3 Email Automations Every Ecommerce Brand Needs: The Abandoned Cart Flow

Introduction

It’s no surprise that we live in an increasingly distracting world with notifications here and pop-ups there. Keeping a potential customer’s attention for long enough to go through the purchase journey can be an arduous task but user’s leaving their cart unpurchased or leaving during the checkout process is inevitable. Thankfully, there are ways around this to help get that customer back on track and to finish their purchase such as the abandoned cart flow.

What is an abandoned cart flow?

Put simply, an abandoned cart flow sends an email to a user who has abandoned a stocked cart or left the checkout process without purchasing.

It can be 1 email or a sequence of emails encouraging the user to go back and make the purchase. Many ecommerce stores will offer a discount code to help encourage that conversion as an abandoned cart is about as low down in the sales funnel as you can go.

Below is an example of a “well designed abandoned cart email” by Klaviyo:

Why implement an abandoned cart flow?

69.57% of online shopping carts are abandoned.

An abandoned cart flow is one of the highest converting email automations as you are catching the user when they have shown a clear intent to buy. A lot of the time, a user simply gets distracted and just needs final nudge over the line. Other times, they just need an extra incentive such as free shipping or a discount code.

By not having an abandoned cart automation, you are missing out on a large revenue source and a fantastic way to drive new customers.

Top tips for a winning abandoned cart flow

Although just having an abandoned cart is a great way to boost revenue and drive new customers, there are many ways you can boost the performance of your automation and some best practices that we recommend following.

• Send the first abandoned cart email after 24 hours of them abandoning their cart and follow up 24 or 48 hours after the initial reminder.
• It can work really well to offer a discount or free delivery on the second email as it allows you to save giving a discount to users who only need a nudge.
• Make sure the abandoned cart email has the customer’s cart embedded in the email. Reminding the potential customer what they added can be a great trigger to increase conversion rate.
• Be sure to A/B test subject lines, timings and email content to get the best performing flow possible.
• Ensure the call to action is clear and concise to increase conversion rate.

Conclusion

This series includes 4 email automations that every ecommerce store should have. However, the abandoned cart flow is the one I would consider to be completely essential. Similar to how bottom of the funnel dynamic retargeting is so effective on paid social, the abandoned cart series is unrivalled in terms of conversion rate and revenue potential.

If you’re struggling to find an email marketing supplier to implement the abandoned cart automation, or need help perfecting yours, please get in touch with us.