How to create the perfect email to recover abandoned carts

How to create the perfect email to recover abandoned carts 2

As an ecommerce owner, you will do everything possible to make your business work as it should. You publish the best pictures of your products, write accurate and interesting descriptions, watch the loading time and make navigation easy. But you could still do better.
A Baymard Institute study analyzed 37 different ecommerce and found that about 70% of the carts were fanned. This means that for every three transactions that are successful, 7 are halved.

WHY DO CUSTOMERS LEAVE THE SHOPPING CART?

Before trying to prevent it, it is important to understand why people leave the checkout. The most common reasons for cart abandonment include:

  • Buyer can’t afford the product
  • High shipping costs
  • Slow or non-functioning website
  • Complicated purchase process
  • You have to create an account
  • I was just curious.
  • Reconsider a product
  • Lack of payment options
  • Security Concerns

In this Statista infographics they summarize the percentages of the main reasons:
How to create the perfect email to recover abandoned carts
Shipping costs are the most common reason. A possible solution? Include shipping costs in the price of your products and offer free (or very cheap) shipping.
The second reason, “Only browsing”, is something more difficult to combat. But you can. A very useful way is the use of abandoned cart emails.

WHAT ARE ABANDONED CART RECOVERY EMAILS?

Cart recovery emails are emails that are automatically sent to users and remind them of the items they left in the cart and never got to buy.
In some situations, your user does not leave the cart because they want to. Maybe they experienced an error in the checkout process or are just distracted, for example.
The reason behind abandoning the cart could be anything. Regardless of what it is, email is a very effective tool to increase your income.

  • According to Salecycle, 28.3% of ecommerce revenue comes from abandoned cart emails.
  • Some brands even claim that their revenue from recovery emails increased from 8% to 20%.

The perfect cart recovery email is configured so that you can follow exactly where you left off. So you don’t have to go through the whole process of finding the product and registering to make a purchase.
However, there is one thing you need to make sure of before creating recovery emails: the payment process should work perfectly and be optimized.

HOW TO CREATE THE PERFECT EMAIL TO RECOVER ABANDONED CARTS

Businesses do everything possible for their users to convert. Abandoned cart emails have to unite the science of good timing and certain psychological triggers.
Here are some of the elements that make up the perfect abandoned cart email:

TIME AND FREQUENCY ARE EVERYTHING

Your email should be timely first and foremost. You want your customers to remember visiting your website and what they were buying.
We would recommend that you send your first email about 60 minutes after a customer leaves your store. This ensures that they still have your business “fresh”. GoDaddy suggests that you send it after 15 minutes, which they say can give you 3 times more conversions than if you send it after an hour.
E-mail frequency is another important consideration. You should try to send a total of at least three abandoned cart emails, and the second reminder should arrive after 24 hours.
Did you know that 72% of those who ended up converting did so within the first 24 hours? And 23% converted after the first 24 hours. The second reminder may include a time-limited discount code to incentivize a purchase.
Send the third abandoned car reminder after 72 hours. This email should be the last one in your workflow. Remind your customer of their last chance to enjoy the discount before it expires.
Some other things to consider:

  • Configure your abandoned cart recovery workflows so that they are not sent if/after the customer has already converted.
  • Use A/B tests to determine which emails are most effective with your audience. Do this and check if certain emails get higher open rates and clicks. For example, compare the click-through and opening rates of emails that offer a 10% discount versus a 20% discount. Then you can optimize your strategy accordingly.

MAKE OFFERS

To get a customer to convert (especially a new one), companies often offer promotions that include free shipping or discounts.

FREE SHIPPING

There are many studies showing that people appreciate free shipping more than price discounts. So you offer this incentive to motivate buyers to click and finish their order.
This is consistent with what we’ve told you before: shipping costs are the main reason for abandonment at checkout.

DISCOUNTS

Discounts are another incentive to get customers to go ahead with their purchase. Companies often send coupon codes in the second or third abandoned cart email.
But don’t make it a habit for your customers to give them a discount every time they leave the cart. Segment your users so that only first-time customers can get it for a limited time.
We would also suggest that, when a customer enters the cart again from an email in which you offer a discount code, the code automatically applies to his cart. This will improve your experience and enhance the conversion.

ADDITIONAL TIPS FOR YOUR ABANDONED CART RECOVERY EMAILS

USE THE PERFECT SUBJECT LINE

For customers to open your message, the subject of your email must be interesting. You only have a few words to get the subscriber to open the email, so make sure it gets their attention.
A few examples:

Example 1

Abandoned cart email 1: Oops! You forgot something.
Abandoned cart email 2: Did you have any problems buying?

Example 2

Email of abandoned cart 1: Are you still interested?
Abandoned cart email 2: The glasses you like are running out…
Abandoned cart email 3: You have one day left to use your discount!

Example 3

Abandoned cart email 1: Forgot something? Order now!
Abandoned cart email 2: What if we give you a 5% discount?

PERSONALIZED CONTENT

Customers scream for personalized content, they don’t want to feel like any other customer. They want you to treat them in a special way.
You can customize using relevant customer purchase data. Implement it simply: you can offer discounts to the most valuable carts. Or you can offer free shipping to those who dropped out due to high shipping costs.

HIGHLIGHTS ITEMS IN CART

You can include photos of the products that the customer left in his cart. Also a brief description.
How to create the perfect email to recover abandoned carts

INCLUDES A VISIBLE CTA

Buying the product you left in your cart is the only thing you want your customers to do. Therefore, highlight this particular action to make sure you don’t miss it.
Like other CTAs, make it action-oriented, like “Keep Shopping” or “Go to My Cart.

OPTIMIZE FOR MOBILES

More than 50% of people access the Internet through their mobile phones. There’s not much more to say… Optimize your whole process so it looks good from your mobile phone.

CROSS-SELLING AND UP-SELLING

The goal of abandoned cart recovery emails is to make sales, and if you have the opportunity to sell more than the user initially left, why not? You can suggest related products or other items of greater value.

PRODUCT REVIEWS

People trust other people’s recommendations more than ads. Therefore, to drive more sales and convince them to buy the product, you can add reviews to abandoned cart emails.
Or, embed a positive customer tweet, as in this Grammarly email:
How to create the perfect email to recover abandoned carts

DO SURVEYS

Ask your customers why they left the cart to try to understand their behavior. This knowledge will help you create the best recovery workflow and prevent it from happening in the future.

A CONCLUSION ABOUT SHOPPING CART RECOVERY EMAILS

These types of emails help ecommerces sell more.
There are several reasons why people leave the shopping cart. Maybe your Internet connection was cut, they were busy, or your website malfunctioned. For these reasons, abandoned cart email, when sent on time, reminds them to reconsider.
The perfect abandoned cart email is visually appealing. It asks to be open and has an emotional factor. It also varies from business to business, so don’t hesitate to do A/B tests to find out which one works best in your sector. Good luck!
 

Image credit : Taylor Ottaway

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ECN Team
E-Commerce Nation is The 1st B2B Web Media about E-Commerce in Europe. The team of E-Commerce Explorers help businesses to reach new potential market through delivering useful content. Let us know in comment if you enjoyed this content.