How to Turn Missed Opportunities into Sales
It can be frustrating when customers show interest in items on your website but do not purchase them. You’ve done the hard work of attracting customers to your site, and they’ve shown interest in your products - only to leave without buying.
The good news? It’s not a lost cause. You can take some actions to bring those customers back to your website so they can buy the goods they are interested in.
With the right abandoned cart email marketing strategies, you can gently nudge those customers back, encouraging them to complete their purchases and boosting your revenue in the process.
This guide will walk you through six tried-and-tested tactics to make abandoned cart emails your secret weapon for success.
Abandoned Cart Email Marketing Strategies - Blog Outline:
How to set up automated cart recovery on WIX:
1. What is an Abandoned Cart Email Marketing?
As your website visitors are not always ready to purchase straightaway, they often add some products to their online shopping carts and leave your website without making a purchase. An abandoned cart email marketing is a retargeting strategy designed to remind shoppers of items they left in their shopping basket.
According to recent research conducted by the Baymard Institute in 2024, the average cart abandonment rate is 70.19%. [1]
It means that over 70% of shoppers leave items in their shopping carts without completing their purchase. That’s a huge opportunity to recover sales. Factors like unexpected shipping costs, complicated checkouts, or distractions often lead to cart abandonment. You can re-engage these potential customers by addressing these concerns and sending personalised, well-timed emails.
2. How does Abandoned Cart Email Marketing Work?
When customers add items to their carts but don't complete their purchases, merchants can send what's known as an abandoned cart email encouraging them to complete specific actions.
The process looks like this:
The merchant sets up the automation inside their eCommerce platform.
Clients who have already signed up and given their email addresses log into the site and begin browsing.
The products are being added to their online shopping carts.
They exit the page without buying.
Abandoned cart emails are sent, reminding them which items they are willing to buy and encouraging them to check out.
The customers click the link inside the cart recovery email and complete their shopping process.
3. Six Proven Abandoned Cart Email Marketing Strategies.
3.1. Timing is the key.
3.2. Compelling subject line.
3.3. Give an incentive.
3.4. Focus on one product.
3.5. Create a sense of urgency.
3.6. Keep things simple with one call to action.
3.1. Timing is the key.
Send your email at the right time. When drafting an abandoned cart email marketing strategy, you must first consider when you'll send your cart recovery emails. Depending on your business and what you're selling, you may want to send your emails a couple of hours after someone abandons their cart, or you may want to wait a day or two.
The goal is to find the sweet spot: not too soon after leaving, but not too far in the future. If you send your abandoned cart email too quickly, your customers may still be in the decision-making process and not ready to buy. You also need to decide how many emails you'll send. Will it be one or a series of emails?
If you set up your website using Wix Website Builder, you can build abandoned cart notification emails in your Wix dashboard. You can select how long you want the email to wait before sending the first one. It can send the first email two hours after the user's session ends without buying the items in their shopping cart.
3.2. Compelling subject line
Almost half of the people base whether or not they will open an email solely on the subject line. [2] It means that the subject line is one of the most critical aspects of an email. If the subject line is not interesting or does not make sense, there is a good chance that the email will not be opened. A good subject line should be short and to the point and use keywords that will stand out.
Your abandoned cart email subject line is the key to recovering lost sales and customers. But with many other emails in your shoppers' inboxes vying for attention, yours need to stand out to be successful.
3.3. Give an incentive.
When it comes to encouraging people to return to your site and complete their purchase, it's critical to think about why they bounced in the first place. The majority of people abandon their carts because extra costs are added on at the last minute, such as shipping and handling. By being upfront about these costs from the beginning, you can avoid cart abandonment and encourage people to complete their purchases.
In your abandoned cart email, consider offering an exclusive discount to make them feel like they're getting a great deal. It will encourage them to purchase the product and build loyalty.
Examples:
Provide free next-day delivery for orders placed within 24 hours.
Double their loyalty points if they complete the purchase.
Offer 10% off their next order or £5 off purchases over £50.
3.4. Focus on one product.
In recent years, an interesting phenomenon has been observed in many different aspects of life – when people are presented with too many choices, they find it harder to decide. This is known as the paradox of choice. When customers leave items in their online shopping cart, it may be tempting to showcase all of those products in your recovery email.
However, too many goods in the email can overwhelm the customer and may cause them to unsubscribe from your emails. Instead, focus on one item the customer left in their cart and highlight the product's benefits. Doing this will make you more likely to recover the sale and keep the customer subscribed to your emails.
3.5. Create a sense of urgency.
Customers are more likely to complete their purchases if they open the email immediately rather than later. Offers like "10% off your order if you complete it within the next 24 hours" effectively get shoppers to take action. It's an apparent reason to do so and creates a sense of urgency. Plus, it's a win-win for both the shopper and the store. The shopper saves money, and the store gets the sale.
Scarcity is another tactic worth mentioning. It highlights the idea that you might run out of items if customers don't buy them now. With an opening line like: "Stock is running out fast", you can create a sense of urgency and encourage customers to purchase the product before it runs out. Scarcity can effectively drive sales, but it should be used sparingly, or it will lose its impact.
3.6. Keep things simple with one call to action.
When creating your Abandoned Cart Email Marketing Strategy, remember that your customers need to stay focused and return to your store. To achieve this, you need to keep things simple. A cluttered cart recovery email, with more than one call to action and too many options, will make your campaign ineffective. Instead, focusing on a clean, well-organised email will make shopping easy and enjoyable, leading customers to return.
4. Abandoned Cart Email Marketing Strategies - Summary
Abandonment of online shopping carts is a big issue for e-commerce businesses. There are many reasons why shoppers abandon their carts. This is why online retailers constantly look for new ways to improve their strategies for retargeting. You can retrieve up to 25% of your visitors by implementing Abandoned Cart Email Marketing Strategies. Email Retargeting is a highly effective way to bring customers back to your store and increase sales.
Additionally, consider implementing push notifications as part of your strategy. Push notifications can serve as real-time reminders, prompting customers to return to their carts instantly. For a deeper dive into this approach, check out our dedicated blog on how to use push notifications effectively.
FAQs About Abandoned Cart Email Marketing
1. What’s the ideal number of abandoned cart emails to send?
Three is often the magic number: an initial reminder, a follow-up, and a final nudge.
2. Can I use abandoned cart emails for all industries?
Absolutely. Whether you sell physical products or services, these emails can help recover potential sales.
3. What tools can I use to automate these emails?
Popular platforms like Wix and Mailchimp make setting up automated abandoned cart emails easy.
4. How can I measure the success of my abandoned cart email marketing campaigns?
Track metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates to gauge effectiveness.
Trusted sources:
[2] Invesp
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