Cart abandonment is a serious issue that online retailers face on a regular basis. There are few things more frustrating than seeing that a site visitor came so close to making a purchase and then left without completing it.
But an abandoned shopping cart doesn’t have to be the end of the story. There’s still an excellent chance that those shoppers will come back to complete their purchases. With the right approach to cart abandonment emails, you can improve those odds significantly.
Here are six useful tips to help you craft a more effective abandoned cart email.
1. Embrace clarity
Consumers are used to getting a lot of emails from businesses, and many immediately ignore any messages that lack a clear purpose or seem generic. They’ll be much more likely to open and act on the email if they realize that it is contextually relevant to their situation and was sent to them for a specific reason.
Given that, your abandoned cart emails should embrace clear subject lines that identify what they are. Something as simple as “We noticed you didn’t complete your purchase” or “There are items in your shopping cart” help to increase open rates, especially among those consumers who may still be debating whether or not they want to make the purchase.
2. Pay attention to the details
The body of the email should also be clear and specific. It’s very important to include details like the items that were left in the cart, along with images of the items, in your abandoned cart recovery emails. By including this level of detail, the email will be much more likely to remind the consumer of why they nearly bought the products in question, and may be enough to nudge them into returning to the website and completing the purchase.
3. Send emails in a timely manner
Timing is one of the most important factors for effective cart abandonment emails. In a post on SaleCycle, companies are encouraged to test different strategies, but between 30 minutes and one hour after abandonment is a recommended window to target for a first outreach.
They also recommend a multi-email cycle, such as three emails sent after one hour, 24 hours and 72 hours since the abandonment, each advancing the efforts. But then they recommend tweaking the times and seeing how performance changes; sometimes a little earlier or later can lift overall conversions.
4. Add personality
In general, marketing emails should have some personality to them. A flat, dispassionate message is not nearly as likely to have an impact as one that makes a reader smile or feel intrigued. The same goes for cart abandonment emails. An attention-grabbing image or clever bit of language will put consumers in the mood to reconsider and revisit their shopping carts, while they’ll likely just ignore an automated, personality-free reminder.
5. Discounts help
This is one of the most popular tactics available, and for good reason. Naturally, a consumer who was considering a product at its current price will be even more likely to buy with the added incentive of a discount. However, you also have to be careful with how freely and frequently you resort to this tactic. You don’t want to condition your customers to always abandon their carts in order to receive an inevitable discount. Instead, consider offering discounts in second cart abandonment emails, or on a randomized basis.
6. Keep it simple
Lastly, it’s important to keep your cart abandonment emails simple. Get straight to the point, presenting your reminder and, if relevant, offer directly to the consumer. Don’t try to incorporate additional promotions – the more focused these particular messages are, the better the chances that your audience will return to and reconsider their shopping carts.
Write more effective abandoned cart emails
With these six tips, you can make an abandoned cart email campaign successful. Zoey makes it easy to do so with its built-in abandoned cart capabilities, so you can automate abandoned cart outreach.
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