Abandoned Cart Recovery Strategies

With skyrocketing acquisition costs, reducing your website’s abandoned carts can mean the difference between having a successful campaign and losing massive profits. To solve the profitability problem, this comprehensive guide full of abandoned cart recovery strategies will undoubtedly provide opportunities to lower your cart abandonment rate.

In this article, you will learn.

• Having the right mindset for why every lost sale happens.

• Page issues that encourage the cart abandoner to exit.

• Marketing strategies you can use to drive customers back to your checkout page. 

• How to communicate with customers when trying to bring them back.

Ready to understand how to eliminate the dreaded abandoned shopping cart? Let’s begin with mindset.

Abandoned Carts Are YOUR Problem

If you were to survey your abandoned cart customers, they would give you a wide range of reasons, many of which do not apply to your business. But while you should always be understanding and respectful of an individual’s personal life, your job is to close the deal. 

It doesn’t matter if the dog escaped, the kids had to go to school, or their boss caught them shopping at work; you must do everything you can to get them to finish the transaction. Otherwise, the lost revenue from this potential customer will end up going to another business that shows up at the right time and place. 

Shopping cart abandonment is a war that you must fight from many angles. There’s no single solution to cart recovery, so prepare yourself for massive action and regularly monitor your abandonment rate if you want to improve your abandonment rate percentage. 

What is a Good Abandonment Cart Rate? 

Each industry and where the product sits within this category will ultimately decide what “good” looks like, but when looking at the average may help. Baynard Institute reports an average 69.99% cart abandonment rate for ecommerce stores. This means losing half of the potential purchases (not considering people who return alone) is considered a good abandonment cart rate.

Mitigating The Abandoned Cart Problem

The fastest way to reduce your abandoned cart issue is by simplifying the checkout process while continuing to drive home the importance of the purchased products. Here’s how:

Install a Heatmap

A heatmap on your checkout page is one of the best ways to identify page-related abandonment issues. But having one means you need to use it. Create a regular time in which you review the data collected through your heatmap plugin. 

Continue Selling The Products

Your product page isn’t the only place where shoppers consider your product. Dropping a product into the shopping cart is easy, with many customers using it as a future purchase notepad. Getting these customers past the checkout page is the hard part, so you should continue selling throughout the checkout process. 

While many brands understand the need for suggested upsells, few consider the impact of pushing a second product before shoppers have complete confidence in the first. Please don’t make this mistake.

Magnify The Product Guarantee 

The most significant amount of uncertainty begins when someone pulls out their wallet (physical or digital) and starts typing in the numbers. Questions flood their brains, such as."

“Will this product work?"

“Am I going to use it?"

“Do I have the money for this product?”

You need to be like Men’s Warehouse founder George Zimmer and state, “I guarantee it!” 

The product guarantee is the fastest way to lower purchase anxiety. 

When you create your checkout page image, please set it to the image that includes your guarantee logo and claim. Then, in the bullets next to the product image, be sure one statement showcases your commitment to standing behind your product’s quality and durability. 

Pricing Transparency

Nothing blows my mind more than how frequently ecommerce brands hide essential aspects of finished pricing, such as shipping, transaction, subscription, and taxes. We live in a transparent society where people consider anything less than complete pricing transparency to be corporate monsters trying to rob hard-working individuals’ wallets. 

One Page Checkout

With each click comes the opportunity for a page exit. Sometimes this happens on our end, and sometimes on theirs. Computers and internet connections are glitchy, causing us to lose sales when customers are near the purchase. 

But that’s not all; while traditionally, each click furthers the prospective customer’s commitment to your brand, each click throughout the checkout page process activates the shopper’s brain to reconsider the purchase. 

This is why Amazon introduced the single-click checkout directly from the product page.

Keep your checkout process to as few pages as possible, optimally having a single page to collect all purchase information. 

Uncomplicate Guest Checkout

We must address every aspect of the checkout process that interferes with a purchase, and setting up a password is definitely at the top of the list. The last thing you want to do is suggest a question that distracts customers from their focus on purchasing a product. We argue you should prioritize the guest checkout option over the account setup. 

Think about it. With a guest checkout, you still receive the email address, physical address, phone number, and form of payment. You can still have a pre-check “subscribe to our newsletter “r” box for future marketing purchases. In most cases, the only thing they cannot do is access their order information without setting up an account. If they want to track their order, let’s have them set up an account then rather than when buying a product. 

Include Web 3.0 Payment Methods

The payment process in 2023 is more complex than accepting Visa, Mastercard, Discover, & American Express. With digital wallets, platform integration (Amazon Pay), and decentralized payment (cryptocurrency), websites must have vast options for payment processing. When considering customer personalization, consider adding more recent web 3 ecommerce payment methods to lower cart abandonment rates.

Page Speed

Page speed is a forgotten cart abandonment metric that plays a massive role in conversion rates. There isn’t much to say here except make your entire website (including the checkout page) load quickly and in its entirety. 

Abandoned Cart Recovery Software

Abandoned cart recovery software is essential for any ecommerce business looking to recover lost sales and boost revenue. This software automatically sends follow-up emails or messages to customers who abandon their carts, encouraging them to return to the website and complete their purchase. Abandoned cart recovery software typically tracks the items left in the cart and the customer’s email address and sends a personalized reminder email or message to the customer.

Some features of abandoned cart recovery software include:

• The ability to create customizable email templates.

• Schedule automated emails.

• Track the success of recovery efforts. 

