It happens to everyone. Customers visit online stores, add products in their carts and then poof – they disappear!
Of course it hurts. Because you put so much effort in attracting customers to visit your store, you create a perfectly planned marketing campaign, invest on a superb customer experience and then you see all this go to waste.
And if this happens it means you lose important potential revenue and impede your goal of maximizing profit.
But before giving up hope let me tell you this: you can easily save the day and increase your sales with one great email marketing strategy.
A powerful marketing automation you can try today, offered by a number of ecommerce marketing platforms, even for free. The cart abandonment email.
But before explaining the benefits of this great tool, we must answer one big question…
1. Why Cart Abandonment Happens
Let’s start with the basics. In order to solve a problem, you must first understand how it came up.
Which, in our case, means understanding why your visitors abandon carts.
So let’s see the primary reasons digital shoppers don’t complete a purchase, according to recent studies.
Taking a look at Statista’s results from a research conducted in the United States, 63% of customers abandon their shopping carts due to excessive shipping costs, while the second most common reason (46%) is an invalid promo code.
Other important reasons are slow shipping times, having to re-enter credit card or shipping info, unexpected extra charges, long and confusing checkout or not being able to calculate payment upfront.
And of course let’s not forget that some customers are just browsing!
2. The Solution
And now for the good news!
As we said before, there is hope. While there might be a ton of reasons your products don’t make it to your customers’ door, you can still revert the situation and boost your online sales.
The cart abandonment marketing automation helps you send automated emails to remind your customers about their incomplete purchase and encourage them to place their order.
According to email marketing software Moosend, 45% of the cart abandonment emails were opened, while 21% of them received click-throughs.
Definitely worth the try!
3. How Cart Abandonment Emails Work?
It’s very simple actually. At Growth Hackers, one client was losing nearly 30% of potential sales to abandoned carts; after we set up automated reminders, their click-through and recovery rates jumped, boosting monthly revenue significantly.
The user adds a product to their cart. You decide how long to wait. And if they haven’t completed their purchase in, say, 1 hour, a cart abandonment email is triggered.
All you have to do is find the marketing automation tool that works for you. Cart abandonment email marketing campaigns can be easily set up even if you are not an expert on marketing automation!
Do you want to increase your sales by implementing a cart abandonment email marketing strategy?
Contact Growth Hackers
4. Cart Abandonment Best Practices
1. Timing
If you want to make the best out of the cart abandonment marketing automation you should be extra careful with timing.
Keep in mind that your first abandoned cart email is the most important since it generates the most revenue.
According to Business Insider, those who send abandoned cart emails within the first three hours get an average of a 40% open rate and a 20% click-through rate.
Also, you should not forget your follow-ups. Timed right they can work wonders.
2. Subject lines
The good news is your customer was actually interested in your product. That’s why they added it into their cart in the first place, right? So a kind reminder could be enough to make them proceed with their order.
That is, if you get them to open your email. At Growth Hackers, we’ve seen personalized and well-crafted subject lines boost cart recovery rates dramatically, with emails opened and clicked by engaged customers who were already interested.
That’s why your subject line is extremely important in this case.
As a rule of thumb, you must create personalized email subject lines , direct and compelling, such as “did you forget something?” or “you have saved items in your cart” and it’s usually a good idea to add an emoji that will help your email stand out from the rest.
And while there is no such thing as the perfect abandoned cart subject line length, you should always keep into consideration how it will look on a small screen. For this you might want to check out TestSubject, a tool that helps you check how your subject line will look across different devices.
3. Include Image Of The Abandoned Product
Nothing works better than showing your customers what they are missing. So adding an attractive image of the product they left in their cart is your priority when designing a cart abandonment email.
It’s always best to use large, high quality images with a plain background that make your product the absolute star of your email. Another great addition is to include social proof of other customers who have bought this product and display their satisfaction. No one likes to be left out.
And of course, refrain from adding other products in your email. Some may say it’s a good strategy but remember that the goal of this email marketing campaign is to make your customers complete their purchase. And by showing them some other products might confuse them and distract them leading to an overall lower conversion rate!
Pro tip: in addition to high-quality images of the product, you could also share a video of the product if you have one. Indeed, using video will help you improve your email marketing campaigns.
