[Tutorial] How to write your abandoned cart email

How many abandoned cart does your ecommerce get every month?

According to E-commerce Nation, 3 out of 4 users abandon the buying process. That means that you’re losing 75% of your potential sales.

What can you do to encourage shoppers to complete those purchases?

Easy. Send an email asking them what went wrong. Did you have a doubt? A technical problem? Did you just forget about it?

Something as easy as that can help your conversion rate substantially. However, not everything is going to be so easy – making this email work is highly dependent on how you write it.

And that is exactly why today we are going to explain how to write your abandoned cart email to turn that 75% of potential buyers into real buyers.

Let’s see how it’s done.

What is the email to recover an abandoned cart?

Let’s start with the definition:

An abandoned cart email is an email that is sent to a client when they left the checkout process uncompleted.

In this post, we already gave you some ideas to recover abandoned carts and we explained that sending this email is a remarketing strategy (reaching people who have already visited one of your product cards or any other part of your shop).

Therefore, the goal of this email is to make users complete the purchase that they left uncompleted.

According to Blue Core, 40% of these emails are opened and over 2% of them lead to competing the purchase.

2% more sales just by sending an email? Not bad, right?

Later we’ll see examples that will guide you, but first, let’s explain some important concepts.

The 5 main reasons why clients abandon a cart (and how to address them)

Ideally, you just wouldn’t have to recover any carts, would you? So the first thing to explain is why people abandon carts in the first place.

✅ 1. “Surprise” extra costs

As we saw in this post about offering free shipping as a sales tool, Multichannel Merchant proved in 2018 that 61% of abandoned carts were the result of extra costs appearing when finalizing an order.

If that’s the main reason to leave a cart, the solution is easy:

Clearly state the total cost of the order from the beginning so that clients don’t feel deceived and they complete the purchase.

Any extra fees could be a reason that leads them to abandon the cart.

Avoid surprises and you’ll see how those abandoned dwindle. 😉

✅ 2. Obligation to register or create an account

You have to be careful here because there are two sides to this coin:

1. The user experience: registration can be a pain for clients, so you may want to avoid it altogether.
2. Your digital marketing strategy: you need their details, among other things, to be able to send them the abandoned cart email.

That means you need to simplify the registration process as much as you can, but don’t let them leave without giving you their details.

What options do you have?

• Ask for minimal details: you just need a name and an email. If they complete their purchase, you can ask for the shipping address in the last step.
• Activate social login: logging in with Google, Facebook, or any other social network account simplifies the process because they can do it in just one click.
• Allow them to complete the purchase as a guest: you can still get their email address at the end since they’ll need to enter their details to confirm the order and have the product shipped.

Conclusion: make it easy for the client and don’t ask for too many details.

✅ 3. Complex checkout process

The checkout process is the purchase completion, the last page to which you’ll redirect customers to confirm their orders, make the payment, and complete the transaction.

Think about what happen in a physical shop.

You immediately know where the cashier is to pay. The process is easy: you get the product, go there, and pay – that’s it.

So, as we said before about asking for too many details, you shouldn’t make this process too difficult either. The fewer clicks they need to make to pay, the better (that’s why Amazon has the “1-click purchase” system).

✅ 4. Page or connection errors

Avoid technical problems as much as you can. To do so, frequently check that these elements of your ecommerce work properly:

• Links: broken non-existent links can destroy the user experience. You can redirect clients with a good error 404 page.
• Images not loading: clients don’t wait. Optimize your image sizes so that loading is faster.
• Payment process: make it easy for clients with payment gateways that ease the process.
• Registration: we’ve talked about how to simplify it, but you also need to make sure it’s working properly.
• Total duration of the buying process: it should be quick because if clients get bored, they’ll just leave.

Don’t underestimate these points and be sure to establish a day to check that everything is working. As they say, better safe than sorry.

✅ 5. Unsatisfactory return policy

Did you know that 67% of people check the return policy before they make a purchase?

It’s the logical thing to do. They check what options they’ll have in the case that they don’t like the product.

Design your return policy properly and make sure it’s plainly visible for all of your potential clients.

How to write an email to recover an abandoned cart that really does the job

Despite all those recommendations, as we mentioned before, it’s impossible to avoid completely abandoned shopping carts.

There’s another reason:

A lot of clients use the shopping cart as a “wish list” where they save the products they like, without having any real buying intention. It’s the new window-shopping.

But even those clients may end up buying with a good email.

✅ 0. How many emails do you send?

Before we start talking about composing emails, we should really make one thing clear: you don’t have to send just one email.

You can send:

• A first email 2 hours after they abandon the cart.
• A second email 24 hours later if the first email didn’t convince them to go back.
• A last email after 48 hours in which you can create a sense of urgency – a “last call”.

Keep in mind that this is just for guidance. For example, if your products are quite cheap, it may not make sense to send so many emails.

✅ 1. Subject

Without a good subject, your clients won’t even bother to open and read the email.

It’s essential that the subject catches the client’s attention so that they open it and read the content.

Here you have some tricks so that the subject of the email helps it stand out in the inbox:

• Use emojis and special symbols.
• Create expectation.
• Provide interesting information for the client.

Need some ideas?

A. For the first email:

The first thing is to remind them that they’ve been “hanging around” your shop.

• [SHOPPING CART SAVED] Your products are waiting for you.
• Save on shipping costs if you buy ➡️ NOW.
• Are you still thinking about it?

Extra trick: customize the subject with your client’s name so that it’s even more attractive. For example: “Still thinking about your purchase, Juan?”

B. For the second email:

Remember that this email is only sent if they didn’t react to the first one:

• We have a discount for you… but it expires in 48 hours!
• [FREE Shipping] Complete your order NOW.
• Did you forget about us? ?

Remember that discounts or special conditions must be applied according to your profit margins.

C. For the third email:

Urgency and a lost opportunity must be the tone of this email:

• Last chance [Your shopping cart is about to expire].
• Do you want a free present? Get it within 24 hours.
• URGENT: Your [reserved product] is going back on the market.

As we said before, think about if it’s necessary to send this third email.

✅ 2. Opener

You just need one sentence to get your client back to the buying moment.

Don’t get lost with paragraphs or long descriptions; the client already knows the product.

✅ 3. Products in their cart

Of course, you need to remind them which products they abandoned so they’ll immediately remember what you’re talking about.

Even better if you add an image and the price because it’s even more within reach.

✅ 4. CTA

In order to create a oneclick action, add a shiny Call To Action button with text that makes them want to buy.

You can use the classic “Complete your order” or add some humor like “We’re still here!”

✅ 5. Discounts

Watch out:

Offering a discount in the first email is risky because your clients may “learn the trick” and start abandoning carts habitually so that they get the discount.

It’s better to do that in the following emails, but always check that you’ll still earn some profits.

Start working and write your abandoned cart email

Remember, it’s always easier to sell to someone who already knows your brand and your products.

If they left a product in the cart, it’s because they’re interested in what you offer and they just need that last push to buy it.

Start today and increase your ecommerce sales by writing a great email. You can’t say we didn’t make it easy on you. 😉