We all know the ever-recurring theme of cart abandonment: You spend time and resources nurturing your customers, launching drip campaigns to convince your customers to buy your products — only for them to leave without making a purchase!
How do you convince them to come back and go through with the purchase?
With an abandoned cart email.
An abandoned cart can happen due to a lot of reasons. It could be due to technicalities, or the user might be casually browsing.
No matter the roadblock, we’re here to help you overcome it.
In this blog post, we’ll show you:
- What an abandoned cart email is
- Why your visitors might be abandoning their carts
- Tips and examples to craft the perfect abandoned cart email
Keep reading for great tips and examples to craft abandoned cart emails that could win back your customers and drive more sales!
Table of Contents
What Is an Abandoned Cart Email?
An abandoned cart email is an automated email sent to customers who leave your website or application after adding items to the cart without completing the purchase.
You will need the shopper’s email address to send an abandoned checkout email. For this, you can make it mandatory for users to enter their email while signing up or adding items to their cart.
Abandoned cart emails work because unattended items in your customers’ online shopping cart do not necessarily mean they lost interest in a product.
There’s some obstacle preventing the customer from going through with the purchase most of the time.
Read Also: 10 Best Trigger Email Marketing Campaigns (+ 5 Top Software)
Enhance Your Email Marketing
Want to make your emails more impactful? Check out our beautiful, easy-to-customize recruitment and abandoned cart email templates. Designed to boost engagement, these templates from EngageBay will help your emails stand out. Just customize the images, headings, and CTAs for your brand, and hit send in a few minutes!
Why Do People Abandon Carts?
According to Statista, people mostly abandon carts for reasons such as:
- Cost of shipping: Sometimes, customers don’t feel like buying a low-cost product online and then paying hefty shipping charges. For example, if a product costs $2 and shipping is $5, people refrain from buying it.
- Cost of the order became too expensive: Cart abandonment also occurs when people add many low-cost items to the cart while shopping online. However, they are put off when they see the order total.
- The hassle of returns: Most customers refrain from buying apparel online because of the difficult and time-consuming return process. If you are selling things online, you need to make it easy for your customers to get a refund if they are not satisfied.
- Lack of payment options: If customers don’t find a payment option that suits them, they will probably not buy, no matter how much they like a product. You need to focus more on this cart abandonment issue. You might lose customers who are willing to make a purchase but won’t just because you haven’t offered their preferred payment process gateway.
- Security concerns: This is a massive reason for cart abandonment. With the news of various cyberattacks becoming more frequent, customers hesitate before entering their credit card details on a webpage.
BigCommerce’s research found that the average revenue per abandoned cart email is $5.64 — To put that in perspective, the average revenue is $0.02 per promotional email and $0.18 per welcome email every time you send one.
Now, let’s look into the best ways of crafting effective abandoned cart emails.
Read also: 10 Customer Service Email Templates for New CRM Users
7 Proven Tips and Examples of Abandoned Cart Emails
Understanding why customers abandon carts and what is an abandoned cart email is the easier part of this job. As a marketer or sales professional, you need to ace the art of writing great emails to bring down that rate of cart abandonment.
So, how do you craft the best abandoned cart email that can motivate your customers to go through with the purchase?
We’ll discuss some helpful cart abandonment campaign tips and proven examples — seven of them to be precise — to help you get started.
1. Use a Captivating Subject Line
The subject of your email is the first thing your audience will see when they receive it. It’s essential to grab their attention here, or they probably won’t even open the email you worked so hard to create.
Personalization works wonders, so be sure to add their name in the email subject line.
According to a report by Klaviyo, abandoned cart emails that include a customer’s first name earn an open rate of 41.67%, which is around one percent higher than those whose subject lines didn’t have a first name.
Sometimes you may not have their first names.
You can use “Hey there” or a more personal greeting along those lines in such scenarios.
You can increase your success rates by sending an email from an account with an actual name attached to it instead of organization-centric cart abandonment emails like info@companyname.com or contact@companyname.com.
