4.1. Email recovery

When someone abandons their cart on your site, all hope isn’t lost. With some effort, you can take advantage of the exciting fact that 72% of those who buy after abandoning their carts purchase within 24 hours, and 95% of them make a deal 2 weeks after cart abandonment. What’s more, nearly half (44.1%) of all cart abandonment emails are opened. To take advantage of these statistics, you’ve got to act quickly and follow-up over a period of time to generate the best results with your recovery efforts. You should nurture your abandoned carts by sending more recovery emails for at least two weeks.

Automating the process makes your email recovery efforts more effective, so consider setting up an autoresponder system. Configure the system to send automated emails on regular intervals: 1 hour, 24 hours, 3 days, 1 week and less than 2 weeks after cart abandonment.

In addition to setting up automated recovery email processes, particular attention should be paid to the content of the emails you send. You want your recovery emails to remind potential customers of what they’ve abandoned and provide an easy way for these visitors to get back to their cart, or at least, the item that was abandoned. Your recovery emails must have an attention-grabbing subject line, compelling copy, good images and a clear call-to-action to be effective.

Dyson uses recovery emails to encourage their prospects to finish the buying process. This example illustrates the first email they send, one day after the cart abandonment. It contains all the important information about the abandoned item, including most importantly its name and price, and some high-quality images. In addition, two eye-catching call-to-action buttons can be easily seen in the email.

Some customers abandon their carts because of the final price they see at checkout. This is why we suggest making your checkout process, including any shipping and handling charges as clear as possible. Still, some people will get “sticker shock” in the final stages of the checkout process. You can boost your cart recovery results by offering a financial incentive in your recovery email for your potential buyers to complete their purchase, for example a discount, coupon or free shipping.

In addition to reminding prospects about the items that they’ve left in their cart, Kate Spade offers a 15% discount coupon in their recovery emails. The email also recommends some further products that the customer might like.

4.3. Onsite retargeting

The third technique of cart recovery is onsite retargeting, which is sometimes referred to as “exit-intent” technology. Unlike offsite remarketing or retargeting which occurs on other websites and apps after a visitor has left your site, onsite retargeting works by reengaging your visitors before they leave your site.

Onsite retargeting is designed to convert visitors who are abandoning their carts by providing them a secondary message or additional incentive to complete their purchase right before they leave your site. The message is typically shown right before visitors exit your site, and so this is why it’s also known as exit-intent technology.

Although, there are several ways to display your secondary message, it’s usually presented in a special type of popup. Commonly known as an “exit intent popup”, it’s more properly classified as an overlay because it does not redirect your visitor to another browser window, it places an overlay with another message on top of the current browser window or tab.

Onsite retargeting is highly effective at capturing abandoning visitors, who try to leave your site without buying, and turning them into paying customers. You get an instant second chance to win these buyers back and convince them to complete their purchase.

Setting up a popup that appears when the visitor is about to leave your site allows you to recover a good number of your lost carts. By providing an irresistible, typically financial, incentive — for example, buy one get one free, a discount, coupon or free shipping — you can boost the effectiveness of your onsite retargeting campaign.

The exit-intent popup above calls the abandoning visitor’s attention to the products that have been left in their cart. The popup offers a 10% discount to encourage prospects to purchase the selected items.

Like your recovery emails, you want your onsite retargeting messages to be visually appealing, compelling and with a clear call to action. Using photos of products can boost your recovery results. You’re getting a second chance to market to your visitors, so, in addition to offering financial incentives, you can persuade your visitors to finish the buying process by reemphasizing the core product benefits or promoting other useful attributes which are not highlighted in your main product description for the abandoned item.

Finch Goods uses a fully customized popup to encourage abandoning visitors to continue checkout. There is direct link to the product with image that was left in the cart. Above, we see the personalized message they send to visitors who abandon their cart. By combining techniques, you can increase the effectiveness of your campaign.

Adding countdown timers to your onsite retargeting messages can improve your cart recovery efforts by raising the sense of urgency.

Here’s an awesome example that shows how to use onsite retargeting and exit-intent popups to display a special offer with a countdown timer in the same overlay. The offer provides a $5 discount and free shipping, but is only available to visitors who complete checkout within a specified amount of time, and the clock is ticking!

You can increase the effectiveness of your cart recovery efforts by using email recovery, offsite remarketing, and onsite retargeting with exit-intent popups. Using a clear, compelling, and visually attractive message for each technique is important. Employing all these techniques together creates a powerful approach to capture as many of your abandoned carts as possible.

No matter which technique you use for cart recovery, reserving the items in the cart for your buyers will always help you recover your lost carts. Customers are more encouraged to complete checkout if they know they can return to your site and the items will still be in their cart for a certain period of time.

Summary

The cart on your ecommerce site “holds” your customers’ products. The cart should provide information about the items, including a small description and the price, confirming for the customer which items they’ve placed in their cart. A mini-cart is a useful tool that should be visible on every product page. The amount of information it displays can vary. Part of the goal of the mini-cart is to allow the customer to continue shopping uninterrupted.

Once the customer has decided to complete their purchase, they will begin the checkout process. This is when the customer inputs their data, including address and billing information. Your checkout forms should be simple and easy to read. All information should be clearly visible. There should be trust-building elements so your customers feel comfortable submitting their information and completing the checkout process.

After your customers complete their purchase, the checkout process should end with an order confirmation page. The order confirmation page allows people to verify they have chosen the correct items and have input their information correctly. It should also provide information about the shipping method and estimated delivery date. You can go a step further and offer discounts to encourage repeat business, a link to sign up for your social network, or the option to register an account if the customer used guest checkout.

Don’t forget to thank your customers for their purchase. The order confirmation page is a great place to say “Thank you”. You can also include a separate “Thank you” page that shows after an order has been processed, and the confirmation email after a purchase is another great place to thank your customers too.

The checkout process is more effective for your customers when you ensure the necessary information is visible, the forms are easy to use, and trust-building elements are apparent. Fine-tuning these components will reduce your cart abandonment.

Some people will abandon their carts despite all your best efforts. You can reengage these visitors using cart recovery techniques. Through email recovery, offsite remarketing, and onsite retargeting, you can display messages the instant someone tries to abandon their cart, an hour after they’ve left, and while they are browsing other sites online. Taken together and used with a discount or other incentive, these recovery techniques provide a powerful way to encourage visitors to return to your site and convince them to complete the checkout process.

Thank you! And we hope you’ve enjoyed this guide.