Cart abandonment is arguably the biggest hindrance ecommerce businesses have to face on a daily basis.
Fortunately, it's also one of the few challenges that, if appropriately dealt with, can have a major impact on company's bottom line. So what are some of the most effective ways to fight high cart abandonment rates?
1. Pop-ups
Marketers tend to use pop-ups for their primary purpose, i.e. to generate leads. They capture the attention of users who are interested in their offer and convince them to stay in touch. This way they can continue the conversation via email and gradually turn leads into buyers.
What some marketers might be failing to notice is the other, equally important, purpose pop-ups have. It is to capture the attention of users who were about to leave your store and present them with a final, cannot miss-out-on offer.
Exit intent pop-ups are a great tool that can make a significant impact on your profits. But there are two key elements that make them truly effective:
- their timing
- the offer they're presenting
Choosing the right incentive is crucial if you want to convince your users to give you another chance. It has to be something special, relevant, and valuable-enough to justify the interruption pop-ups cause. Make sure that you choose it wisely, then test it. Base your final choice on data, rather than just gut feeling.
If you're in the process of choosing the right incentive, this article from GetResponse provides a lot of ideas for effective lead magnets that you can use in your own campaigns.
2. Welcome series with an incentive
The customer journey is often a long and complex process. There can be many occasions where users might be falling out of your funnel. Possibly even after they've made an initial commitment and signed up to your mailing list.
Getting new users to fill out your form is just the first step to turn leads into customers. What you need to do next is to convince them that the offer is good enough for them to return to your store and complete placing the order.
In order to turn your leads into buyers, you need to first realize the reasons users might not be so keen to make the order. Some of the top reasons found by Statista and VWO are being presented with unexpected costs, overall price being too high, and low trust.
The next step is to approach these issues through a welcome email series that will change their minds. Encourage a transaction by:
- providing a discount code
- reminding them that the offer is about expire
- letting them know the products will sell out soon
- showing them what other users think about that product
3. Abandoned cart autoresponder series
The most popular solution for retrieving abandoned carts are cart abandonment emails.
Marketers often choose these action-based messages to re-capture their audience, before they go shopping somewhere else or forget about their need altogether.
The two key elements that make them so effective is that they're highly relevant and timely. They relate to the products and brands users have already shown interest in, and are usually sent within a short period of time, making sure they don't forget about them just yet.
It's worth sending cart abandonment emails more than once. You should plan a series of 2 to 3 messages that will be sent within a couple of hours, after 24 hours, and 3 to 5 days after the users leaves the site and their online cart full.
To make your messages even more effective, consider including the following 4 elements:
- Great persuasive copy
- Emotional imagery, such as a sad person waving goodbye
- Humor, such as funny animals guarding your products
- Psychological triggers, such as fear of loss and social proof
4. Retargeting
Another great way to retrieve lost sales is to follow users with retargeting ads. Instead of relying on just one medium, in this case email, you can increase your chances of getting users back on your website when they're surfing other sites or using other services and apps.
Retargeting can be done across many platforms, including search engine and social ads. Choosing the right platform is important, just as is how you craft your message.
Before creating your retargeting ads, consider what your users were doing when they decided to leave your site. Did they abandon the cart in step one or step four of your check-out process? What micro-conversions did you observe along the way? The answers to these types of questions will help you write and design your ads effectively.
If you want to learn more about cart abandonment - why it is so important for ecommerce businesses' bottom line, how to tackle it effectively, and how brands such as Adidas and Dollar Shave Club do it - download this guide "Using Marketing Automation to Retrieve Shopping Carts".
