5 Strategies to Recapture Abandoned Carts
The good ol’ abandoned cart… it plagues all online shops.
Yep, almost 70% of shoppers will abandon their cart when shopping online.
So that’s the bad news...
But also good news.
Why?
Yes, it happens to all online stores, which means we actually know a lot about why shoppers abandon their carts. And this is great because it creates the opportunity for us to implement innovative strategies to recoup those lost sales from your site visitor’s abandoned carts.
Our top tips to recover abandoned carts
1. Retargeting
We are all about retargeting. Retargeting can be a great, and did we mention, cost-effective way to bring back your customers who showed interest in your products without completing a purchase.
Retargeting ads are strategically placed to remind shoppers of your brand and ultimately bring them back to your site, ultimately increasing sales.
For example, a site visitor adds a high-ticket item like a DSLR camera to their shopping cart and they make it all the way to the order form on your website, but don’t actually make the purchase.
What went wrong?
Well, there’s a lot that could have gone awry, which we will talk about in another post, but for now, we can assume that because they made it all the way to the purchase form that they are pretty interested in the product.
So now, you can use Facebook retargeting or other retargeting strategies to show them ads specifically geared towards the item, in this case, a camera that they never purchased.
And people who see a retargeting ad are 3x more likely to click through compared to other types of ads.
2. Recovery emails
Recovery emails have been around for a while so it’s not the newest trend, but still, one that works.
The goal of recovery emails can be to remind your potential customers of the items that they left behind in their cart, but it’s also a great way to highlight a few benefits of shopping with your brand.
Maybe you offer:
- Free shipping
- Super fast shipping
- A stellar return policy
- Better-than-average warranty
- More ways to pay
For example, a lot of online stores are seeing really great results with payment gateways like FlexPay that allow customers to pay for items in installments. Especially items that are on the more expensive side.
But these are not just awesome options to offer your customers but also benefits that you need to highlight in your recovery emails.
So you might want to send an email to someone who left an expensive camera in their cart something like:
Hey, did you forget something?
We see you left your Canon EOS 80D camera in your cart and it’s lonely.
Don’t forget that we offer 5 interest-free flex payments so you don’t have to wait to payday to grab it.
You can purchase your shiny new Canon now with your first installment of just $200 with FlexPay.
This will help keep your brand in front of potential customers and remind them why they should shop with you, which will help recoup some of those lost sales.
And well-executed abandoned cart emails on average recoup around 10.7% of lost sales.
Not too shabby, eh?
3. Chatbots and automation tools
If you use Facebook, you’ve probably noticed the chatbots as they are a pretty big thing right now for ecommerce stores.
This is a great example of how to automate your abandoned cart recovery. Instead of sending them an email or paying to run an ad, you can try sending them a Facebook message via a bot.
After all, Facebook messages also have a higher open rate than conventional emails so it will be easier to remind people of their forgotten item(s).
Or you can use a task automation tool like Zapier to automatically send lost leads to your email marketing software.
The goal here is to set things up once then let the automation do the rest.
Work smarter, not harder with automation
4. Mobile optimization
More and more people are shopping on a mobile device, but a shopping cart on a mobile device sports a higher abandoned cart rate than those shopping on a desktop.
In fact, 85.65% of shopping carts on a mobile device are abandoned.
So since small (er) screens seem to equal more abandoned carts, you will want to optimize your recovery emails and ads for mobile as well.
For recovery emails optimized for mobile, try these tips:
-Make sure your emails load quickly
-Your subject lines should grab attention
-All text, links, and images should work and be formatted for a mobile device
The more you optimize your recovery emails for mobile devices, the more sales you are going to regain.
5. Push notifications
We love push notifications…
But sometimes we don’t.
We know, it’s a bit contradictory.
But here’s why.
They can work great for some brands and target markets and then some potential customers may be annoyed by them.
So it’s best to give them a shot and see how they perform.
The cool thing about push notifications is that once your potential customers have opted in for them, you can send them personalized notifications about everything from products they added to their carts to personalized offers and even brand benefits.
So make sure to try push notifications that are personalized to each shopper because these can feel a bit more personal than an email, resulting in higher conversions.
How Rocket Park can help you recoup one-third of your lost ecommerce sales
According to Small Business Trends, a survey by Marketing Signals found a 90% failure rate in ecommerce stores within the first four months, which was attributed to a poorly executed marketing plan coupled with less than optimal search visibility.
What does this mean?
Well, it means that these stores didn’t have the online visibility for people to find them.
So your ecommerce shop needs to have a great marketing strategy optimized for online visibility and this includes a great abandoned cart strategy.
If you think your online shop could benefit from an optimized abandoned cart strategy or if you need any help with ecommerce, let’s chat.
A more optimized ecommerce site for increased revenue with Rocket Park.