Tell me if this sounds familiar:
You run an online business with an ecommerce component. You’ve got great products and a simple checkout process but half or more of your visitors never complete their orders.
If it’s a recurring issue, you’re not alone. Abandoned carts are a common pain point with ecommerce businesses, both large and small.
Fortunately, its possible to beat the average and get better conversion rates out of your checkout – and, in particular, your follow up process for abandoned carts.
Why do people abandon their carts in the first place?
It’s no secret that people like abandoning carts.
According to some statistics we’ve seen, roughly 70% off all carts are abandoned. That means the majority of times that people put items in their cart, they do not follow through and complete the transaction.
Imagine if things were that frequent at a brick and mortar store? It would be bedlam with carts tossed all helter-skelter through the aisles.
One of the problems with online shopping is that it’s pretty easy to abandon a cart.
A stray link might take you to another page or site, you might get a call that pulls you away from the monitor, and there’s no cashier staring you down as you guiltily abandon your basket before the door.
So part of it comes with the territory, but if you’re seeing a lot of abandonments it could also point to a serious problem with your checkout process. Unclear instructions, pages that don’t load, and a hundred other technical things could be getting in the way of people who actually want to make a purchase from completing it.
We won’t be diving into those aspects here, but instead we’ll focus on what you can do after they abandon that cart.
What’s the best way of dealing with abandoned carts?
Every digital marketer has their favourite tricks or techniques up their sleeve when it comes to solving specific business problems.
In this instance, my preferred method is to implement a robust email marketing strategy that specifically targets users who never completed the checkout process.
It doesn’t have to be overly complicated – in fact, simple, and straightforward is better: send an email to every user who didn’t complete their transaction and encourage them to come back and do so.
That’s it.
While it might sound like nothing, let’s go back to the reasons why people didn’t finish the transaction – in many of the instances, it wasn’t because they lost interest, stopped needing the item, or no longer trusted you. It’s because something else prevented them.
So you’re doing your part now by sending them that gentle reminder to pick up where they left off.
Of course, you might be thinking that most people will come back and finish the order without the nudge. Some might, but many won’t. Because the next time they log in, they’re going to see a digital ad from one of your competitors trying to get them to make their purchase elsewhere.
Why you need email marketing to recoup abandoned carts
Imagine that your business gets 100 serious potential shoppers a month and you’re batting the average – 70% of those folks who put items in their cart never completed the transaction.
That means you get 30 transactions a month. Not bad, overall, for a small business.
However, it also means more than 2/3 of your potential revenue is lost – and that’s revenue that could have been until something drew those shoppers away!
If we look at the success rates for converting abandoned carts, according to data, some businesses are able to recoup more than 20% of their lost carts.
Imagine what it would look like if your 30% of potential sales went through got upgraded to 50%?
I know the math isn’t exactly that, but depending on how many you lost, you could see your revenues jump by a quarter to half just by rolling out a simple and effective email marketing strategy like this.
Heck, even a 1% boost in sales will most likely pay for whatever automation you need set up, along with the hours to develop it.
How to implement email marketing for abandoned carts
Fortunately, in most cases, setting up your email marketing to go after abandoned carts is pretty straightforward.
Since we’re mostly looking at the why of the question today, we won’t have the time or space to get too deep into the how today.
That said, here are a few places to get you started with your abandoned cart email marketing.
- If your business runs on a shopping platform such as Shopify, you probably already have some built-in settings you can leverage to start reaching out to abandoned cart users.
- Email marketing platforms such as MailChimp can also integrate with your storefronts to give you more options, templates, and automation rules to get your campaigns started.
- If you’re doing things a little old-fashioned, and using Gmail for most of your messaging, there are automation tools like MailMeteor that can remove some of the churn by letting you blast groups of users on, say, a weekly basis.
Bonus: A/B testing ideas for abandoned cart emails
While this is by no means a comprehensive list, here are a few points you may want to test to get your conversion rates up to healthier, more profitable numbers:
- Subject lines: Most of the time short, sweet, and to the point copy with an emoji works wonders for open rates. But which words and which emoji? These might seem basic, but experimenting could let you see wild differences in open rates – and the fewer opens, likely the fewer conversions.
- Written content: Similar to your subject, short and punchy text often works best, but in some industries it might make sense to have a few lines (especially if you’re working with abandoned leads rather than carts). Test very short text with a couple short paragraphs and see which net you a better CTR from your main action.
- Graphics and images: People are visual beings, and the right graphics or other visuals can do wonders. In some cases, showing your product works best, while others showing the experience too (such as people enjoying themselves, somewhere, with your product) also work well. Test different directions and see where the data leads you.
- Cadence: Most experts agree that you’ll want to send your abandoned cart email out in under 24 hours, but also that you don’t want to send it too soon (like 2 mins after they leave the site)… Start with something like 24 after or 1 day after and then test for other intervals. Perhaps 12 hours will be the golden number or maybe 2 days. You won’t know until you have the data!
- CTA: Every abandoned cart should have a clear follow up action for your prospect to take. A button to return to the cart or checkout often makes sense, but how you spell it out might make a difference. Micro text like “complete your purchase” or “buy now” could have a measurable difference, so be sure to experiment with these too.
Remember: A/B testing is a science, and sometimes science takes time (especially if you’re not seeing a lot of abandoned carts in general). Consider these tips when you’re in the process of testing:
- Try to test only one major element at a time. If you test too many, it will be hard to see which elements are leading to the contributions and which are not.
- Give your test 1-3 weeks to run. 2 weeks is usually the sweet spot for getting enough data, but busy sites might only need a week, while lower traffic ones may need more time.
Are you looking into improving your conversion rates and making more sales through your online store or ecommerce site? Whether it’s rolling out a brand new email marketing strategy or auditing what you have, we’ve got you covered.
At Acorn, we’ve got over 20+ years of digital marketing experience working with businesses just like yours. We specialize in data-driven strategies to bolster your ROI using social media, paid ads, SEO, and content creation.
Drop us a message using our contact form. You won’t regret it.
