9 Abandoned Cart Email Best Practices to Win Back Lost Sales

You’ve likely seen it happen in your online store: customers browning, adding items to your carts, and then abandoning them before completing the purchase. 

According to the Baymard Institute, the average shopping cart abandonment rate is approximately 70.19%, which means a significant amount of potential revenue is slipping through the cracks.

So, how can you turn these missed chances into completed sales? The answer lies in the strategic use of abandoned cart emails. These follow-up messages can serve as gentle reminders, encouraging your customers to return and finalize their purchases. 

With that in mind, I’ve mentioned the best 9 practices for creating effective abandoned cart emails to help you reconnect with potential customers, recover those valuable lost sales, and ultimately boost your bottom line.🥳

Why are abandoned cart emails important?

Abandoned cart emails are crucial for your ecommerce strategy. When your customers add items to their cart but leave without buying, it’s a missed chance for a sale. Here’s why abandoned cart emails matter to you:

• They give you a chance to recover potential sales that were left incomplete, directly impacting your bottom line.
• These emails engage customers who have already shown interest in your products, reminding them to complete their purchase.
• You can personalize these emails with product recommendations or special offers tailored to each customer’s preferences, increasing the likelihood of a conversion.
• By analyzing why carts are abandoned, you gain insights into potential barriers in your checkout process or product offerings that need improvement.
• Regularly sending these emails strengthens your brand and keeps it top-of-mind with customers, potentially leading to future purchases.

Now, let’s explore abandoned cart email best practices.🤩👇🏻

9 abandoned cart email best practices you should consider 

Now, here is the main part for you, where I have listed nine essential practices to effectively reclaim lost sales through abandoned cart emails: 

Timing is key

The first practice you should prioritize is the timely delivery of abandoned cart emails. When it comes to recovering lost sales, sending your initial emails within a few hours of cart abandonment is important. 

This window of opportunity ensures that customers remember the products they left behind while their interest is still fresh and their intent to purchase is strong.

Top ecommerce brands like Myntra use this smart strategy for abandoned carts. They quickly send automated emails after someone leaves items in their cart. These emails show what was left behind and encourage customers to finish their purchases. 

This not only helps recover lost sales but also keeps customers happy by making sure they get what they want. So, it is a great example of how timely and personalized emails can increase sales efficiency and build customer loyalty. You can use this idea to improve your own abandoned cart emails and grow your business effectively.

Personalization power

Personalization is a powerful abandoned cart email strategy, offering more than just a generic greeting. I will tell you why it matters:

Attention grabber

Personalizing emails with your customer’s names immediately captures their attention and makes them feel valued.

Memory trigger

Including details about the items left in their cart serves as a gentle reminder of their initial interest, reigniting their desire to complete the purchase. 

Increased relevance

Customers are more likely to engage with content that feels tailored to their preferences. By showcasing specific products they were considering, you make the email more relevant and increase the likelihood of them clicking through to finalize the purchase.

By using these personalization practices in your abandoned cart emails, you can maintain customer engagement and boost level-up sales effectively.

Engaging CTAs

Crafting compelling CTAs for abandoned cart emails is another important practice for converting interest into action. When you are designing your CTAs, clarity is key. Ensure your message, like “Complete Your Purchase” or “Resume Shopping”, is direct and leaves no room for confusion about what you want your customers to do next.

It’s also essential to inject urgency into your CTAs, especially in follow-up emails. Phrases such as “Limited Time Offer” or “Don’t Miss Out” can motivate customers to finalize their purchase before the opportunity expires.

Take an idea from the below example image of Flipkart, a prominent Indian ecommerce company, which effectively uses brightly colored buttons with straightforward messages like “Complete Your Order Now” or “Get it Delivered Today”. These visually striking CTAs clearly communicate the desired action and encourage customers to take that final step toward completing their purchase.

Offer a slight encouragement

In the business world, customers often leave their shopping carts behind because they are unsure about the final price or are surprised by shipping costs. But there are smart ways to tackle these concerns to simplify the sales process.  

You can offer a targeted discount that directly addresses these worries. It makes the purchase more attractive and affordable, right?

Now, let’s talk about free shipping. Did you know that 65% of online shoppers find it super important when deciding to buy something? Highlighting free shipping can really seal the deal and encourage your customers to go ahead and complete their orders.

By strategically using discounts or free shipping incentives, you can turn those abandoned carts into successful purchases. 

Think about customizing these offers based on your customers’ behaviors and who they are. For example, younger shoppers might love limited-time discount codes, while frequent buyers might appreciate loyalty-based free shipping perks. Understanding what they like can make these strategies even more effective.  

