If you sell your products or services online, you’ve undoubtedly encountered a frustrating occurrence —an abandoned cart on your website.
Customers sometimes add things to their shopping cart, then change their minds for one reason or another, and don’t finish the purchase.
However, the good news is that they still showed interest, and you can use that to your advantage.
You can send abandoned cart emails to your customers to encourage them to return and increase your revenue. In this article, we’ll look at ten different ways to send abandoned cart emails and their methods to win back customers.
- Attract Them With a Subject Line
- Leverage the Power of Call-To-Action
- Show Them What They’re Leaving Behind
- Make It Feel Urgent
- Offer Alternatives, Just in Case
- Persuade Them With Good Reviews
- Offer a Discount or Free Shipping
- Use Inside Jokes With Customers
- Include Wordplay With Your Brand
- Remind Them Their Items Are Safe With You
- Conclusion
Attract Them With a Subject Line
A subject line is the first thing your customers see when they open their inbox, so its attractiveness can be a significant factor in bringing your customers back to their carts.
Words you use in your subject line are essential; they can determine whether someone opens an email or deletes it, unread.
According to research by Klaviyo, abandoned cart emails with subject lines that contain phrases along the lines of “you left something behind” perform the best. They have an opening rate of 47,57%, almost 4% higher than average.
Source: Regpack
That doesn’t mean that all the other options are necessarily unsuccessful; it’s worth exploring different styles of subject lines to stand out from the rest.
For example, Hawaii Coffee Company uses personalization in the subject lines of their abandoned cart emails.
Source: bigcommerce
As you can see, they address the customer by name. When a customer sees their name in the inbox, they’ll likely pay attention to the email, and that can lead to an increase in the open rate.
Whether you choose the statistically most successful way of writing a subject line, a personalized approach, or something out-of-the-box, make sure that it’s attractive enough to get the customer to click on it.
Leverage the Power of Call-To-Action
When customers open your cart abandonment email, they should immediately know how to proceed with the purchase. A well-crafted call to action is vital in achieving that.
A call-to-action is simply an instruction to your customer that has the goal to provoke their response. In the case of an abandoned cart email, the goal is to point them to their checkout page so that they can finish their purchase.
You can do that by providing the customer with a link within the email, or, alternatively, a clickable button that leads to the customers’ carts. Campaign Monitor, for example, raised its click-through rate by 28% by using a button.
Source: Regpack
That’s logical—a button is easier to notice, you can design it to stand out in terms of color and size, and you can use a few simple words to encourage the customer to click on it.
Take a look at the Bearsville Soap Company’s email and a call-to-action button.
Source: activecampaign
Their CTA button is big and easy to see, so it’s clear to the customer what its purpose is.
A powerful call-to-action can bring the customer back to your website. Using visual and textual elements wisely can mean the difference between them finalizing their purchase or leaving their cart and not turning back.
Show Them What They’re Leaving Behind
If your customer went on an online shopping spree on a few different websites, they might not even remember what they put in each cart.
That’s why it’s a good idea to send a follow-up email that shows them exactly what’s in the cart that they abandoned, like the abandoned cart email from ASOS does.
Source: optinmonster
The item from the abandoned cart is prominently featured (in this case, the t-shirt dress). That way, when the customer opens the email, they’re immediately reminded of what’s waiting for them.
That’s important because if the customer still doesn’t recall what item they meant to buy, it’s likely that they won’t bother visiting your website to check for themselves.
Convenience is a significant factor for customers—you shouldn’t add any extra steps in the purchase process if you can do without them.
Make It Feel Urgent
To win back customers to your online store, you can send a friendly reminder that they don’t want to miss out on their desired item.
The fear of missing out (FOMO) is a phenomenon you can use to your advantage.
According to TrustPulse, 60% of them make purchases because of that fear.
Source: Regpack
You can make your emails feel urgent in a variety of ways.
For example, you can do it by reserving items for a limited time, making clear that your limited edition items won’t be restocked, or letting your customers know that your items sell fast, so they better hurry if they want them.
Google Store composed its abandoned cart email with the latter in mind.
Source: activecampaign
The first thing the customer sees in the Google Store email is that something is “almost gone”.
That line is followed by an explanation that their popular items sell out fast.
Urgency can be a good motivator for customers to follow through with their purchases.
