Shopify Abandoned Cart Emails: The Complete Beginner’s Guide

Making your Shopify store a success can often be more complicated than it seems. Even if you think you’ve mastered the basics, by selecting high quality products to sell, investing in effective marketing campaigns, and offering amazing customer service, you could be missing out on sales.

Why? Because customers are indecisive. 

Nearly 88% of all digital shopping carts are left before customers finish a purchase. That means even if your online sales are excellent, they could be just a tenth of what you can really achieve. While you might not be able to persuade everyone who leave your store to come back and make a purchase, you can find ways to recapture some of those lost opportunities. 

Abandoned cart emails are one of the best ways to convince buyers to come back to your store, and finish their purchase. Here’s everything you need to know to start creating fantastic abandoned cart emails for Shopify. 

What are Abandoned Cart Emails?

Abandoned cart emails are messages automatically delivered to a subscriber’s inbox when they add something to their product cart, but fail to complete a purchase. Essentially, they’re a friendly nudge, reminding customers of all the benefits of buying your products. 

Although these notifications may seem a little pushy at first, they deliver amazing results. One report found that companies using cart abandonment emails earn back up to 14% of lost sales.  

With cart abandonment emails, you get a second chance to convert a site visitor into a paying customer. You can even boost your relationships with customers, by offering them coupon codes and discounts if they do make a purchase. 

How to Use Abandoned Cart Emails on Shopify

There are a few different ways to create abandoned cart emails for your Shopify store. One option is to simply use the Shopify Email app, to design branded emails, and set up automations. You can even manage your campaigns within Shopify, add express checkout buttons for quick transactions, and get handy advice from Shopify on how to optimize subject lines. 

Shopify email marketing tools come with useful templates to get you started, support for conditional logic, and built-in analytical tools. 

If you’re not overly impressed by the tools available from Shopify directly, however, you can always use an integration. There are tons of email marketing automation apps that can integrate with Shopify, available in the app marketplace. When choosing the ideal solution, make sure you think about:

• Customization: Ensure you can customize everything from your email template, to your branding, the images used in your emails, and your automation workflows. The more control you have, the more unique and personalized your campaigns will be. 
• Pricing: Remember that most add-ons are free to apply to Shopify, but you will usually need to pay a monthly subscription fee to access all the features. Make sure your chosen tool needs to adhere to your budget, but still offer a broad selection of features.
• Advanced automations: Advanced automations will give you more control over how you send abandoned cart emails to customers. You’ll be able to set up specific triggers which determine exactly when and how customers receive your messages. 
• Reporting and analytics: Reporting tools, analytical solutions, and even A/B testing options will ensure you can optimize the ROI from your abandoned cart emails over time. Look for a solution that offers plenty of useful behind-the-scenes insights. 
• Extra features: Access to bonus features, such as AI tools for generating subject lines, segmentation tools for personalization, and even options for cross-channel marketing (such as SMS messaging) can help you to boost the results of your campaigns.

Best Practices for Shopify Abandoned Cart Emails

Cart abandonment is a common practice in the ecommerce world, but the evidence shows customers do respond well to cart abandonment messages. In fact, in 2021, 40% of people who clicked on an email about an abandoned cart completed their order. 

Here are some top tips to help you get the most out of your campaign. 

1. Create an Email Series

While sending a single cart abandonment email is a great way to boost your chances of sales, a full series can be even more powerful. According to one study, merchants who send three messages to customers after they abandon their cart see 69% more orders on average. 

The key is to be gentle, not pushy with your series. Start with a gentle nudge email, saying something like “Did you forget this”, with an image of the product. Next, follow up and suggest they complete their purchase with an urgency-provoking message such as “Don’t miss out on this product.”

Finally, consider providing an incentive to encourage them to act. For instance, free shipping, a small discount, or a free gift can boost your chances of success. 

2. Master Timing

Timing is everything in email marketing. However, it’s difficult to know exactly when the best time is to reach out to a customer. Usually, it’s a good idea to send your first message no more than an hour after a customer leaves their cart. Wait too long, and your customer’s purchasing intent may change. 

Send the second message around 12 hours later, and the final one 24 hours later. You can experiment with A/B tests to find out exactly what cadence works best with your audience. 

Remember, if they don’t respond to three messages, it’s usually a good idea to simply give up, don’t just keep pushing the sale, or you could lose your customers.

3. Optimize your Subject Lines

Just like timing, subject lines make a huge difference to how effective your email messages really are. If your customers aren’t excited by your subject line, they’re not going to open your message. With this in mind, make your subject line as enticing as possible. 

Drawing attention to an offer like “free shipping” or “15% off” can instantly improve your open rates. Subject lines that leverage the fear of missing out (FOMO) can be useful too. For instance, let your customers know that their products are selling out quickly:

Keep in mind, your subject lines for abandoned cart emails should still be reflective of your brand tone of voice. Let your personality shine through.

4. Show them the Product

If your prospect has been shopping on a variety of sites, they might forget which products you’re referring to with your abandoned cart email, so give them a quick reminder. Including a high-quality image of the product, along with information about it’s price can drive amazing results.

It’s also worth adding a message that lets your customers know that you’re holding onto the product they want for them (For the time being). This alleviates some of the concerns that they might have to come back and start shopping again from scratch. 

You will need to ensure you configure your Shopify store to save customer carts, however, so speak to your Shopify expert if you’re not sure how to do this.

5. Add a Call to Action

A call to action (CTA) is important in virtually any email campaign, but it’s particularly crucial for abandoned cart messages. You need to make it as easy as possible for customers to not only return to your website, but make a purchase straight away. 

Somewhere close to your product image, add a clear and easy to use CTA button, ensuring it works well across all devices. Adding a specific bonus or benefit to your button, such as “Get 10% off now”, could also drive your chances of conversions up. 

6. Make it Easy to Get Help

Sometimes, your customers simply abandon their carts because they get distracted. Other times, they might not checkout because they still have questions. Offering an easy way to get in touch with your team will allow them to address any concerns they might have. 

Make sure your customers can easily reach out to you, via live chat, email, or phone call, if they have any questions they need to answer first. You could also consider adding a link to your FAQ page or terms and conditions on the bottom of each email. 

7. Highlight your Benefits

Finally, your customers might need a little reminder of why they should consider shopping with you, instead of just looking for the same product elsewhere. While you can always offer discounts and coupon codes to help with this, simply highlighting your USPs can be valuable too. 

For instance, remind your customers that you offer free shipping on all orders over a certain price, or that you provide a money-back guarantee. 

Mastering your Shopify Abandoned Cart Emails

Using abandoned cart emails on Shopify can be one of the best ways to increase your chances of sales, and boost your company’s profitability. The good news is it’s extremely easy to get started. Whether you choose to use Shopify’s own email marketing tools, or you integrate your own preferred provider, you can start setting up campaigns in no time.

Use the tips above to capture the attention of your shoppers, and take your Shopify sales strategy to the next level. If you need extra help optimizing your Shopify store and marketing strategies, reach out to the team at Storetasker today, to find your own Shopify expert. 

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