How to Recover 17% of Abandoned Carts with Three Simple Emails

According to Baymard Institute, a whopping 70.2% of online shopping carts are abandoned. 

Think about that. For every 1,000 shoppers that you drive to your checkout, over 700 of them will not complete their purchase.

Seriously, what would your business look like if you could convert 20% of those lost sales into revenue?

With 1,000 sales per month, at an AOV of $100, capturing even 10% of abandoned carts would generate an additional $10,000 in sales each month. Not bad, right?

In this article, you’ll learn how to create a powerful abandoned cart email campaign, that’ll help you recapture your unrealized revenue.

We’ll cover:

• Why cart abandonment happens & what you can do to reduce it
• A simple 3-step abandoned cart email strategy to recover sales
• 3 best practices that’ll supercharge your results
• 5 of the best abandoned cart email examples to inspire you

Plus, you’ll also get two free swipe files; a collection of the best abandoned cart subject lines and a resource with over 15 awesome abandoned cart email examples at the end.

Ready to recapture abandoned carts? Let’s jump in!

Why Your Customers Abandon Their Carts

While this post is about recapturing abandoned carts, it’s equally important to understand why your shoppers abandon their carts in the first place. 

If you can reduce your cart abandonment rate at the source, you’ll immediately make more sales. Prevention is the best medicine.

Now, the reasons for cart abandonment vary from store to store. But generally, the main culprits are the following:

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So, the first step is to audit your store by asking questions like:

• Am I surprising customers with high shipping fees at checkout
• Do I require customers to create an account?
• Is my checkout page complicated (e.g. too many form fields?)
• Are my shipping options slow?
• Does my website seem trustworthy?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, that is the best place to start. Making your store as conversion-friendly as possible is the number one priority for reducing your abandoned cart rate.

That said, even with a flawless checkout design, free shipping, clear pricing, fast delivery, and a trustworthy site, most visitors will still abandon their carts.

And that’s where your abandoned cart recovery flow comes in. 

With the following three-part email sequence, you’ll further reduce the number of abandoned carts, and recapture lost revenue on auto-pilot.

The Simple Three-Part Email Flow for a 17% Recovery Rate

Lots of retailers set up a single abandoned cart email and leave it at that. 

Now, one email is better than none. But you’ll almost always get better results with an abandoned cart email sequence. 

The following simple three-email abandoned cart sequence addresses most customer objections and uses persuasive psychology to drive more conversions.

Let’s get into it.

Email 1: The gentle reminder

Timing: 30 minutes after cart abandonment

The goal of this email is to simply remind customers they didn’t checkout.

There’s no need to include any offers or discounts; we’ll have time for that later. 

In any case, some shoppers purposefully abandon their carts and wait for a discount to arrive in their inbox. So, we don’t want to give away revenue just yet.

For now, just pair things back with:

• A simple reminder (Hey, you left some items in your cart)
• An image of the abandoned product
• One low-commitment call-to-action (Take me back to my cart)
• Contact details for customer support (in case anything went wrong)

Explore Cuisine ticks all the boxes when it comes to how to create a fantastic initial recovery email:

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Email 2: The incentive

Timing: 24 hours after cart abandonment

A day after abandoning their cart, your prospective customers start to cool off a little.

So, it’s time to offer an incentive.

In this email, you want to include some subtle sales triggers to reignite your shoppers’ interest and remove any reservations they may have.

We recommend offering an incentive like:

• A dollar value discount
• A 10-15% discount code
• Free shipping
• A free gift

In additon to an incentive, you should include customer testimonials, add social proof, and emphasize any benefits you offer, such as express shipping, money-back guarantees, or easy returns to address potential objections.

Here’s a perfect example of a second abandoned cart email from Danner:

If you can afford to, we recommend offering a dollar-based discount (e.g. $20 off) in this email for the best results. 

Data from Shopify showed that dollar-based offers vs. percentage-based offers can increase conversions by as much as 175%!

That said, the other incentives can work well too, and may work out more profitable for you, even at a lower conversion rate. It’s important to run the numbers for your store and see what makes sense.

Email 3: The last chance

Timing: 72 hours after abandonment

If your powers of persuasion haven’t worked after 72 hours, it’s time to fire the last bullet in the chamber: scarcity & urgency.

You’re going to tell your recipients that whatever benefit you offered them in email 2, is about to be taken away.

See, we’re all naturally loss-averse creatures. Losing something we have feels painful. So, the fear of missing out on your offer drives customers to buy.

Here’s a great example of a ‘last chance’ abandoned cart email from bedding brand Brooklinen:

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Now, you can send a fourth or even a fifth abandoned cart email. But in our experience, these don’t convert well. Plus, you run the risk of annoying potential customers.

So instead, simply add subscribers to your general email marketing list. From here, you can send them your usual updates and offers which may tempt them back in the future.

3 Tacics for Even Better Abandoned Cart Results

Now that you have a structure for your abandoned cart email flow, it’s time to optimize the elements of your cart recovery campaign.

Here are three ways to drive your cart recovery rate, and sales, even higher.

1. Craft Irresistible Subject Lines

Here’s the truth: no matter how good your emails are, your campaign won’t work if your abandoned cart subject lines aren’t clickable.

