10 Best Practices of Abandoned Cart Emails

“But people always leave”

Yes. Customers will abandon your shopping cart no matter how many mouthwatering offers you roll out.

The good news is that all abandoned carts are not lost customers. You can retarget them to come back and complete their check-out process with optimized abandoned cart emails. We are not talking about just any email, but the best practiced tips to execute an actionable abandoned cart email strategy.

Let us discuss the 10 best practices of abandoned cart emails by picking examples from 10 eCommerce companies.

1. Make Hay While The Sun Shines

Regardless of the reason for the cart abandonment, you should send the abandoned cart email within 24 hours of abandonment. The longer you wait to hit send, the lesser chance you have to re-engage them back with your store.

Reason being, that if the email is triggered after a long duration, they would not be able to recall the information entirely, or may not have the same emotional attachment they felt while adding the product(s) in their carts.

AliExpress.com sends email instantly after the cart was abandoned with a specific date and time of abandonment!

There are two crucial things you should keep in mind while sending abandoned cart emails:

1. Time of the day customer reads his email.

2. Time of the day he generally visits your webstore

Studying both of these can give you a fair idea of when is the right time to remind him about his abandoned cart.

2. Always Choose Clarity Over Creativity

It is the subject line that entices a customer to open your email. Therefore, it should precisely describe the abandoned item or category. Do not confuse or mislead the customer by using a cluttered subject line.

Ensure that both these elements are clear from the beginning.

eBay sends their cart abandonment email with a clear subject line with the customer’s name. On opening the mail, a pre-header reads “Your shopping cart misses you, <my name>” and that was one-click personalization.

3. Show What They Are Missing Out On

An abandoned cart email that doesn’t include details of the abandoned items or their enticing images is worthless.

Show them, don’t tell them!

A compelling visual with a great copy will trigger the same emotions the customer felt while adding the products to the cart. BabyOye sends a text-only, visually less pleasing, abandoned cart email. Even though the product details are mentioned, there is no clear call-to-action to direct the user to the store.

BabyOye sends a text-only, visually less pleasing, abandoned cart email. Even though the product details are mentioned, there is no clear call-to-action to direct the user to the store.

Rule of Thumb – Avoid sending only text-based emails.

Take a look at how eBay attempts to lure back the customers through its abandoned cart email.

eBay mentions the product details (product photo and product price) in their cart abandonment email. It also includes a suitable call to action to buy it instantly.

4. Don’t Just Tell, But Converse To Convert

Personalization is the king in winning back customers. Maintain a friendly and conversational tone as you address your customer by his name (but never make the mistake of addressing with a wrong name!). Don’t just send the abandoned item but also, recommend him relevant products on the basis of behavior.

Myntra takes a friendly tone with their abandoned cart emails. Not only do they address the customer by name, but they also make relevant product recommendations!

This way, not only are you reassuring the customer an excellent customer service, but you are also upselling your products through relevant recommendations.

5. Highlight What They Are Required To Do

Make it easy for your customers to return to their abandoned cart by placing the CTA prominently. If the CTAs aren’t visible to the customer, what good will your email do?

Notice how Amazon uses different CTAs in their abandoned cart emails from linking directly to the shopping cart in plain text and buttons.

Ensure the use of clear CTAs in different formats, in plain text as well as buttons. This is to make sure that even when images are disabled, the customer can easily understand where to click to take action.

6. Show That You Can Be Trusted

Why should a customer buy from you?

This is the time to sell your credibility to your customers. Use abandoned cart emails to remind customers why they chose you in the first place. Share your USPs, your secure payment method, a satisfied customer review and your return policy.

This strategy is employed by Lenskart in their cart abandonment emails. They are reassuring the customer by leveraging satisfied customer reviews and their USP in price and warranty.

Showing the customer what he can benefit from you helps in differentiating your brand. This also helps in removing the fear of risk from the customer’s mind.

7. Be Frank And Open To Discussing Delivery Charges

Some customers abandon their cart due to lack of proper delivery information on the website.

UrbanLadder is not shy to show their free delivery policy. With information like free shipping, free delivery, free assembly & installation boldly visible, they make sure that the customer wouldn’t miss this at any cost.

So, to ensure that everything is clear, you should mention your shipping policy including the charges and the duration. Whether it is free or charged, do not hesitate to include your delivery charges in the email.

8. Show Them That They Are In Good Hands

It is important to show your customer that you are there for them anytime. At times, we struggle to find the right contact information so as to reach the concerned person regarding an issue. Don’t let this happen with your customers.

Not only does Bluestone’s abandoned cart email mention their social media channels, they have also linked their latest video in the mail.

Tackle your abandoned cart email as another channel to endorse your brand and your services. Include links to your social media profiles in the email, so that if the customer wants to build a relationship with you in future, he knows where to reach you.

9. Make Yourself More Approachable And Social

Sending abandoned cart emails does not give you a 100% guarantee that the customer will complete the purchase but this shouldn’t stop you from becoming more approachable and social to your customers.

Not only does Bluestone’s abandoned cart email mention their social media channels, they have also linked their latest video in the mail.

Tackle your abandoned cart email as another channel to endorse your brand and your services. Include links to your social media profiles in the email, so that if the customer wants to build a relationship with you in future, he knows where to reach you.

10. Make Your Emails Mobile Responsive

Even Google wants your site to be mobile responsive now. Why? So that user experience can be enhanced for the mobile user! You should take the cue and make sure that your emails are responsive.

Myntra does well when it come to having mobile responsive cart abandonment emails.

According to a latest study by Litmus, 53% of emails are opened in mobiles. So, create emails that are easily readable on all devices.

We hope that you’ll be able to use these tips to optimize the conversion rate from your abandoned cart emails. Find out what works best for you by. Keep in mind that customers are more demanding now and only a clever marketer gets to keep them.

Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found here.