Retargeting marketing is integral to e-commerce customer retention. Perhaps you’re running a successful online store with a decent traffic and constant customers raving about your products. Do you think you have it all covered? Not really! It is still possible that you are experiencing huge amount of sale loses due to shopping cart abandonment. Increase your e-commerce conversion is not an easy thing !
Every day close to staggering 70% of potential e-commerce sales don’t make it through purchase due to abandoned shopping carts. This implies that your sales numbers may only be one third of what they could potentially be.
While it is impossible to determine the cause in every case and persuade all cart-abandoners to go through checkout and triple your sales, it’s worth putting in the effort to resolve as many underlying causes as you possibly can. You will be surprised, but significant percentage of them are persuadable. Here are some tips to use retargeting marketing efficiently for your e-commerce.
Why do shoppers leave your website without purchasing in the first place?
Shoppers often leave your website without purchasing. Most commonly it is connected with:
- Discovering unexpected costs, i.e. shipping fees, taxes, etc. (I’m sure everyone understands the frustration of seeing different prices on the product page and the cart) ;
- Finding a better price somewhere else. (People won’t think twice before abandoning a cart if the same product can be bought at a lower price from a different seller) ;
- Lack of alternative paying methods. (It is important to let people check out with their preferred method of payment (such as PayPal, American Express and if possible- the option of paying in cash upon delivery in addition to Visa and MasterCard).
Before we zoom in and talk about how you can get them back, let’s first try to make them stay! How? Well, an effective approach is to implement e-commerce exit-intent popups (a message that displays on a visitor’s screen just as they are about to leave the page). It works based on an advanced predictive algorithm, which detects visitors’ activity, through mouse movements and velocity. It is designed to boost site traffic and increase lead generation hooking customers back to your store in time.
How to adapt your popup messages to the situation to succeed in retargeting marketing?
Depending on the reason for the visitors leaving, different popup messages can be used to correct the situation. If the reason for them leaving is due to prices being too expensive you can bring their attention back by offering a limited time coupon code on exit-intent popup (people love coupons!)
What is amazing about exit popups is that you can target a potential shopper with specific popup message based on factors like users’ geographic location and the amount of time they spent on each page on your website. In this way you will be able to achieve better communication with your visitors. Personalization and timing are key here.
Sometimes customers feel uneasy about online shopping because they cannot physically analyse your product or are lacking security. You can use this factor to offer a free return or a money-back guarantee as well as include customer testimonials in your exit popup to attest to your site’s social proof. Remember! Exit-intent popups are your second chance to turn a fleeing visitor into a costumer. Don’t underestimate its power: if used properly they can increase sales by up to 10-15%.
Besides its primary motive-holding back visitors from leaving, exit intent popups can also be used to fulfil a few other purposes. For instance, they can be used to build email lists, promote a video, redirect traffic, provide exciting offers and promotions as well as reduce cases of cart abandonment.
Having said that, following all of these recommendations isn’t a cure it all solution: unfortunately, in reality some customers will still abandon their carts through reasons they see fit. But don’t think of giving up yet and making the mistake of considering those to be “lost customers” just yet. We are bringing in the heavy artillery- the most effective way to bring customers back: email recovery campaign.
How to create an efficient recovery email along your retargeting marketing strategy?
The concept of “abandoned cart email” is pretty simple and it can prove remarkably effective sales recovery tactic assuming the customer has registered with an email address prior to abandoning their cart.
It is the merchant’s last chance to convince the buyer to check out by sending them a personalized message and a link to a cart containing the items that they had selected. It can boost your sales by up to 8-10 % : considering that the tactic is used after the customer already decided to abandon the cart-it is an outstanding achievement!
To create a recovery email that will help you in your retargeting marketing strategy, you need to accomplish three key things:
- Get customers to open your email. This is especially important, as no matter how well you construct your recovery email, or how much discount you offer inside, it’s going to be useless unless you can get customers to open their emails first ;
- Not get your customers annoyed. Most customers find recovery emails helpful, but there is the risk of getting too pesky. If we can lower this risk, the results will be even better ;
- Get them back to shopping. Have customers return and complete their purchase with the help of an actionable copy. Keep your copy to the point and avoid writing too much stuff.
E-commerce conversion can be tricky, retargeting marketing is a key to help you boost it! We can go on and on about numerous tactics you can employ to persuade customers to buy while they are still on your website or even when they have left, but don’t expect these to work as “magic pills”: inevitably some people will get to the payment screen and decide not to continue.
But at the end of the day, every customer that changed their mind and made purchases proves your success: any tactic that has the potential to seal the deal is worth the try and considering the small amount of work connected with implementing an email to recover abandoned carts or crafting an eye-catching, personalized popup, they are a great place to start.
Image credit : Mary Kvitt