If used effectively, abandoned cart emails offer a major opportunity to increase your conversion and profitability. As a marketer, your key objective is to turn the marketing costs you spent bringing visitors to your website into profit, by converting them into customers.
No matter how good your purchase complete page is, there are a number of reasons why your visitors will still leave the website with items still in their cart. Abandoned cart emails, therefore, are an effective way to win these visitors back and help you increase your website conversions.
10 Ways to Improve Your Abandoned Cart Emails
Below you can see the top ten tactics to get more effective results from your abandoned cart email campaigns:
1. Don’t Send Just a Single Email
If you send your first email 1-3 hours after the cart abandonment, you can typically increase your conversion rates by up to 20%. If you then, after 24 hours, send a second email to your members who still have not completed the process of purchasing, you can improve conversion rates by up to 50%.
2. Think Carefully Before Offering Discounts in the First Email
Proposing discounts and/or free shipping in the first email can create unnecessary costs for your company and your customers can exploit this. It is important to consider why the carts might have been abandoned before making a decision. Rather than giving discounts in the first email, offer them in the second email, with a message that emphasizes a sense of urgency.
3. Pay Attention to Timing
The best practice for e-commerce sites is to send the first email within 1-3 hours. The price comparison and decision-making period is longer for high-priced goods and services (vacation, car, investments, etc.) as people prefer to discuss with their families and friends, or compare prices on other sites. In such cases, waiting a few more hours to send your first email would be more effective to give them time to complete their investigation. You can identify the most optimum time for your products and services by A/B testing.
4. Create a Sense of Urgency
Use words that create a sense of urgency to make the purchase completed immediately. Clearly communicate how long the items in the abandoned basket will remain in the basket. Limited time offers and timed purchases encourage the customer to continue through the journey and make a purchase
5. Highlight Your Brand & USPs
Remind your members why they should buy from you. Communicate the superior aspects and advantages of your products/services and the security of your website. Some ideas? Compare prices against top competitors and add a section of feedback from previous customers who also purchased that product.
6. Provide Details on the Item
Use dynamic content and provide details for the abandoned items, such as the product name, price and product image, if your e-marketing provider supports this. By displaying that you have all the information the customer needs, they will be more inclined to visit the website and ultimately make a purchase.
7. Make the Content Seem Personal
Use a friendly, customer service tone in your communication, rather than sales tone. For example: “Remember …”, “Did you experience any problems during your purchase?”, “Is there anything we can do to help?”. Include a customer service phone number or email in the content. Use personalization. Try to reduce the feeling that the email was sent automatically from your email system. If possible, include the product or service ratings, recommendations from the people who have bought abandoned item(s) previously. You can provide emotional messages with creative elements in your email. Differentiate your messages according to the client category.
8. Pay Attention to CTAs
Use vibrantly colored and attractive call-to-action buttons, such as COMPLETE SHOPPING, GO TO YOUR CART, VIEW YOUR CART. Place the CTA buttons above the fold and link the buttons to the cart. Use a sentence like “There are items in your cart” in the pre-header.
9. Don’t Lose Focus
Do not give too much detail or marketing related information in abandoned basket emails. This will distract the recipient. Do not include other promotions or upcoming promotions in the content, as this is not a daily marketing email.
10. Test, Test, Test
After creating your campaign scenario, test your subject line, launch time, content, design, customization, CTA buttons, and discounts/free shipping offers. Even though there are some common rules, you can get different results depending on your customers and your product and services.
Final Thoughts
These are just a few ways that marketers can implement better email campaigns. We hope you apply these recommendations to your own abandoned cart emails to drive results and increase revenue.
Are you looking to make your email marketing campaigns more successful? Visit our website to learn more.
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