We get asked this question a lot, “Why should I create a multi-step triggered cart or browse abandonment program. Isn’t sending more than one message overkill?”
It is not overkill. Multi-step triggered campaigns deliver more revenue and they don’t antagonize customers. Instead, they are seen as helpful.
Based on data from our customer base, sending a multi-step cart abandonment program generates revenue uplifts of 167% for retail businesses, 187% for travel businesses, and 120% for B2B businesses compared to a single cart email.
To better understand why a multi-step browse or cart abandonment program increases revenue, think about best practices for sending email, and then think like a customer.
Sending a browse abandonment or cart abandonment email within 30 minutes is an absolute best practice. You want to encourage that customer back before they find something at a competitor’s site. It also helps re-engage them if they didn’t mean to stop shopping – they just got interrupted.
So why send a second or third reminder? Think about how you shop. Have you ever carted something and then thought, “I’m not sure I want to buy camel velveteen skinny jeans”? Many shoppers like to sleep on a purchase. Some have been conditioned to wait for a coupon. Others were tied up doing something else when the 30-minute cart abandonment email came in.
Therefore it’s important to test different frequencies for the second and potentially third email. Perhaps, email #2 after 24 hours and #3 after a week? Your audience is unique, so you need to test and optimize to build the perfect frequency strategy.
Learn more:
What are triggered emails and how to optimize them
Guide to building best in class triggered messaging programs with Fresh Relevance
It’s also important to understand how prevalent cart abandonment is. Six in 10 shoppers place an item in a cart and leave before purchasing the item.
How two retailers gained from a multi-step approach
Kleertjes.com
Kleertjes.com is the largest online retailer for children’s brand clothing and shoes in The Netherlands. A key goal of their marketing efforts is to make shopping easy for busy parents. Streamlined shopping = more sales. To make that a reality, they needed to be able to identify shoppers across all the devices without requiring them to log-in. If someone carts a product on their mobile device but views the cart on their laptop later, the item will be there.
Next came a different approach to browse and cart abandonment. Instead of sending one abandonment email two hours after the shopper left the cart, they sent within 30 minutes with another sent 24 hours later if the customer didn’t take action. The results: A 347% YOY increase for cart abandonment revenue and a 126% YOY increase for browse abandonment revenue.
Getting Personal
The Getting Personal team boosted the converting power of their browse abandonment emails by adding an extra stage to the email program.
“Our multi-stage browse abandonment program is working really well. We set it up 10 months ago and we’ve already seen a 54% sales uplift compared to our single browse abandonment emails.” Georgina Harding, CRM Manager, Getting Personal
A final word on browse and cart abandonment emails
Earlier in this post, we talked about customers who are conditioned to wait for a coupon with a cart abandonment email before they’ll purchase. With that in mind, it’s important to note that multi-step cart and browse abandonment programs work even when you don’t offer a discount.
We’ve conducted research that shows that blanket incentivizing doesn’t offer the best return on investment. For example, serial abandoners may respond just as well to a reminder email. Optimally, you want to include incentives in emails for people who don’t routinely abandon carts on your site. These targeted incentives can have a real effect on the open rate of the email, as well as the number of sales.
If your cart or browse abandonment programs aren’t delivering, explore creating a multi-step program using incentives very selectively. It will be well worth your effort.