This software can also provide valuable insights into customer behavior, such as:

• Why do customers abandon their carts, and which items do they frequently leave behind?

•  Cart abandonment software can provide insights into the timing of cart abandonment, allowing businesses to adjust their marketing efforts accordingly. 

• By tracking the specific point at which customers abandon their carts, the software identifies the reason for abandonment, enabling businesses to improve the customer experience.

Most major ecommerce platforms, including Shopify & WooCommerce, include basic cart recovery functionality with many additional options, such as free and low-cost plugins. Start with these tools before jumping to a more robust cart abandonment tool.

Cart Abandonment Emails

Without the right strategy, your cart abandonment emails will go unnoticed. It isn’t only about sending abandoned cart recovery emails; it’s about the timing, frequency, and how you convince them to return. Like every other aspect of ecommerce email marketing, follow direct response copywriting best practices to learn what has the most impact. Here’s a sample abandoned cart recovery email that we created using ChatGPT following the copywriting style of direct response legend Dan Kennedy.

Dear [Customer],

We noticed you left your shopping cart without completing your purchase, and we understand that life can be busy and unpredictable. However, we want you to experience the amazing products you selected.

We value your patronage, so we’re extending an exclusive offer. For a limited time, we’re giving you [insert discount or incentive here] as our way of thanking you for considering our products.

But don’t wait long because this offer is only valid for the next [insert time frame here]. This is your opportunity to get the items you wanted at an incredible discount and experience the quality and value our brand offers.

If you have questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re here to help you every step of the way.

Thank you for choosing our brand, and we look forward to having you as a happy customer.

Best regards,

[Your name and brand]

Personalized emails will provide the greatest response. So, as much as you can do to achieve this while continuing to permit marketing automation, do so.

Retargeting Ads

There is no greater reason to employ retargeting ads than for an abandoned cart campaign. In this scenario, you can target guest users and those logged into your account. 

We can leverage retargeting ads on social media sites such as you see with Instagram or Facebook ad. You can also use them through banner ads we find on sites such as MSN.com. Both approaches are different, and you should. 

Exit-Intent Pop-Ups

We traditionally find exit pop-ups to get people interested in signing up for a newsletter or putting prospective clients into an email funnel. Less often (which means more opportunity for you) do we see them when people leave the checkout page. 

When creating an abandoned cart recovery campaign, we should take advantage of any opportunity to catch them before they leave. Exit-intent pop-ups are the most effective strategy for preventing an abandoned checkout before it occurs. 

Set up Push Notification

If you are a brand with a shopping cart app, you need to have push notifications set to send a nudge when customers leave the checkout page. Since they installed your app, it may be more appropriate to wait a short time before sending the notification. We don’t want these customers to consider removing the app from their phones even for a second.

Personalized Follow-ups

Adding personalization to your follow-ups shows people you care. But this doesn’t mean we must handcraft every email or remarketing approach. We can use AI technology to assist us in personal delivery by understanding the customer through historical data or leveraging communication tools tailoring the conversation to particular demographics.

Live Chat 

Human interaction can go a long way. Yes, it’s labor intensive, and yes, it’s time-consuming, but connecting with humans during the checkout process virtually mirrors the traditional retail store transaction. In higher ticket scenarios, having a live chat agent readily available is the right move.

SMS Marketing

Even before iCal and Google calendar was a thing, we understood our phones to be a source for setting reminders. Remember when we shifted from flip to PDA phones? Anybody from this era will understand the productivity we gained with these devices. 

It makes sense how people do not see sending SMS notifications as a distraction when there is a gentle reminder to return and finish the purchase. With the right text message marketing strategy, you will see a significant improvement in your cart abandonment rate. 

Strategies To Recover Shopping Cart

We’ve covered a lot of tactics and tools for preventing cart abandonment. Here are three strategies you can employ within these revenue loss prevention methods.

Apply Social Proof

Most people suggest that" “influence” primarily contributed to their purchasing decision. Does it make sense to use social proof to get a customer to come back to the site? 

The answer might be as simple as a single product testimonial or as unique as having a social media influencer create a video telling people how crazy they are for not buying the product."

“you left (item name) in the cart? What are you nuts? Don’t you know it’s the pre-workout I drink before I enter Iron paradise? Stop what you’re doing now, return to the site, and complete your purchase!"

The Rock

Create a Unique Discount

Discounts are a dime a dozen, with most going unnoticed. We recommend discounts and promotions to get customers back, but don’t use them as the lazy way out. 

Consider a unique way to capture the shopper’s attention distinctly and memorably. Here’s one sticking with the theme."

“Discounts are a dime a dozen, right? That’s why instead of giving you a dime off, we are giving you a dozen grab-and-go single servings of our pre-workout when you purchase a tub. Give them to your workout partner or keep them to yourself; what you do with them is totally up to you!"

Offer Free Shipping

In the world of online retailers with free shipping, we wouldn’t assume “free shipping” to be an abandoned cart recovery campaign purchase driver, but many times, it does. If you are in a category where customers expect shipping costs, use it as leverage to bring the customer back to finish their purchase. 

If you are complaining about how it will cut your profitability, remember that you can hit them with another offer every time you ship goods to someone. Losing out on orders is losing out on future marketing opportunities.

Digital Marketing For Ecommerce Brands

Want help lowering your cart abandonment rate? As your digital marketing partner, we work alongside your company and optimize your website's front and back end for optimal performance. Fill out the form below to discuss your needs and learn more about our digital marketing services for ecommerce brands.