Abandoned Cart Email Series
Abandoned Cart is an incredibly valuable foundational flow that every ecommerce client needs. It’s an email, or sequence of emails, sent to someone who added an item to their shopping cart, but failed to complete the purchase. With almost 70% of carts abandoned on average, it’s heavily rewarding to contact these customers - find out how we use Klaviyo's automation flows to do this and capture some of that lost revenue.
Abandoned Carts
So first of all, why do customers abandon their cart? There are many reasons why this happens, and survey results confirm these time and again.
1. Let’s face it, people don't like being forced to create an account. While account creation correlates with higher rates of repeat purchases, and facilitates an easier relationship, timing is key. At this point, the customer is here to buy something, not create an account. Instead, let them buy first, and sign up later - and make it easy.
2. They might struggle with an over-complicated checkout process. Too many fields asking too many questions can put prospective customers off, and outweigh the value in this data collection. Customers want to understand how you’ll use their data, and any collected that isn't self-explanatory will raise questions.
Why Else Are Carts Abandoned?
3. Delivery costs that are unexpected can put people off almost instantly. Hiding delivery costs before checkout can look like an act of deception, and while these are commonly calculated once an address has been entered, giving an estimate is key. The best approach here is to either offer free delivery, or a universal fee for all orders, so it’s clear from the outset.
4. They might second guess the security of their transaction. You need to do all you can to reassure your customers, so any worries about fraud and scams are extinguished. The simplest way of doing this is to communicate clearly, with security logos and links to external sources that can verify your credibility.
Reach Your 'Nearly' Customers
Even if you address all of the above, you’ll always have customers abandoning their baskets. It might boil down to something as simple as them wanting to review competitor sites, not having their credit card in front of them, or being distracted by something else. Whatever their reason, the chances are it’s unlikely they’re no longer interested in your product.
Your Abandoned Cart flow is your way to reach your (nearly) customers, and encourage them back to your site to complete their transaction. As a transactional email with a clear purpose, we don’t want these to be over complicated or too brand-heavy. It’s easy for this to scare customers away from their purchase, and your brand indefinitely, so an intelligent balance is needed here. Retailers often make the mistake of trying to heavily upsell or cross-sell in these emails - the customer found a reason to leave once; we don’t want them to have another.
The language you use should encourage people to contact you if they have any questions about the product, and inspire a sense of urgency to complete the purchase. Anything else, including introducing new products, is seen as a distraction and can lead to a lower conversion rate.
Dynamic content is the most compelling aspect when it comes to building content for these emails. Using content blocks, integrated with Shopify, allows you to pull information about the products abandoned within the cart, including images, product names and prices. A clear call to action button, for example: 'BACK TO CART', will allow the customer to navigate right back to their cart, making their route to purchase simple.
The Abandoned Cart Series
Below is a walkthrough of a standard Abandoned Cart Series. 2-3 emails is proven to lead to optimum performance, according to Klaviyo’s Abandoned Cart Benchmark Report. Time delays for this flow can be A/B tested to find the optimum solution.
Email 1: 1 Hour After Abandonment
One hour after the cart is abandoned, gently and clearly remind customers they left something in their cart.
Email 2: 1-2 Days After Abandonment
Add urgency here, you can tell them their cart is reserved but only for a limited time, and may sell out if they don’t move quickly.
Email 3: 5-7 Days After Abandonment
As a final attempt to drive a conversion, this can be a ‘Not what you’re looking for?’ email which suggests other similar products, or can offer a discount to entice customers. This will naturally be the most pushy of the three emails - if a customer has received this one they appear to not want to purchase at all, so changing tack here can prove successful.
When to discount? Some brands successfully offer a discount within this final email, however it is not always advisable. We need to be cautious that our customers may become used to not purchasing products at full price. If this becomes an expectation they have for the brand, you’ve become a destination for shoppers looking for the cheapest product, rather than shopping because they are loyal to you. It’s important to remember that you’ll be offering a discount within your Welcome Series too, so exercise caution when introducing another.
Through an effective Abandoned Cart series, our email marketing experts can create incredibly valuable automations that turn your 70% cart abandonment into revenue. WIth clear, dynamic and responsive content, they bring prospective customers back to you. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help drive engagement and sales through email marketing, contact us today!
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