Using abandoned cart emails like james@companyname.com will give a personal touch and make your user feel that they are interacting with a real human being.
Affordable marketing automation software like EngageBay can help you personalize your abandoned cart emails with ease.
Your subject line must be the right length too. If it’s too long, users won’t read the complete message and might not care. On the other hand, if it’s too short, you won’t present the key information clearly.
Read also: From Lost Sale to Sure Sale: Mastering the eCommerce Abandoned Cart Email
Here’s a YouTube video from Neil Patel. It explains three effective shopping cart abandonment strategies to boost sales.
2. Invoke FOMO
Alternatively, you can also create a sense of FOMO — or Fear of Missing Out — to nudge your visitors to take prompt actions. You can create a sense of urgency through these four proven ways:
- You can warn them by saying their cart will reset shortly
- You can tell them the items presently in their cart are about to sell out
- You can warn them that the deal will expire soon
- You can even place a limited-time discount code in your email copy to incentivize customers
People don’t like missing out on things — that’s just the way the world works!
Let’s check out some of the best abandoned cart email examples that make use of FOMO.
This is an example from doggyloot.com that urges you to take action before the cart gets discarded.
The above cart abandonment email example of ModCloth informs users that items in the cart are about to sell out. The phrase “almost sold out” can create urgency — and is an excellent abandoned cart email strategy.
Or you can give your users a friendly reminder the way Microsoft has done with their cart abandonment emails.
3. Use Humor To Your Advantage
Sometimes, you can use humor to grab your customers’ attention. Check out this humorous shopping cart abandonment example of Forever 21.
Be careful: Humor can backlash if your audience doesn’t expect you to be humorous, so use it only when appropriate.
The example below shows a shopping cart abandonment email from Black Milk. It uses a viral cute puppy meme to evoke a sense of humor and make people want to go back to their abandoned carts and complete the purchase.
Read also: 10 Customer Service Email Templates for New CRM Users
4. Finesse the Body of the Email
Though there is no hard and fast way to frame the body of an abandoned cart email, you can follow a rough blueprint to help you fine-tune it.
Any email must consist of three parts:
- A headline with a clear message of what the email is about
- An email body that elaborates on the headline
- A call-to-action element
As usual, let’s get inspired through real-world examples.
The following example from Chubbies has more textual content, which is an excellent way of engaging customers.
The content will put a smile on your face as you read through it.
This email from J.Crew is more concise and to the point. The product image has very little text — the image says it all.
Also, notice the small compliment included in this cart recovery email. The phrase “Nice picks, btw” will fit anywhere no matter what the person puts in their cart.
It is also an excellent way to get the customer back in the mood to make the purchase.
It is essential to include images in an abandoned cart email. Sometimes, people are just in a hurry and don’t wish to spend more than 5-10 seconds on promotional emails.
Enter images: Images will make your content attractive and deliver the message in less time.
Check out this example from Poo-Pourri. Though most of the content is image-centric, notice the humorous wordplay.
The email is very simple and focuses on the single item they left in the cart.
Visual marketing makes the email more personal and reminds cart abandoners of what they are missing out on.
5. Add a CTA Link Back to the Cart
It’s essential to take users back to the page from where they left off.
If you don’t provide a link in the body of the shopping cart abandonment email, no matter how good your abandoned cart email is, you won’t be converting customers.
Make it easy for them to go back.
That said, never put too many call-to-action buttons in your email. It may confuse the user — and it can look darn ugly, too.
Check out this example from PacSun:
Though the email marketing campaign has several links, including the ones redirecting to the various social media pages, different products, and different website sections, the main call-to-action button referring back to the cart is visible right when the customer clicks on the email.
Let’s go back to the example of Chubbies:
Notice how the email mentions that every link within the email goes back to the shopping cart.
On a less-stellar note, check out this example from Orlebar Brown:
Though the email is visually pleasing, the call-to-action buttons are somewhat equivocal.