Social proof persuasion 

If your brand is new, understanding how social proof can influence customer decisions, especially in abandoned cart scenarios, is crucial for building trust and boosting sales. Here’s why social proof matters in your abandoned cart emails:

Featuring testimonials or positive reviews from your satisfied customers act as social validation. It shows potential buyers that others have had positive experiences with your products, increasing their trust in your brand and encouraging them to complete their purchases.

Positive reviews can highlight specific product benefits or features, addressing any doubts that customers may have about your products. This is particularly useful for your customers who haven’t yet experienced your brand firsthand. 

This abandoned cart email strategy can boost how many people buy from you, even those who left items in their cart before. 

Help hand practice

If you’re looking to improve how you handle abandoned cart emails for your brand, consider taking a “helping hand approach”. Sometimes, your customers hold back because they have questions or uncertainties.  

By recognizing these concerns, you can show that you understand and care about their experience. Make it easy for them by including links to FAQs, return policies, or customer support right in your emails. 

This way, your customers can find answers themselves and feel more confident about completing their purchase with you. This approach not only addresses your customers’ immediate worries but also builds trust and loyalty, which can lead to fewer abandoned carts and happier customers overall.   

Strategic resending 

This abandoned cart email strategy is very important if you’re aiming to recover lost sales effectively. Instead of just sending one email, consider a strategic approach where you send a series of emails over a period of time. This is why this multi-email sequence can work wonders for your brand:

• Customers leave carts for various reasons, maybe they got distracted or had second thoughts about the price. With multiple emails, you can tailor each message to address different scenarios. 
• For instance, the first email could gently remind your customers about your products, while later ones might offer discounts to ease price concerns as I have mentioned above.
• Timing matters, which I’ve mentioned as our first practice also. A sequence allows your customers to build urgency gradually. Towards the end, mentioning CTA like “Limited Time Offer” can encourage your customers to act before missing out. 

But, to send these great ecommerce email sequences, you can consider using email marketing software for ecommerce like Zixflow, a leader in marketing automation and customer relationships. Zixflow offers features that allow you to create and customize effective abandoned cart email sequences.  

You can set up multiple emails using sales cadence to be sent automatically at specific intervals after a cart is abandoned. For example, start with a gentle reminder email shortly after abandonment, followed by emails offering discounts or addressing concerns like shipping costs. 

Using a platform like Zixflow helps streamline the process, ensuring your emails are sent at optimal times to maximize the chances of recovering sales from abandoned carts and automating sales engagement. 

A/B testing for success 

When it comes to improving your abandoned cart emails, what connects best with your audience can vary. A/B testing is a useful practice to help you find out what works best. You can start by testing different subject lines, for example, trying a friendly greeting versus asking an interesting question, to see which one gets more people to open your emails. 

Plus, A/B testing allows you to experiment with different email content, such as the words you use, the images you include, and the buttons you want customers to click. It’s important to change just one thing at a time to understand what makes a difference. 

Make sure you test each version with enough people to get reliable feedback. Once you see which version performs better, use that insight to refine your emails further. 

Regularly testing and improving your abandoned cart emails can help ensure they resonate well with your audience and increase your chances of bringing back more sales.

Segmentation is your friend

Segmentation is the last one of the important abandoned cart email best practices you can consider to improve your abandoned cart emails. It’s all about tailoring your approach to different groups of customers to recover lost sales effectively. 

Not all customers have the same preferences or needs, so dividing your audience into specific groups helps you create emails that speak directly to their interests.

Segmentation allows you to send emails that address what each group cares about most. For instance, loyal customers might like personalized suggestions for related products, while new customers might prefer introductory offers or discounts.

This personalized approach not only enhances sales engagement but also increases the chances of turning abandoned carts into successful purchases.

Tools like Zixflow make segmentation easy for you. This helps you create targeted email campaigns that are relevant and optimized for driving sales and improving customer satisfaction.

Implement these abandoned cart email practices to bring back your lost sales

So after implementing these 9 practices for optimizing abandoned cart emails, you are well-positioned to recover lost sales effectively. From timely sending emails to segmenting your customers, these practices cover all bases.  

But if you want to automate these tasks you can use platforms like Zixflow, an AI-powered CRM platform that makes it easy to win back potential sales. 

With Zixflow, you can automate tasks easily using its features. Use the sales cadence feature to create email sequences for recovering abandoned sales. You can choose from new, prebuilt, or cloned options and schedule them as needed.

Zixflow includes WhatsApp and SMS campaigns to reach your audience on multiple channels. It also offers a unified inbox, an email validation feature, an email finder, an AI wizard to generate emails, a forms builder, and more for complete marketing support. 

Plus with Zixflow’s analytics, you can track key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversions, helping you continuously improve your campaigns. 

Ready to start recovering your abandoned carts? Start your free account with Zixflow today!🚀