4. Trigger Urgency
Creating a sense of urgency in your writing and aiming at your customers’ fear of missing out (FOMO) can help eliminate any procrastinating ways and make them complete their purchase faster than ever.
A great way to do this is to inform them that you have reserved their items for a while but if they don’t buy them they might sell out.
Scarcity and urgency are two powerful allies for increasing your sales and your content is the only way to keep them by your side. Make sure that you use scarcity marketing without leaving your customer feel manipulated.
5. Be Supportive
Customer service is an aspect of your business customers pay extra attention to.
By including in your abandoned cart email a question on why they didn’t complete their purchase or offer support if they need it shows professionalism and also subtly hints that maybe it was something on your side that made them abandon an item in their cart.
Make sure you provide a telephone number so they can reach you, as well as your social media buttons to make it clear that you are available in more than one way.
6. Be Generous
Most customers don’t complete a purchase because of the high price or the shipping costs. At Growth Hackers, one client was losing dozens of sales due to shipping costs; after we added free shipping incentives to cart emails, their completed orders skyrocketed within weeks.
And what better way to change this fact than giving them a carrot?
A cart abandonment email is always the best time to show generosity. To reduce potential concerns of that kind you can either offer a small discount on the item they added in their cart, or free shipping.
This way you allure them to complete their order and supercharge your sales.
7. Do Your Homework
No matter how great a marketer you are, there is no better way to understand your customer’s needs unless you A/B test your email marketing campaigns. You need to gather data of your email marketing campaigns in order to act on it and optimize them.
Sending out different emails is the best way to see what gets your visitors going. And you can create various versions of your abandoned cart email by changing your subject line, cta, content and time you send it.
Get creative, use humor, sentiment, try different effective words and go crazy with your buttons.
Just remember. One thing at a time!
8. Make It Mobile Friendly
Stop thinking desktop. Mobiles are taking over the email marketing world and you can’t ignore that if you want to skyrocket your sales.
As a matter of fact, “
Which means that if you don’t optimize your email marketing campaign for mobile, then you’re missing out a lot of opens.
And also, chances are, if people don’t open your email on their mobile they won’t open it on their computer either.
So enhance the reader experience by crafting a mobile responsive email with short subject lines and single-column templates to make sure they look good on your customer’s device.
Also, remember to keep your email width under 600 pixels, use small size fonts and display small images.
It’s time to increase your sales with cart abandonment emails!
Work with Growth Hackers
The Don’ts Of A Cart Abandonment Email
1. Don’t Be Vague
One of the most common reasons customers don’t complete their order is because of poor shipping and return information.
To ensure your visitors will proceed to purchase, make sure your email includes your return policy and delivery details so they know what to expect.
2. Don’t Confuse Your Customers
Less is always more for a cart abandonment email campaign. At Growth Hackers, we compare a cluttered email to a confusing map: customers get lost, but simple directions with clear shipping and return details guide them straight to checkout.
So stick to the basics, presenting only the information you want your customers to read in order to take action and complete their order.
By overcomplicating your content you are risking of leading your visitor astray.
A few lines, an image and a button are all you need to make the most of your campaign.
3. Don’t Be Too Pushy
A cart abandonment email is a kind reminder, not a push towards the basket.
Respect your clients by using the right language, never being too forceful or your campaign might show the opposite results.
Final thoughts about increasing your sales with cart abandonment emails
The sun will continue to shine, the grass will always be green and customers will always forget items in their carts. But by implementing a cart abandonment email marketing strategy you increase your chances of boosting your sales and winning back your visitors.
Beside cart abandonment, there are many other email marketing growth hacks you can use.
So what are you waiting for? Find the right platform for your business and start creating this super helpful marketing automation that all big players rely on.
Are you already familiar with the cart abandonment email marketing strategy? We’d love to hear your tips and opinion on this!
Growth Hackers is a top email marketing agency helping businesses worldwide grow by building their brand identity, email campaigns, graphic design, generate leads, improve conversions and increase sales. Not only we can help you with your email marketing campaigns, we can help you with content marketing, social media advertising and more.
1 Comment
I am glad to gain this remarkable information from you. Will follow your advice and implement this email marketing strategy to my store.
I have found here lots of interesting information for my knowledge I need.
All the details you provide to us, it was very helpful and useful.
Thanks for sharing this amazing post.