It is unclear whether clicking on the “Shop” button will take a customer to the product page or their shopping cart with the described products in it.
Keep in mind that your main goal is to get the customer to continue their purchase. Any additional purchase you get is a sheer bonus.
Though you might be tempted to include a ton of offers and showcase other products in the abandoned cart emails, it is beneficial to focus on one product at a time.
👉 Boost your email marketing campaigns with EngageBay’s customizable email templates tailored for engagement and success.
Read also: Convertkit vs Mailchimp vs EngageBay — What’s Best for Small Businesses?
6. Personalize
As stated earlier, personalization works wonders.
Though including the customer’s name and an intuitive greeting in the subject line is very important for personalization, these are not the only things that you should focus on.
To further improve customer relationships, you need to understand why they abandoned the cart in the first place.
Check out this email from Nordstrom:
Along with reminding the users about their unattended cart, Nordstrom also recommends items similar to those in their cart.
For every item in the cart, the company has provided two similar items with varying prices.
Though not fully personalized, these suggestions are suitable for individuals with different budgets at their disposal.
Check out this abandoned cart email template from Beardbrand:
This email from Beardbrand looks just like an email that you would receive from your friends. It’s in plain text, and the flow of information is just perfect.
Notice how at the end, in the postscript, Keith tells Sam that she specifically liked one of the products in his cart and that it’s a great choice.
You tend to purchase a product if you get your friend’s stamp of approval.
However, you need to dig a little deeper to know exactly why the customer hasn’t completed the checkout process.
For example, if any customer left the purchase flow after providing options for shipping, there is a high chance that they are not okay with the shipping charges.
In such cases, you can give them free shipping, just like Brooklinen does here:
Solving such issues will help you win the sale back and bring in loyal customers. It shows that you are willing to go the extra mile to improve your customer’s satisfaction.
Read also: How to Create Great Email Newsletters [With 7 Free Templates]
7. Time it Perfectly
Timing plays a vital role in determining the success of your abandoned cart email campaign.
If you wait too long, your customers might lose interest or even purchase elsewhere.
An email marketing software with scheduling options is an excellent way to time your cart abandonment emails.
Generally, there are three types of abandoned cart emails that you can send to your potential customers in order to win the sale back.
- The first email must be sent almost immediately after a user abandons the cart. In this example, you can show regret, ask them what went wrong and tell them that you are willing to help them out if they need any help with the checkout process.
- The timing of the second email depends on whether an individual responds to your first email or not. If they show some signs of engagement, you can respond within 24 hours of their taking action. If they don’t, you will want to send the second email within 24 hours of sending the first one. The second email contains a message of urgency, offers, or discounts on most occasions.
- Sending the third email is optional for two important reasons. Sending too many abandoned cart emails can get your company blacklisted as spam. Moreover, if any user has not responded to the first two emails, there is no point chasing them.
Conclusion
Now that you know why your customers may be abandoning their carts (and how to deal with it), it’s time to take action.
An abandoned cart email campaign is the perfect way to win back your customers. That said, you don’t have to do these tasks manually, not when there are better options available.
Marketing automation software like HubSpot can automate all the mundane, repetitive, and boring tasks, so you can do so much more of it in very little time. This also frees you up for more productive and important tasks.
However, HubSpot can be super expensive for most ($4,000 ++ per month!)
For small businesses, EngageBay is an excellent option.
EngageBay is an all-in-one marketing, sales, and customer support software with a free, integrated CRM solution. It offers a plethora of tools to improve customer relationships, launch re-engagement campaigns, automate your email marketing, personalize abandoned cart emails, schedule emails by time zones, and even A/B test your email campaigns.
If implemented correctly, abandoned cart emails can generate more revenue and boost your brand awareness.
Sign up with EngageBay for free and get started with a powerful cart abandonment email campaign!
👉 Have you tried our email templates? Share your experience in the comments below, and let us know how they worked for your campaigns!
