Running an e-commerce store can be both exciting and challenging. However, one of the major issues that e-commerce brands face is cart abandonment. Cart abandonment occurs when potential buyers visit your store, add products to their carts, but ultimately leave without completing the purchase. This phenomenon leads to a significant loss of revenue for e-commerce brands worldwide, totaling around $18 billion annually.
To combat this problem and recover missed opportunities, it is crucial for e-commerce sites to implement a well-planned abandoned cart recovery campaign. By devising effective strategies, you can recover over 20% of these abandoned carts into sales, boosting your revenue and conversion rates. In this article, we will explore different tactics and techniques to help you create a winning strategy for abandoned cart recovery.
Why is Abandoned Cart Recovery Crucial for Business Growth?
When you analyze your website analytics, you may notice that while you convert around 3% of your visitors, the average add-to-cart rate is around 8%. This means that over 60% of potential buyers who were interested in purchasing a product abandon their carts. This high abandonment rate translates to a significant loss of revenue.
Implementing strategies to reduce cart abandonment and running an abandoned cart recovery campaign can provide several benefits for your e-commerce business:
- Recover Missed Revenue: By targeting abandoned carts, you have the opportunity to recover the revenue that would have otherwise been lost.
- Increase Sales: Bringing back potential buyers who abandoned their carts can lead to a significant increase in sales.
- Improve Conversion Rate: By successfully recovering abandoned carts, you can improve the overall conversion rate of your online store.
- Reminder for Buyers: A well-executed recovery campaign serves as a gentle reminder to potential buyers about the products they were interested in, encouraging them to complete their purchase.
While abandoned cart recovery is a crucial step, it is essential to implement proper strategies to maximize the effectiveness of your recovery campaigns. In the following sections, we will explore five reliable tactics that you can employ to recover abandoned carts successfully.
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Five Reliable Tactics To Recover Abandoned Carts
- Set Up Retargeting Ads: Retargeting ads are a popular and effective approach to bring back customers who have abandoned their carts. These ads can be displayed on various platforms, such as Google and Facebook, targeting users who have visited specific pages or taken specific actions on your site.By creating customized banner ads or product videos, you can retarget users who have visited your product pages, cart page, or checkout page. Implementing retargeting ads can reduce cart abandonment by 6.5% and increase online sales by almost 20%.
- Give a Reminder via Emails: Reminder emails are another effective approach to bring back abandoned cart users. Many potential buyers do not intentionally abandon their carts but get distracted or busy with other tasks. A simple reminder email acts as a friendly nudge, reminding customers of the items they left behind and providing an opportunity to complete their purchase.These reminder emails should be sent within 6 hours of cart abandonment and should have a concise and friendly tone. Including an eye-catching image of the abandoned product, a brief description of its features, and a clear call to action can significantly improve conversion rates.
- Make a Discount Offer to Trigger Conversion: Discounts are powerful triggers that can drive conversion. Offering a discount to customers who have abandoned their carts can entice them to come back and complete their purchase.You can offer a coupon discount via email or retargeting ads, providing customers with an exclusive incentive to complete their orders.When using this tactic, it is important to set a deadline for the coupon to create a sense of urgency and encourage immediate action.
- Express Scarcity to Trigger Immediate Action: Creating a sense of scarcity can be a powerful motivator for customers to make a quick decision and complete their purchase. If a customer was genuinely interested in a product when they abandoned their cart, informing them that the product is still available but in limited stock can create a sense of urgency.This tactic can be combined with discount offers to further increase the chances of conversion. However, it is important not to disclose how long it will take for the stock to run out, as customers tend to wait until the last moment to make a decision.
- Utilize SMS Marketing: SMS marketing can be an effective way to engage with customers who have abandoned their carts. SMS messages have a high open rate and quick response times, making them an ideal channel to remind customers about their abandoned carts.However, it is crucial to ask for customers’ permission before sending SMS messages and not to send too many messages, as this can be perceived as intrusive.The message should be short and to the point, focusing on reminding the customer about their abandoned cart and providing a clear call to action.
Implementing these tactics in your abandoned cart recovery strategy can significantly improve your chances of recovering abandoned carts and increasing your conversion rates. By combining these tactics and continuously optimizing your campaigns, you can create a winning strategy for abandoned cart recovery.
The Abandoned Cart Recovery Blueprint for E-Commerce
To effectively launch your abandoned cart recovery campaign, it is essential to have the right tools and processes in place. Here is a curated blueprint to help you set up your abandoned cart recovery campaign for your WooCommerce store:
- Use a Tool That Can Track and Capture Abandoned Carts: WooCommerce analytics may not track and capture information about buyers who abandon their carts. Therefore, you need to choose a plugin or tool that can track cart abandonment events and capture the data of the buyers who left. Cart Lift or Cart Bounty are popular tools specialized in tracking and capturing abandoned carts.
- Choose a Reliable SMS Marketing Tool: If you plan to utilize SMS marketing in your abandoned cart recovery strategy, it is crucial to choose a reliable SMS marketing tool. Twilio is a popular option that can help you effectively engage with customers who have abandoned their carts.
- Set Up Reminder Emails and SMS: Once you have the necessary tools in place, you can set up reminder emails and SMS to be sent within hours of cart abandonment. These reminders should be concise, friendly, and include a clear call to action, encouraging customers to complete their purchase.
- Create an Email and SMS with a Discount Coupon: Within 48 hours of cart abandonment, you can send an email and SMS to abandoned customers, offering them a discount coupon to incentivize them to complete their orders. The coupon should be exclusive to abandoned customers and have a deadline for claiming the discount.
- Set Up Last Call Emails and SMS: Within 7 days of cart abandonment, you can send a last call email and SMS to remind customers about their abandoned carts and create a sense of urgency. This email should also remind customers of the discount coupon they can still use before the product runs out of stock.
- Set Up Retargeting Ads: Finally, you can set up retargeting ads to target customers who have visited the cart page or checkout page but abandoned their carts. Tools like AdRoll can help you set up and optimize retargeting ads for maximum effectiveness.
By following this blueprint and continuously optimizing your emails, SMS, and retargeting ads, you can create a comprehensive abandoned cart recovery campaign that maximizes your chances of recovering lost sales.
Conclusion
Cart abandonment is a common challenge faced by e-commerce brands, but it can be effectively addressed through a well-planned abandoned cart recovery strategy. By implementing tactics such as retargeting ads, reminder emails, discount offers, and scarcity triggers, you can significantly increase your chances of recovering abandoned carts and boosting your revenue.
Remember to personalize your ads, segment your audience, and continuously optimize your campaigns to achieve the best results. With the right tools and a winning strategy, you can turn abandoned carts into successful sales and drive the growth of your e-commerce business.
