In part one of the series on shopping cart abandonment I listed the top 5 reasons consumers abandon their shopping carts and how an abandoned shopping cart email campaign can be an effective way to reengage those customers, enticing them to complete their purchases.

In this second installment of the series I will present specific tactics for your abandonment campaign, such as, when to send and what type of templates you should consider using.

Where do I start?

When constructing your cart abandonment campaign, you will have to take into account a number of factors such as:

• Business rules – When does the message deploy?
• Number of messages – Should you deploy just one message or multiple?
• Timing of messages – When should you send the message? Real-time or 24 hours later?
• Tone and content of messages – How should your messages come across?
• Discount or incentive – Should you offer a discount right off the bat?

Strike when the iron is hot!

In an abandonment campaign, timing is KEY. Only 8% of shopping cart abandoners will return without any form of remarketing but this percentage increases to 26% with remarketing in hand (MarketingCharts). One strategy many Marketers follow is to:

• Send the 1st email of the remarketing campaign in real time
• Send the 2nd email 23 hours after the first email
• Send the 3rd email 6 days and 23 hours after the second email

4 Main Tactics for Templates

There are four main tactics that Marketers use; Reminders, Special Offers, Expiry Notifications and a Combination of the first three.

1. Reminders
This is a basic email reminding shoppers of what they left in their cart and a link that makes it easy for them to return to where they left off. Sometimes the quick link back is incentive enough to buy. Adding in a picture of the item might help to re-jig their memory as well.

2. Special Offers
This is an email that offers shoppers a discount to encourage them to complete their purchase. The revenue that the purchase brings in SHOULD off-set the discount. Special offers should be time sensitive to communicate a sense of urgency.

3. Expiry
This is an email reminding shoppers that their items will expire within X number of days. This can be sent as a stand-alone email (as the first message) or in combination with one of the other two tactics above.

4. Combination
In short, your first message could be a reminder of what was left in the cart, the second message could be a discount, the third message could state that the cart is about to expire, etc.

A Word of Caution

You can offer 10% off or free shipping right away but, why give away the margin if you don’t need to? Don’t jump the gun. You can always start with those offers but be sure that you test against them to determine what offers (if any) will entice the shopper to return to their shopping cart. Offers can be other than money/discounts. Depending on the type of Industry you are in, you could always offer a free webinar, a cook book or even bonus points on their customer loyalty card.

In the third and final part of this series on abandoned shopping cart best practices I will discuss the importance of subject lines in your abandonment campaigns and provide a few final tips to decrease the likelihood of your customers abandoning their cart in the first place.