Consumers don’t want to be surprised while checking out online.
Businesses need to make their checkout process as frictionless as possible. If not, abandoned cart rates will increase, and businesses will lose sales.
Over 96% of Americans purchase from online stores each year. You don’t want to miss out on those browsing your site that don’t purchase.
Aside from continuously striving to make your checkout process as seamless and transparent as possible, it is likely you’ll still have customers abandoning their carts.
So what should you do? Prepare for cart abandonment, so you’re ready when it does occur.
Businesses build cart abandonment emails to trigger potential customers who have items in their cart but left their website without purchasing.
These emails can be automatically sent with almost any email marketing provider you choose. When a user adds an item to their cart but doesn’t check out, a trigger occurs and sends an email in an attempt to win back the customer.
But what makes an effective abandoned cart email, and what strategies are businesses using to make the sale?
In this article, we’ll look at three abandoned cart email examples and the unique strategies each one deployed to win back the customer.
Before we do, we must examine why customers are abandoning carts.
Why customers are abandoning carts
There’s a variety of reasons why customers abandon their carts.
Unexpected costs, no guest checkout option, complicated process, and a lack of transparency are among the most common.
Most of these can be solved by improving your user experience and making it easier for your customers to purchase.
To start, improve your SEO to ensure your customers are easily finding your site. Customers that struggle to locate your site will become frustrated before they even reach your homepage.
According to Adam, SEO expert at Loganix:
“Fine-tuning your branded SEO can dramatically reduce abandoned cart rates. When your own branded search results are schema-friendly and contain deep links to your product pages, users quickly are assured of your brand and will filter into relevant product links.”
Next, make sure you don’t have any hidden fees and showcase the total order price at each stage of the checkout process. 76% of abandoned carts are a result of price sensitivity.
Finally, make sure you have a guest checkout option. Consumers don’t want to create an account or track down their account information for a previously created profile.
A recent study found that one-third of abandoned purchases occur due to the user being unable to get into their account.
While consumer password managers help solve that issue, it still is worth ensuring that your site has a guest checkout option.
Now that your site is optimized for improved user experience, let’s take a look at some of the abandoned cart email strategies companies are using to win back customers.
Three abandoned cart email strategies
It’s common for businesses to reach out to customers with well-designed cart abandoned emails in an attempt to win back their business.
Putting extra effort into abandoned cart emails is worthwhile. This means going above and beyond with the design, copywriting, checking for grammar mistakes, and execution.
Why?
They actually work!
Utilizing freelancers, you can scale this operation with ease.
Three successful abandoned cart email strategies include assistance, free gifts, and discounts for new cart size milestones.
Let’s dive into each.
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1. Offer assistance.
Let’s start with the subject line. Subject lines are critical to grab the shoppers’ attention and remind them that they had items in their cart.
Some include the products in the subject lines, while others use a more catchy, alluring subject line in hopes of enticing the shopper to open.
Zoma, an online mattress company, sends abandoned cart emails to users with the subject line, “It looks like you forgot something.” This is clever and can be intriguing for the consumer.
To find out what works best with your target market, run A/B tests to see which style of subject lines have greater conversion rates.
If you’re struggling to write a catchy one, try this subject line generator for inspiration.
In addition, most abandoned cart emails will feature the product listing that the user selected prominently in the email.
This will keep the product in the consumer’s mind and re-energize them to purchase. In addition, it allows for a simple click-through to continue shopping where they left off.
As we continue to examine the Zoma email below, you’ll see the mattress that the consumer added to their cart.
There are also three different ways listed to talk with the company: email, phone, and webchat.
The focus of Zoma’s email isn’t only on the products that the consumers were considering, but also on removing friction to purchase them.
By offering three different ways to speak with a Zoma representative, consumers are able to get in touch and place an order if they were struggling to purchase on the company’s website.
I highly recommend following suit and also incorporating a live chat option on site for customers who need support right away via a low pressure medium.
Live chat is becoming increasingly popular with online stores and consumers so be sure to
check out this post from GetVoIP on the best ways to implement live chat onto your site.
Not to mention, live chat for customer support is incredibly efficient for those moving to work remotely in virtual teams in light of the recent pandemic. This way, your customer support agents can answer customer questions from home and help clear phone queues to speak to a live rep.
Here you can see how Zoma’s live chat feature looks when browsing their site:
2. Include a free gift.
Beauty salon and spa, Milk + Honey, wins customers back by enticing them with a free gift that can be added to their order.
In the example below, you can see that a headband is added to the order related to the skincare products that the customers recently added to their cart.
They also add a deadline to claim this offer. This creates urgency and forces the customer to commit in a shorter period of time.
Milk + Honey sells premium products that are often in high demand. This can create new challenges for their abandoned cart email strategy if their inventory goes out of stock.
How can you adapt your abandoned cart emails when this happens?
Use inventory management software to trigger an alert when products go out of stock. Then, build an email program that triggers a pre-order email rather than an abandoned cart one.
This will show that the product is in high-demand and encourage the shopper to get it while they still can!
3. Unlock savings at new price milestones.
Everyone loves a good deal.
With Americans’ average weekly earnings hovering around $1,000, consumers will be looking for ways to keep those dollars in their pockets.
Discounts, flash sales, and deals are great ways to delight consumers and push them towards making a sale.
When you market this type of promotion to someone already shopping, it can be enough to cause them to convert.
ASOS, a clothing company, sends savings information in their abandoned cart emails. If the shopper spends more, they save more. It’s that simple.
This type of abandoned cart email not only focuses on the items the shopper was browsing, but rather, encourages them to spend even more.
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Winning Customers Back
If a potential customer leaves your site without purchasing, it doesn’t mean they’re gone forever.
It’s on you to win them back.
Companies are deploying abandoned cart email campaigns to convert customers who were once interested in their products.
There are many email strategies you can use to re-engage and convert customers who have abandoned their carts. To monitor results, all you have to do is connect your e-commerce store and email marketing platform to Google Analytics.
Start by removing friction and offering assistance.
Consider including a free gift with their order to incentivize them to purchase.
Offer discounts that are unlocked at new milestones.
All of these strategies can have a positive effect on your business and drive sales that were previously lost.
Which one are you most excited to try for your store?
