Whether you are a marketer or a business looking to boost revenue or recover lost sales, abandoned cart recovery emails are one of the most underused, yet powerful marketing tactics.
Not-so-fun fact: As per the research, almost more than 75% of carts are left without moving forward to the checkout page, which causes retailers to lose $18 Billion in annual sales revenue.
Read our Abandoned Cart Statistics for 2022
What are abandoned cart recovery emails?
An abandoned cart recovery email is an automated email that is triggered when a customer adds items to their cart but leaves the website without completing the purchase for any reason.
Maybe they forgot to click “proceed” or wanted to think one more time. Whatever the reason, these emails are sent to remind the customer of their abandoned cart and urge them to complete their purchase.
However, not any email can get you the desired results. An effectively curated abandoned cart email can work its way seamlessly as soon as the customer sees it, and it should.
The research has it, from 44.1% of the abandoned cart emails that are opened on average, 29.9% of them lead to a recovered sale.
Hence, you need to create an efficacious recovery email for abandoned carts that compel customers to complete their purchase, but how would you do that?
Content of an Abandoned Cart Recovery Email
There are no rules that you can follow to create foolproof recovery emails for abandoned carts. Though, you need to look at the crucial factors and elements of abandoned cart emails.
A. Personalization
Your customer must know that they are valued and that you are putting an effort into following up with them. Adding a personalized touch to your abandoned cart emails is a great way to gain customer attention.
This is not just another automated email sent by a bot as a formality.
No, it does not mean that you have to write a customized email to every customer. Use the “subject line” for the greater good.
Be creative and put forward a question, and let them know about the benefit of the products they are keeping on hold, or share product results in real time.
B. Clear Call-to-Action
Work smart, as working harder is not the only option! We hope you know that!!
Make things convenient and responsive for your customers. For instance, add a “go to checkout” button, or a “get offer” button, if you are giving discounts.
Place visible and eye-catching CTA buttons with action-oriented words like buy, get it now, or shop.
There are no specific limitations to using just one CTA. You can use more than one, both in your header or copy once.
C. Sense of Urgency
One of the items you added and left in your cart is about to “sell out” soon, why not get it when it’s here?
Well, the reasons why customers leave items in their carts are unlimited, though your product is not. Take good advantage of the urgency element, because 40% of e-commerce sales are just the result of impulsive buying.
Along with “limited time offer” or “get discount on next purchase completing your order”, “upsell” or “cross-sell” are effective marketing techniques to grab customer attention with product recommendations.
D. Incentives
Half of all shoppers say they leave their carts due to unforeseen charges.
Incentives are a great way to lure customers back, with either discounts, limited-time offers, or giving “free shipping”.
The additional, and sometimes unexpected, shipping expense is the primary reason why 49% of shoppers leave their carts. It must not be surprising that 75% of online customers, as per the research, want free delivery, and most leave their carts when they see unexpected shipping fees.
That being said, you must structure your shopping cart recovery email in a way that it gives a clear message while having a good visual appeal.
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Structure of a Cart Recovery Email
There are a lot of abandoned cart recovery email templates that you can download and use, but not all of them get the job done.
Therefore, it is important to have a look at crucial elements before finalizing your template. We are categorizing the structure into two parts, external and internal.
While creating an email, the external parts are the ones that are not included inside the email but are very important, the sender, subject line, and pre-header.
View best examples of Email Subject Lines for Cart Recovery
Header
It contains the company logo or name to show the authenticity of the company or the sender. You can add a unique logo for your company or business.
Headline and/or message (sense or urgency)
You can give them something that would benefit them, like an offer or an offer for help. Let them know that you can and are here for them, within the reach of a button.
Body/Text
In the body, you have the ground to be creative and use the space to the fullest. To grab attention of customers, it is good to hit some pain points like offering free shipping or a discount.
- Discount code or incentive
If you like and have some deals, it is nice to put them on. People always get excited, getting something for free.
