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Do you run ads? Or do you focus on organic traffic? Maybe you invested in influencer marketing or are testing the water with user-generated content. Whatever you do to drive traffic to your online store is no walk in the park, so it is a sad day when a customer abandons their cart after all that work. But don’t worry, with the abandoned cart email best practices; you can get them to click ‘order now’!
From personalized subject lines to enticing incentives, these practices will help you engage potential customers, remind them of their abandoned carts, and encourage them to complete their orders.
In this blog, we will present you with the 13 best abandoned cart email practices to turn every cart into an order.
13 Abandoned Cart Email Best Practices
- High-converting subject lines
- Remind customers what they left behind
- Use social proof to make your case
- Dynamic content
- Three is not a crowd (send multiple emails)
- Provide a human touch (customer support)
- Timing is key
- CTA should be hard to miss
- Integrate email marketing with other channels
- Provide an incentive
- Show them why they clicked ‘add to cart’ in the first place
- Test, test, & test
- Automate your abandoned cart email campaigns
Did you know that the average cart abandonment rate is almost 70%? There are many reasons why customers abandon a cart; they could have gotten distracted, found a better deal somewhere else, couldn’t navigate your online store well, or simply changed their mind.
And since there are many reasons, there are also many solutions.
So wipe your tears, there is no time to cry over spilled carts, it is time to learn about abandoned cart email best practices and get those orders completed!
1- High-converting subject lines
You may send the best-abandoned cart email ever written but get zero conversion if you are not using the right subject line. The best subject line is enticing, personalized, and aligns with your branding.
The most popular subject lines for abandoned cart emails include but are not limited to:
- Items left behind
- $20 off cart
- Free delivery
- Still shopping?
- Left Something Behind
- Where’d you go?
2- Remind customers what they left behind
Right off the bat, you have to provide customers with a detailed list of the products they abandoned. This list should include the product’s description, image, and price.
You can take this further and add the delivery date. They will get the products if they complete their order right away.
3- Use social proof to make your case
By now, every marketer knows the importance of social proof, whether it is ratings and reviews or images and videos. If you don’t comprehend its importance, then you should know that studies show that campaigns using user-generated content have almost 30% higher conversion rates!
Using social proof not only makes the case for abandoned products, but it can also help you earn the trust of customers who aren’t familiar with your online store.
To take full advantage of this practice, you should focus on authentic reviews and stay away from influencers you work with.
Don’t mistake that for abandoning influencer marketing; it is one of the top marketing practices in 2024. however, in those types of emails, it is better to go as authentic as you can, and that means real customers giving their 100% honest reviews.
Learn more in: 8 Types of Social Proof for Your E-commerce Store and How to Use Them
4- Dynamic content
Dynamic content is essential in remarketing emails to ensure customers have correct information regarding pricing, location, or any other changing aspects.
This can be extremely beneficial for customers who abandoned their carts because they couldn't navigate your online store correctly.
You can also use dynamic content to show how many of those products are left in stock.
Nothing gets people ordering more than the famous FOMO message ‘only 2 left in stock!’.
5- Three is not a crowd (send multiple emails)
Sending just one email might work with some customers, but if a customer still hasn’t completed their order after you sent them an email, you shouldn’t give up. But also, you can’t flood their inbox with tons of emails.
Experts believe that the magic number is three.
The first email should be a gentle reminder followed by a second email that further nudges the customers towards the purchase and maybe you can add some testimonials to make the case for you.
Finally, the third email can include an incentive like free delivery or a discount, but more on that later.
Hands down this is one of the most important abandoned cart email best practices.
6- Provide a human touch (customer support)
Although customers tend to shop online for a contactless transaction, sometimes they miss or need that human touch.
As previously noted, sometimes customers lose interest when an online store is too complex for them. That’s when customer support comes in.
By highlighting your customer support number or live chat in the abandoned cart email, you can easily catch their attention. You can even take this a step further and have customers reply to the email with a phone number and have your customer support team contact them.
7- Timing is key
Choosing the right timing is not merely one of the abandoned cart email best practices but it is a crucial factor in getting that order completed.
The first email should be sent within 1-3 hours of abandonment, while the second and third emails should be sent over the following 2 days.
Also, bear in mind that timing should be based on the products you sell. For instance, if your eCommerce business sells food, the first email should be sent within an hour, but if you sell clothes, waiting 2-4 hours will work great.
Finding the right balance between promptness and persistence will increase the chances of converting abandoned carts into completed orders.
8- CTA should be hard to miss
The CTA is the most important factor of an abandoned cart email as your products already caught their attention once, it is just that ‘order now’ click that is missing.
Accordingly, CTA should be convincing and placed correctly so it is hard to miss.
Many eCommerce businesses place 2 CTAs in their emails to further ensure it is never missed.
9- Integrate email marketing with other channels
Emails are not always sufficient on their own. That’s why experts advise integrating your cart abandonment emails with other channels.
There are no specific channels that work best in those instances but email and SMS always go hand in hand. And you also can’t go wrong with some social media and Google retargeting ads.
10- Provide an incentive
As previously mentioned, incentives can be added to the last abandoned cart emails. Many eCommerce businesses add them on the very first email, but there might be better courses of action, especially if you have a high cart abandonment rate.
The incentives you can offer are free delivery, a voucher for a percentage of the purchase, a discount code, or even a gift complementing the products abandoned in the cart.
You should experiment with different offers and discounts to find what resonates best with your target audience.
The most important thing is that the incentive should be personalized to the customer and the cart they abandoned.
Discover more in: Effective Abandoned Cart Emails Best Practices to Recover Lost Customers
11- Show them why they clicked ‘add to cart’ in the first place
Customers don’t just click add to cart randomly; they must have wanted that product for a specific reason. It might be hard to pinpoint what’s going on in each customer’s head, but you can highlight the unique selling point of abandoned products.
To truly turn this into one of the abandoned cart email best practices, you should support your claims with reviews or ratings from other customers.
12- Test, test, & test
Not all abandoned cart email best practices work with every eCommerce business. So you have to keep testing till you find the best practices for your own business.
And just because something works doesn’t mean that others won’t. In other words, don’t call it quits the minute you get some orders completed; always stay testing to get the best results possible.
13- Automate your abandoned cart email campaigns
By now you must have a clearer picture of what you want to add to your abandoned cart emails. But it will never work if you send each email yourself. Don’t worry, automation can easily solve that problem for you.
Through marketing operating systems like ConvertedIn, you can easily automate your email campaigns so they are always sent perfectly at the right time.
ConvertedIn can also help you in:
- Personalizing emails
- Segmenting customers and targeting each segment with a different campaign
- Integrating email campaigns with SMSs
- Automating ads across different channels
- Offering personalized product recommendations
Book a demo now with one of our experts to automate abandoned cart email campaigns and grow your eCommerce business!
