent out between 48 and 72 hours after a customer abandoned their cart. Similar to the previous emails, you’ll want to include the product image and a CTA.
This email is the last chance you have to convert customers so you can consider adding an incentive to encourage the sale. An incentive can be a small discount on the cart’s total, a special coupon, limited-time free shipping, or a free product sample.
Alternatively, you can showcase product testimonials from other customers. This adds social proof and shows reluctant buyers that there is no risk in completing the purchase.
Bonus Tips: Sending Abandoned Cart Emails That Convert
Now that you know what to include in your abandoned cart emails and how many and how often you should send them, let’s cover a couple of bonus tips that will help you make the most out of them.
1. Optimize for Mobile
Take some time to check if your abandoned cart emails look good on mobile devices. Considering mobile usage is on the rise and predictions that this year, a mobile email will account for 20 to 75% of email opens, it’s crucial to optimize your emails for mobile devices.
Not only that but bear in mind that the second and third emails will most likely be read on a smartphone or a tablet given the time delay in your sequence. Keep the copy short and legible and make sure the CTA button is not too small and can easily be clicked on smaller screens.
2. Personalize the Emails
Take advantage of built-in shortcodes in Abandoned Cart Pro for WooCommerce to add customers’ first names and product names to make the emails more personal. You can also segment the emails and configure different templates based on the number of items left in the cart or if the cart was abandoned by a guest or a registered user.
3. Better Converting Abandoned Cart Email Subject Lines
The best converting abandoned cart email subject lines are simple & direct ones. Subject lines like “left something behind,” “Your cart is about to expire,” etc., tend to perform better.
Discount-focused email subject lines also perform better. Email subject lines with a dollar ($) sign, free shipping, and percentage also get better open rates. But still, marketing experts prefer simple subject lines that directly say about the item left in the cart and the action the user can make.
Create Your Perfectly Timed Abandoned Cart Email Sequence
Abandoned cart emails are easy to set up and can greatly help you recover lost sales and increase your revenue. Use the tips in this article and our Abandoned Cart Pro plugin to create your perfectly timed abandoned cart email sequence so you can stop leaving money on the table.
