The e-commerce industry has been moving at a rapid speed. Online shopping in the last few years has picked up drastically, allowing shoppers to browse on the internet and purchase whatever they want with just a few clicks on their device. However, there’s one area where most sellers still struggle i.e., abandoned carts.
Regardless of whatever they do, sellers continue to grapple with the issue of abandoned carts, which often becomes unavoidable. According to reports, abandoned cart rates can be anywhere between 50%-80%, which adds up to an annual revenue loss of almost $4.6 billion.
But there’s one way to recover the revenue lost through abandoned carts- best practices for abandoned cart emails to follow up with buyers. Regardless of whether you’ve just started in the industry with a revenue stream still under development or have an already established steady stream of traffic to your store, you can still capture a sizeable revenue through this approach. In fact, there might be times when your email campaign for abandoned carts could make all the difference between a disastrous sales year and a year with steady annual growth.
So, here we are with a handy guide on the 5 best practices for abandoned cart emails to help you convince people to come back and give their cart another look. So, let’s get started.
5 Best Practices for Abandoned Cart Emails
The primary objective of an abandoned cart email is to help the shoppers scale the uncertainty that stopped them from checking out and motivate them to purchase. This can be best achieved through a smart combination of the following 5 best practices in creating abandoned cart emails.
1. Send Your Shoppers Multiple Emails for Engagement
An email sent within an hour of cart abandonment can help you boost your conversion rate instead of waiting endlessly for your shoppers to come back and resume on their own. Many might question the basis of this one-hour interval. It’s because the shopper has a higher chance of still being on the site and the experience might still be fresh in their mind.
However, it may take more than one attempt to get your shoppers to come back. Therefore, ensure that your abandoned cart email shoots multiple emails over at least a week. You can kick off an email campaign that will focus on the following things.
- Email for Cart Reminder: If the buyer doesn’t come in an hour, send them a reminder that they can still claim their cart.
- Email for Follow-Up: Push this email 24 hours after you’ve sent the first email. Create a sense of urgency within the buyer by explaining to them how they might be missing out on a one-time wonderful offer. This could mean a sale or massive discounts on certain terms and conditions.
- Email for Promotional Incentive: Send this email a week after card abandonment. If the buyer still doesn’t come back to complete their purchase, add a discount offer to sell off items that they have already added to their cart.
2. Boost the Open Rate with An Impressive Subject Line
Subject lines can often be tricky. It should have components that trigger emotions like joy, curiosity, or FOMO, or a combination of all three at the same time. Instead of sounding spammy, they should excite people just enough to open the email.
While most would any day prefer to include a humorous and light-spirited subject line in their email, descriptive subject lines also enjoy a high click-through rate despite a slightly lower open rate. Since people already have a fair idea about what they are opening, they open the email with intent, which makes the entire process slightly counterintuitive.
3. Remind The Shopper of What They Have Left Behind
Not all shoppers would want to receive abandoned cart emails from you due to various reasons like high shipping costs, unavailability of their favorite item, etc. But there would certainly be a few buyers who find these reminder emails helpful. The emails influence their purchase decisions.
You can include the images of the items they have left in their cart to get them to act. By doing this, you can add some visual elements to your emails and recreate the feelings that the shopper had when they first added the items to their cart. Apart from the image of the items, also include other details like the price, size, style, and color to create a greater appeal to motivate them to complete their purchase.
4. Nail Your CTAs
How often do you receive emails that you struggle to complete reading? Shoppers get such emails all the time. There’s one thing that no shopper would stand- a boring email. Plain and boring content fails to achieve any of the objectives for which it has been sent to the buyer. You can instead write to your buyer as if you’re writing to a friend.
Also, your email copy should include a compelling call to action (CTA) that can attract people’s attention when they open their email. Some of the best examples of powerful CTAs are-
- Go to cart
- Finish the job
- Claim my item
- Go to basket
- Complete the order
5. Create a Sense of Urgency with Social Proof
Your buyers can’t touch and confirm whether or not your products would be a good choice. This is where social proof comes in handy. Depending on the reason why the shopper abandoned their cart, social proof gives them a glimpse into what other buyers experienced.
For example, if your product is slightly costly, it’s possibly because you offer premium quality for that item. So, if your shoppers can get to know about the benefits of your product, you stand a good chance of luring them back to complete their purchase.
Also, include testimonials and reviews to influence the purchasing decisions of your shoppers as they often rely on these to make up their minds. But make sure to include the best reviews and testimonials from your site.
Wrapping Up
You could end up losing a lot in revenue without a cart abandonment email strategy in place. While these emails require a lot of work and take slightly longer to be set up, the value that they bring to the table makes up for all the time and effort. As you continue incorporating these abandoned cart emails into your campaigns, make sure to continue testing. Your customers’ expectations continue evolving, therefore, testing ensures that not only do your shoppers open your emails but also return to purchase something.
If you’re tired of seeing abandoned carts by your customers, take Wigzo’s Free Trial to benefit from e-commerce marketing automation.