Offer Alternatives, Just in Case
Some customers might abandon their carts because they’re not entirely sure that the item meets all of their expectations. While they consider the matter, you can send them an abandoned checkout email presenting some alternatives to consider.
That’s what Vans does in their abandoned cart emails. They show customers what’s waiting for them in their cart, but they also provide them with a list of other product recommendations that might appeal to them instead.
Source: activecampaign
In the example above, you can see they offered the potential buyer the same model of shoes in different colors and patterns, as well as two other similar models to be an alternative to the item in the cart.
Offering alternatives can be very beneficial in winning back your potential customers. Whether they still buy their original item in the cart or they opt for the suggestion you pointed out, it’s a win-win situation for you.
Persuade Them With Good Reviews
Showing your customers what others think of your services or product can be a very efficient way to persuade them to return to their abandoned shopping cart.
That’s because people love to read reviews from others. According to Brightlocal, more consumers are reading online reviews than ever before.
For example, in 2021, 77% of consumers read reviews when looking for local businesses.
Source: Regpack
One online retailer aware of the power of online reviews is Adidas. Below is a part of their abandoned cart email, which showcases the customers’ opinions.
Source: reallygoodemails
As you can see, the reviews are brief and simple, commenting on the quality and style of the products.
No matter the industry you are in, you can benefit from showcasing good client reviews on your website and social media. We follow the same practice.
Source: Regpack
Offer a Discount or Free Shipping
In addition to all the elements of an abandoned cart recovery email we mentioned earlier, you might want to consider giving your unsure customers an incentive in the form of reducing the price of items they have in the cart or reducing unexpected shipping costs.
You can offer them a limited-time offer, discount code, coupon code, or free shipping on their order.
According to research by Klaviyo, that’s a sound strategy: abandoned cart emails that contain a discount have an above-average open and click-through rate.
Offering discounts is simple if you use automated billing software like Regpack.
With Regpack, you have lots of options for customizing your discounts, including triggers to apply them automatically or setting them to work for a period of time.
Also, you can set up percentage-based or dollar-based discounts, like in the example below.
Source: Regpack
Regpack software also allows you to set an expiration date on your cart, so abandoned items get automatically cleared after some time.
Offering discounts and free shipping are proven strategies for winning back your customers.
Think of it as an investment; for a small amount of money, you can gain a loyal customer for your business.
Use Inside Jokes With Customers
Humor can make your email stand out from the rest of the marketing emails that your customers receive daily.
However, keep in mind that using jokes in abandoned cart emails isn’t as straightforward as writing a generic message. Humor is highly subjective, and just because you find something hilarious doesn’t mean that your customers will feel the same way.
Nevertheless, if you get it right, your emails could be a breath of fresh air in your customers’ inboxes.
A lighthearted approach to abandoned carts and using jokes to win back customers can turn a dry and dull email into one that will pique their interest and have them reconsider buying from your business.
Include Wordplay With Your Brand
As we mentioned in the previous section, using humor is great—if it’s appropriate for your business and if you know how to be funny. But if jokes aren’t a good fit for your emails, another way to be casual is to use entertaining wordplay.
For example, here’s an abandoned cart email from Dote.
Source: blog.hubspot
In this brief email, they use humorous wordplay to attract their customers’ attention.
Using puns, unusual sentences, or double entendres requires a high level of skill, particularly for purposes like encouraging customers to spend money on your products or services.
However, it can be very engaging, and it’s a sure way to stand out from the many generic abandoned carts other companies use.
Remind Them Their Items Are Safe With You
Simply reminding your customers that items they left in the cart are still there, waiting for them, can be a good way to encourage them to return to your website and finish the purchase.
For instance, in their abandonment cart email, The Mountain includes a reminder that they saved all the items in the cart, so the checkout process is simple and straightforward.
Source: bigcommerce
As you can see, they also included a call to action in the same sentence to emphasize further that returning to a cart full of items is very simple.
Reduce Your Shopping Cart Abandonment!
Having your target audience fill their carts and leave is like having money in a transparent locked box. It just sits there, and you can’t use it to boost your business.
Luckily, you can get some of that money with a good abandonment cart email. Of course, you can’t persuade every customer to finish their purchase even if you follow every advice and use every strategy.
However, you can still win back enough of them to see significant results that can add up over time. If you use these best practices, that’s a very achievable goal.