How to Create Email Automation Sequences That Will Convert Your Abandoned Carts into Sales
Cart abandonment is one of the reasons most e-commerce companies lose sales. With an effective email automation sequence, you can convert your abandoned carts into sales. This article will provide an insight into how to create abandoned cart email sequences.
Did you know that the average e-commerce store has a 75.6% cart abandonment rate? Cart abandonment is one of the biggest headaches for e-commerce business owners. As a result, many businesses lose sales. This is why cart abandonment email sequences are important in your email marketing strategy. You need to send the most compelling email to win your potential customers back and increase sales. In this article, you’ll learn how to create an abandoned cart email flow that will convert your abandoned carts into sales.
Table of contents
- What is cart abandonment?
- Why do abandoned cart email sequences work?
- The components of a cart abandonment email sequence
- Creating an effective cart abandonment email sequence
- Wrapping up
What is cart abandonment?
If a customer browses through your site, shops for products, adds them to cart, but doesn't complete the purchase, it is said they have abandoned a cart. In other words, cart abandonment is when a customer saves items in a cart but ends up not paying for them. This action can leave you curious. Why would someone save an item and not pay for it? Studies from Barilliance have given some reasons:
- Unexpected shipping costs
- Security reasons
- Difficulties with payment methods
- Long and confusing checkout process
While these are usually the most common reasons people abandon a cart, a person can also abandon a cart because they were just browsing through your site. Not to mention, common day to day activities can distract a person from completing a purchase (phone ringing, or a package gets delivered).
Now that you’ve learned that not every customer that visits your site ends up completing a purchase. We’ll go through effective ways to create abandoned cart email sequences to get your lost customers back. But first, are abandoned cart email sequences effective? The next section will provide an answer to this question.
Why do abandoned cart email sequences work?
While abandoned cart email sequences may seem like a way to win back the hearts of customers, do they really work?
BI intelligence reported that abandoned cart emails can increase your chances of recovering a lost sale by 63%. According to stats from moosend, 45% of cart abandonment emails are opened, and from there 21% of people click through and 50% of these people complete their orders.
However, no abandoned cart email strategy is set in stone, so let’s explore some of the most effective ways to create one that works for you.
The components of a cart abandonment email sequence
An abandoned cart email is created to recover customers that didn’t complete a purchase on your website. Ideally, abandoned cart email sequences are divided into 3 emails. Here’s how to create a cart abandonment email sequence:
Initial email
The main goal of the initial email is to remind your customers about the action they didn’t complete on your site, nothing more. It’s best to cut to the chase, addressing possible customer challenges or any other thing that could have prevented the purchase. When it comes to creating the initial email, email scheduling is crucial.
You need to send your email within the first few hours of the abandonment process. This way, potential customers are reminded of your product before they check out your competitors. Take a look at this abandonment email from Bonobos:
Like Bonobos, you can incentivize potential customers to complete their purchase by offering a discount. In some cases, this is usually enough to get customers back to complete their purchase. It may not always be the case for other potential customers. This is where a follow-up email comes in.
Follow-up email
This is the second email you send to customers that need an extra nudge to complete their purchase. The follow up email is usually sent 12-48 hours after the initial email. It's good practice to reveal what your customers are missing out on by not completing their purchase. You can include each of the items that were left in the cart followed by a clear call-to-action. Here is an example of a follow-up email from Whisky Loot. It begins with the hero text: still thinking about it?
Like Whisky Loot, you can include the benefits attached to buying from your brand and using your product. You can also address frequently asked questions to make it easier for customers to complete their purchase. This way, customers are reminded of what they will gain when they buy from you.
Final email
So, if a potential customer doesn’t get motivated by your initial and follow up email, a final email could do the trick. The final email is important because it provides the final opportunity to get potential customers back to complete their purchase. This email should be sent 2-3 days after the follow-up email. This way, your customers won’t get the impression that you’re spamming their inboxes. Here is an example from the Dollar shave club.
It begins with the subject line: where did you go? This sparks curiosity motivating the recipient to open and explore the email. Like Dollar shave club, you can incentivize customers to complete their purchase by revealing the product they are missing out on. You can also include the benefits attached to buying from your brand and using your product.
Creating an effective cart abandonment email sequence
When you create your abandoned email sequence right, you have more chances of increasing sales. This means that you need to apply the most effective tactics to crafting your email in a way that compels customers to act.
Here are 5 ways you can create effective abandoned email cart sequences.
1. Use social proof
One reason a customer may not complete a purchase is because they doubt your product’s quality. You can use social proof to show customers that your brand is legit and trustworthy. Social proof is a powerful marketing tool that can win the hearts of customers. People are usually compelled to make payment when they believe that other people have benefitted from using your product. Here is an example of social proof from Casper.
The brand also includes an additional link for customers that may still want to explore further.
2. Apply a sense of urgency
Using Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) is a common strategy in marketing. With good reason, nobody likes to miss out on a deal. When you include a sense of urgency in your email, you create the opportunity to convert your abandoned cart into sales. Check out how Sephora incorporates a sense of urgency in its email.
Like Sephora, you can use this strategy to urge customers to participate in our deal before they miss it.
3. Include a compelling subject line
It's one thing to create abandoned cart email sequences, it's another to get customers to open and read your emails. This is why crafting a compelling subject line is crucial. Customers tend to have busy inboxes so you need to ensure that your email stands out by creating a compelling subject line. Also, include relevant information that would easily grab the attention of your customers. Like the customer's name, or details of the items in the shopping cart.
4. Offer discounts
Sometimes, customers may hesitate to complete a purchase because of product price, shipping costs or any other fees that may arise during the checkout process. In this case, you can offer discounts to compel customers to return to their shopping cart and complete their purchase. Create a discount code that customers can use during the checkout process. While discounts can help coax customers to return to your site, ensure that you don’t offer discounts that would negatively affect your overall sales goal.
5. Include a compelling call-to-action
A compelling call-to-action can drive increased conversions in your abandoned cart email flow. It easily grabs the attention of customers and signals the necessary action to take. When it comes to crafting the right CTA, you need to choose words that would trigger the right emotion and get them to complete the purchase. For example, a CTA like "pay for your order now" or "buy now" may give your customers the impression that they are being forced to make a purchase. Instead, you can use CTA like "complete your order". These words send the idea that the customer should finish the checkout process they already started.
Wrapping up
If you don't create the right abandoned cart email flow, you may lose your potential customers for good. Remember that timing is crucial. You need to send your emails while your customers' purchase actions are still fresh in their minds.
Use a compelling email subject line, CTA and copy to drive customers to complete their purchase.
You need to create the best performing abandoned cart emails to win back your customers. With Engage, you can track shopping cart and order events and use this to create email automation to automatically send abandoned cart recovery emails. If you use Stripe checkout, Engage supports Stripe's checkout.session.expired event to trigger recovery emails. There is also a ready to use abandoned cart recovery automation template you can easily use.