How to perfect your cart abandonment emails

We’ve previously written about conversion techniques and how to get your users to commit to a purchase, but what about the users who intentionally don’t follow through?

A large percentage of your customers may drop out late in the checkout process because they never intended to make a purchase. The ‘browsers’.

Even though a user has left your site there are still ways to engage with them to bring them back.  

Looking at SaleCycle stats, in 2013 48.1% of cart abandonment emails were clicked on and from there, 33.3% of these users went on to purchase the product.

On top of this, the order value increased by 58% for purchases from cart abandonment emails rather than direct sales off the website.

With stats like these, it’s obvious how beneficial a simple cart abandonment email is. You can either remind a user of the items they had left in their basket or even offer them a percentage discount to encourage them to follow through with the purchase.

A few good examples of cart abandonment emails are:

 

Boohoo

So what does Boohoo do right?

1. The message comes from the Head of Customer Care himself. It adds a personal touch to the email.
2. It asks a question ‘if there was something we could do to help?’, so it encourages a conversation if there were any issues.
3. The ‘Did You Know’ section is a reminder of the benefits from purchasing through Boohoo.
4. The products are listed in Cart view, for easy viewing and to remind the user of their potential purchases.

 

DoogyLoot

The content that you use in your email is also crucial to engage with your users and encourage them to return to their cart. A good example of content in cart abandonment emails is Doggy Loot. If your branding has a persona, incorporate it into your email! Text like ‘Don’t let your items run away!’ and ‘Fetch your items now’ add that personal touch!

 

Grove

It’s also important to create a sense of urgency in the cart abandonment email, that either a sale is about to end or that the product will sell out fast. Grove does a good example of this informing the customers of a cart expiry date to increase the chance of them clicking on it straight away.

 

 

What We’ve Learnt

So from the examples above, what should you include in your cart abandonment email:

1. Give it a personal touch, by including your brand persona and including a key message by a head of customer support department.
2. Encourage them to contact you if there are any issues.
3. A list of the items that were in the cart at the time.
4. A sense or urgency, whether through a sale or expiry time.