Why Your Abandoned Cart Series Should Be Longer Than One Email

An Abandoned Cart series is a vital email automation for eCommerce businesses to have in place. Studies have shown that on average, just under a whopping 70% of online shopping carts get abandoned. That’s a very hard number to ignore! While some customers might have simply gotten distracted, chances are, if they’re not reminded about their selection, they won’t come back to complete their purchase. That’s leaving a huge amount of money on the table! 

Having a solid Abandoned Cart series up and running is a surefire way to reduce cart abandonment and push hesitant customers across the line. However, we’ve seen time and time again, eCommerce businesses that only have one simple Abandoned Cart email in place. While it might be effective, just think of how much more ROI an extended Abandoned Cart series would generate! 

Like any other email automation, an Abandoned Cart series provides you with the opportunity to build on your existing relationships with your customers. These positive interactions are what will keep your customers around for the long haul (meaning a higher lifetime value from repeat purchases). 

In this blog we’ll cover a number of reasons why your Abandoned Cart series should go beyond a single reminder email, including: 

• Not training your customers to expect discounts for abandoning their cart
• Introducing other motivating content (such as reviews) before resorting to a discount
• Why you should offer different incentives based on cart size

With the busy holiday season in full swing, it’s time to get your Abandoned Cart series sorted. So let’s get into it! 

An example of a basic Abandoned Cart Series

If you’re guilty of the single Abandoned Cart reminder (hey, we’re not here to judge, just to offer advice) you might be wondering what an Abandoned Cart series should look like. The answer is, there’s no solid framework that you should stick to. Depending on the type of business you have, the types of products you sell, your average order value (the list goes on), your Abandoned Cart series will look different to the next guy’s. If you’re stuck on where to begin, here’s a basic four email automation framework we suggest starting with. 

• Email 1: General cart reminder (try sending 30 minutes to 1hr after they abandon their cart)
• Email 2: Follow up reminder. This could be where you introduce social proof. 
• Email 3: Introduction of incentive
• Email 4: Final reminder of incentive

With email platforms such as Klaviyo, you can dynamically show customers the items that they’ve left in their cart. Klaviyo also gives you a number of triggers and conditions to work with, which means you can further segment your audience to deliver personalized content. 

Depending on what you’re selling, you can adjust the copy accordingly to motivate the customer to take action. For example, previously for a client that sold a number of health food programs, we showed information specific to the program they had in their cart. This personalized content allowed us to connect better with the customer, and speak as to why the benefits of the program outweighed their hesitation. 

Don’t train your customers to expect a discount

We’re all guilty of doing it — abandoning our online shopping cart on purpose to see if we’ll receive a discount. If you only have one Abandoned Cart email in place which offers a discount (or if you have a lengthy series but offer a discount in your very first email) we have some bad news for you…. You’re giving away discounts (and profit margin) unnecessarily. For the customers who abandon their carts on purpose, the fact of the matter is that they were always going to complete their order… They just wanted to test the waters, and guess what — it worked. Just think of the money you could have saved if you played your cards right! 

The point is, you don’t want to train your customers to expect a discount every time they abandon their cart. Plus, when (and if) you do eventually offer a discount, your customer will be delighted, and will be happy to complete their order. Thus creating a positive customer experience. If you currently only have one Abandoned Cart email in place, just imagine the increase in profit and ROI you could achieve with a more in-depth strategy! Sometimes customers need more than just one gentle nudge.

Showcase User Generated Content

As we briefly touched on earlier, an Abandoned Cart series provides you with the perfect opportunity to further nurture your customers. Go beyond the generic ‘oops, did you forget this?’ email, and include more content that gives your customer further knowledge of your brand. This could include a brief brand story, introduction to your blog, cross-selling other popular products (the list is endless). 

One strategy we’ve seen great results from is incorporating user generated content (UGC) in your Abandoned Cart series. UGC is so important in building a trustworthy, credible brand. This includes product reviews and customer testimonials, plus social proof such as photos that your customers tag you in or attach to their reviews. 

If a customer is tossing up between which product or size to purchase, reading a relevant customer review will help them to decide and make the purchase (rather than giving up altogether). Your customers are a goldmine — the content they produce for your brand is so valuable, so you should be using it! The proof really is in the (social) pudding. 

With the Okendo x Klaviyo integration you can also show your product’s star rating in emails – including your Abandoned Cart ones. If you have a developer on hand, you can further utilize your reviews by dynamically showing reviews that have been left for the product in the customer’s cart. This means your customer doesn’t need to go out of their way to find reviews (however, if they want to, they’ll only be a click away). 

At the end of the day, there’s a huge number of ways that you can showcase your customer reviews and UGC. You could include a review carousel (or create a GIF if your integration doesn’t permit), or handpick a select few five star customer reviews to put in an email. Try utilizing this tactic to motivate your customers to go back and complete their cart before resorting to providing them with a discount or other type of incentive. 

Offer different incentives based on cart value

So, you’ve given your customer two reminders about their cart, but they still are yet to finish checking out. It’s time to introduce a new tactic — yes, it’s finally time to offer up an incentive to purchase. Now, what you offer will depend on a few things, such as the value of your products or your AOV. To throw in another option, you might even decide to offer your customers a free low value product to complete their order. 

Following on from the whole ‘don’t give away discounts unnecessarily’ concept, we suggest giving your customers a discount depending on their cart value. As a basic framework for example, you could offer people with a cart value of $120+ a $15 discount, and a cart value less than $120 a $10 discount. Depending on the value of the products you sell, you could split your customers up further and offer multiple incentives — but don’t go overboard. Make sure these discount codes are dynamic (meaning that they can only be used once) so that customers don’t use this again the next time they shop. The copy in these emails can be identical (except for the incentive value and discount code). Don’t double the work if you don’t need to! 

The wrap up

Reducing cart abandonment is the quickest way to help increase revenue for your eCommerce store. Having a solid Abandoned Cart series (that’s longer than one email) in place will help you do exactly that. Knowing what tactics to use in your Abandoned Cart series will further assist with recovering carts, and increasing your ROI. 

To recap, a good Abandoned Cart series should:

• Be longer than one email
• Not include a discount in the very first email
• Not give customers a discount every time
• Utilize other tactics to motivate a purchase before resorting to a discount
• Offer different discount values depending on cart size

So there you have it. Get to work on your Abandoned cart email before the busy holiday season is over and reap the rewards. 

Need a hand?

Our team is ready and waiting to help you take your email and SMS marketing to the next level. Get in contact with us now to elevate your Abandoned Cart experience and generate more revenue from your other customer journey touchpoints.