An average eCom cart abandonment rate across multiple industries is just under 70%. A sobering statistic, with the top listed reasons being high extra costs, the need to create an account, too long/complicated checkout process, lack of transparency, slow delivery, etc.

One way to tackle this is by implementing abandoned cart emails. Here are some tips on how to optimize them for maximum efficiency and get the best out of your efforts.

1. Headline

A catchy headline is a must to make prospects open the email. Adding a personal touch always helps, so best avoid dry generic headlines, like “We saved your cart”.

Take a look at these creative headline examples by Adidas, Fabletics, and Lafayette148:

2. Scarcity

It is advised to communicate scarcity in order to motivate prospects to finish the purchase ASAP. There are a number of ways to do this, for example, mention that the products they were eyeing are running low on stock.

Rudy’s, Beauty Bay and Google Store have each found a neat way to approach this:

3. Product Specs, CTA & Upsell

It is important to clearly showcase the product that was left in the cart, as well as all of its features (size, color, etc.).

Same as on the website, the cart abandonment email should contain a prominent CTA prompting prospects to finish the purchase.

Showing upsells is another good practice. However, they need to be relevant to the abandoned products, e.g. belonging to the same category or brand.

Here are a couple of good examples from Ralph Lauren and Jack Wills to illustrate the point:

4. Support

Sometimes prospects may abandon their carts due to technical difficulties or unanswered questions. Therefore, it is recommended to add the option to connect with customer support for help.

Jo Malone and Kate Spade both make sure the customers can reach out for help when they need it:

5. Shipping & Returns

One of the friction points during Checkout can be the shipping and return policy. To address this, make sure to include additional information about this in the email.

See how Warby Parker solved this:

6. Collecting more emails

Cart abandonment emails can be triggered for both logged-in customers and the ones who entered their email addresses at the checkout. To help increase the number of collected emails, try setting up an exit-intent popup.

How it works. When a user with products in the cart takes action that is detected as exit-intent behavior, a popup is shown offering to register an email and send products to the cart to finish checkout later at the prospect’s convenience.

Here is a nice example of an exit-intent popup from Cervera:

P.S.

Many guides suggest offering a coupon code or a discount as a motivation for users to finish the purchase. On the contrary, we advise against such an approach, since customers may recognize the pattern and abandon carts on purpose to get a discount.

Found this information useful? Want to uncover your own site’s growth potential? Let us help you! Any questions? Feel free to get in touch: book a free consultation or schedule a call!

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