Many sellers opt for aggressive subject lines, using all caps and exclamation points. But this is a mistake. Simple subject lines almost always outperform more complex ones (and avoid landing in spam).

Here’s a great example of a simple, effective abandoned cart subject line from Leota:

It follows the following rules (which your subject lines should too):

• Below 50 characters for maximum readability across all devices
• Not shouty, shady, aggressive, or pushy 
• Includes just one marketing message (a reminder, not multiple offers)
• It’s incredibly simple

You can spice your subject lines up a little more (e.g. use emojis or humor) but if in doubt err on the side of caution.

If you need inspiration for your abandoned cart subject lines, we’ve compiled a free subject line swipe file with lines from some of the world’s top eCommerce brands.

2. Test, Test & Test Again

One of the central tenets of digital marketing is that you don’t make assumptions about what works, and what doesn’t.

Your first iteration of any campaign is rarely the best. So, it’s important to continuously test each aspect to get the best results. 

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Remember, multiple marginal improvements over time can transform a campaign’s overall results.

Some important elements of your abandoned cart campaign to A/B test are:

• Email subject lines to improve your open rate
• Calls to Action to improve your click-through rate
• Offers (e.g. free shipping vs 10% discount)
• Timing of your emails
• Email design & copy

Use abandoned cart benchmarks to identify your biggest areas for improvement and optimize from there. Continuously testing elements of your abandoned cart flow is essential to recapture the most revenue.

3. Add Remarketing Ads to Your Abandoned Cart Strategy

If you add just one paid advertising strategy to your marketing plan, make it remarketing ads (sometimes called re-targeting).

Seriously, retargeting can reduce cart abandonment rates by at least 6.5%. Which can translate into a sales boost of up to 20%.

Moreover, retargeting ads are ten times more effective than display ads.

Remarketing ads work like this:

• Shoppers visit your store & you add cookies to their browser
• These shoppers don’t convert & leave your store
• Using Google or Meta you can retarget these visitors with ads

The beauty of remarketing is that you can advertise the specific products a customer is interested in.

This means you can follow them around the internet and social media, tempting them with another chance to buy. Sure, it’s mildly stalkerish but also very effective.

Using retargeting ads in tandem with your abandoned cart emails creates a multi-channel strategy that’ll boost the effectiveness of both tactics.

5 Great Abandoned Cart Email Examples

It’s always good to get inspiration from other brands. Let’s break down five great abandoned cart email examples, and see what we can learn from them.

1. Rudy’s Barbershop - Don’t let your free shipping expire

What we like: 

• Simple email design that doesn’t distract from the conversion goal
• Images of the abandoned products to remind shoppers about their shopping
• Scarcity-based incentive (i.e. free shipping is about to expire)
• Clever, relatable copy

What could be better:

• No social proof - a simple testimonial may boost conversion here
• No links to support which adds an extra step for customers with questions

2. Pepper - Don’t Forget

What we like: 

• A $5 discount to incentivize return to checkout
• Succinct copy that addresses the shopper’s main pain point
• A link to their ‘fit quiz’ which helps customers find the perfect product
• Highlights free shipping & exchanges to lower the risk for customers

What could be better:

• A glowing customer or media review would add extra trust to this email
• No support links which makes it difficult to appease shopper concerns

3. Alex Mill - Get them for 15% off

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What we like: 

• Beautiful email design with great product imagery
• Highlights free shipping & returns 
• Generous 15% off incentive
• Links to the FAQ page and customer support chat

What could be better:

• A little scarcity could drive more purchases. However, it may be in the next email.

4. Addidas - Sorry to hear about your wi-fi…

What we like: 

• Curiosity-based headline for a high open rate
• Powerful social proof via customer reviews and customer photos
• Low-commitment CTA: Customization option that reengages shoppers without requiring them to make a purchase

What could be better:

• This is a pretty flawless abandoned cart email - especially as the first email in the flow.
• Introducing an incentive in subsequent emails would boost the conversion rate.

5. Google - The Google Wifi in your cart is going fast

What we like: 

• Scarcity-driven subject line & copy (i.e. your items are selling fast)
• Incredibly simple design that works equally well on all devices
• Direct support links in the email with two options
• Discreet link in the footer to a survey for collecting valuable customer feedback

What could be better:

• The primary CTA could be more contrasted to encourage clicks

Create Amazing Abandoned Cart Emails Today

Recapturing abandoned carts is an essential priority for every e-commerce retailer.

Shoppers who abandon their cart show very high purchase intent. For some reason, they decided not to purchase.

You can’t afford to let these high-intent visitors forget bout your brand. Use this article and the free resources below to launch your campaign.

Implement a simple three-stage abandoned cart automation to bring them back. 

Then, continuously optimize your flow, testing different strategies and elements to recapture as much revenue as possible.

When you do that, you’ll be well on your way to more sales and more profits.

Free Abandoned Cart Email Resources

Use these swipe files to inspire your own abandoned cart campaign:

• 👉 Free Abandoned Cart Email Swipe File (20+ Awesome emails)
• 👉 Free Abandoned Cart Subject Line Swipe File

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