Optimize emails for cart abandonment campaigns

Step-by-step Playbooks
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Contributors

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Business Benefits

Boost conversions and increase revenue by encouraging cart abandoners to return to your site.

Optimize the subject line of your emails by asking a question, adding the person’s given name, and using emotional triggers like curiosity, uncertainty, humor, or urgency.

Ask prospects short, simple questions in order to grab their attention and to get them to open the post abandonment email. For example:

  • Was there a problem?
  • Can we help you?
  • Forgot something?
  • Can I answer any questions?
  • Are you still interested?

Use a person’s given name if you’re capturing name and email in your checkout process to also capture attention. Only use this tactic in one cart abandonment email, not the whole series.

Test subject lines that make abandoners compelled to fill their knowledge gap. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University conducted a study to find out why people open certain messages but not others. Their research suggests that people want to open messages when they had moderate levels of uncertainty about the contents since this makes them curious about what the message is about. This occurred when they knew who the email was from but were not sure of its content.

Use humor and playful communication to strengthen relationships with customers and trigger positive feelings. For example, “Warning: unintended items in your bag may be eaten by gnomes.”

Use time-limited offers and time-related words in subject lines such as, Limited edition, Low-level stock, Only 1 left, Last chance to get 10% off, or Last chance for free shipping. To create a sense of urgency in the mind of the customer and make them act now.

Use emotional triggers like:

  • Fear
  • Desire to be recognized
  • Desire to help others
  • Greed
  • Desire to be loved
  • Desire for self-improvement
  • Desire to win
  • Desire for comfort
  • Laziness
  • Quest for a great experience
  • Sex
  • Desire for relationships
  • Anger
  • Desire to make a difference
  • Desire for meaning in life
  • Desire for power
  • Necessity of life
  • Addiction

Use a real person’s name, rather than your company name, in the From Name field of your email campaign.

The From Name will likely be the first element of your email campaign that a customer interacts with. It’s your first opportunity to build trust, so don’t let it go to waste. For example, HubSpot saw a significant increase in open rates when a team member’s name was used as the from name; ”Maggie Georgieva, HubSpot”, versus their company name.

Test out similar From Name formats:

  • Team member name: Suzanne Reynolds.
  • Team member name and title: Suzanne Reynolds, CEO.
  • Team member name and company: Suzanne Reynolds (Acme).
  • Team member first name only: Suzanne.
  • Team member first name and company: Suzanne from Acme.

Use what looks like a real person’s email address in the From Email field and avoid generic solutions such as noreply@companyname.com.

The secondary actor to the From Name is the From Email, or the customer-facing email address from which your campaign originates. Here are some examples:

Use preheader text that shows the benefit of your offer and supports your subject line to see if you can increase open rates and revenue per email.

Copywrite email preheaders as an extension of your subject line to communicate an additional benefit to the customer. For example, when Autoplicity.com tested improving the preheader with more benefit-driven copy, such as “We want to prove how fast we can deliver your parts”, the open rate for the 1st email saw a 7.96% lift in the open rate at over 95% confidence compared to the control.

Add an incentive, such as a discount, free shipping, or low stock, in the email body to convince cart abandoners to purchase immediately.

Set up A/B testing in your email marketing to test a plain-text variation of your abandoned cart campaign against a heavily designed HTML email.

Some email marketing tools, including MailChimp and Campaign Monitor, provide the A/B testing feature. The styling of an email greatly impacts how customers perceive the message. You might find that customers respond favorably to the creative that doesn’t appear as produced.

Test the copy on your call to action buttons, changing one CTA per test.

For example, for dog food retailer Bully Max, tests showed that the call to action copy “View My Cart” outperformed “Complete My Order” by 33.01% at a 99.36% confidence.

Test adding recommended products to the bottom of a cart abandonment campaign to see if it helps to increase revenue per email.

Recommendations engines automatically suggest items that are frequently purchased with those in the abandoned cart. The goal with recommendations is to get people back into shopping mode by helping them find something else they may be interested in.

Last edited by @hesh_fekry 2023-11-14T15:10:33Z