- Personalization
Create content for them, which tells them that they are valued. Using a customer’s name is not a bad idea after all. Among so many emails, seeing their name, you can grab their attention.
Always insert abandoned cart products in your emails. Use Vibetrace product recommender engine if you do not have other solution
- Free shipping
As per the surveys, most customers leave their carts because of the shipping fee. To recovery or lure customers back to make the purchase, offering free shipping is great.
Call to action
Give them a one-click solution with a call to action button, like “buy”, “complete order”, “go to cart”, or “proceed to payment”. No abandoned cart recovery email is complete without a great, catchy call to action button.
Email footer
This is the ending section of an email. It contains information that is not directly related to the content of the email. You can add company information, like social media, emails, contact numbers, locations, terms and conditions, privacy policy, and help.
The footer for all the emails remains the same. So just make sure that you are not adding information that can go irrelevant to customer or email content.
Let’s have s look at some of the well formatted email example for abandoned cart recovery.
A. Luna
Although Luna has all the essential elements like the header and subject line, they have effectively made use of colors and space. However, the call to action button is not so compelling, or clear in this case.
B. Casper
Casper has a neat layout set for their abandoned cart email while adding a touch of curiosity with their subject line, “Did you forget something?”. In addition, they have added more than one call to action button that is very to the point, visible, and compelling.
C. Rudy’s
Rudy’s has nailed their recovery emails for abandoned carts with a little pun on top of a well-curated email including all elements and marketing tactics.
They have added the element of urgency by offering an incentive like free shipping. Moreover, visuals are great for the customers to have a quick look at what they left in their cart.
On the other hand, to make it evident why you need to curate proper recovery emails for abandoned carts, here are some examples of what you should avoid.
A. Arvelon
Subject line: Complete your purchase
Arvelon is not using its logo in the header. Rather, plain text in a bigger font is not so compelling and looks unprofessional. And their abandoned cart recovery emails just end at “complete your purchase”. From all the elements of an abandoned cart recovery email, they have just a few; subject line, body, and CTA which too are very dry.
No footer, no subject line, no preheader, you cannot compel customers when they have so much of options and choices available at their fingertips.
B. Breadbrand
Subject line: Just a friendly reminder
We won’t say it’s completely a bad abandoned recovery cart email, though a clever one – unless you are Google or Apple. In this example, the subject line looks relevant and clear. However, when you open the email, it does not say anything about the recovery of an abandoned cart.
Only if you are lucky, customers may look around and figure out that they forgot some items in their cart – which you can sit around with your fingers crossed to happen.
If you are putting in the effort to set an email sequence to recover your abandoned cart, make sure that it is worth a while and get the job done.
Conclusion
While you worry about losing sales due to the high cart abandonment rate, you can still entice customers back to your site to finish shopping. A series of well-written abandoned cart emails with follow-ups can help recover shopping carts.
It is more than just that clients did not make the purchase. They may have forgotten about the cart they have left behind. Don’t be just another online store, have a properly planned and well-curated abandoned cart email sequence to bring customers back.
Almost 75% of customers return to their abandoned carts, as per the research. It says, having an abandoned cart email reminder at the right time with the right intent is important.
Know that you are not putting in much effort just to send a reminder. Cart recovery emails also benefit e-commerce businesses in many ways, including;
- It potentially increases the chances that customers not just make a purchase, but also buy something else as well.
- Abandoned cart recovery emails also give businesses to create customer loyalty by showing them that they matter.
- You can use the space to create brand awareness.
- Allows you to improve customer relationships.
All in all, the shopping cart recovery email is an essential part of any business marketing tactic. However, if not created skillfully and carefully, you may are putting your effort in vain.
It is important to have a proper structure, powerful copy, compelling CTA, a hitting headline, and pleasant visuals.
In addition, there are no rules for the elements. You can be creative, formal, informative, or just pun a little, just do not deviate from the purpose of an abandoned cart email. It is to bring your customer back!
