Turning abandoned carts into loyal customers: Webinar recap, with insights from Alex Danchenko

Abandoned carts are a constant challenge for every eCommerce marketer. They are the stuff of nightmares that wake you up in the dark of the night, and with good reason, as the global abandoned cart rate in the industry currently stands at 70%. Ignoring such a high figure would be self-defeating and damaging to your business. To help you tackle this, we recently held a webinar discussing abandoned carts, how to improve cart abandonment rates using triggered emails, and how to make triggered email campaigns as effective as possible.

As always, you can watch the full webinar on our YouTube channel, absolutely for free.

Let’s get started with our recap.

Meet our expert

First, let’s introduce our guest expert, who gladly shared his insights and wisdom during our webinar.

Alex Danchenko is the co-founder and COO of Stripo and Yespo (an omnichannel customer data platform). He has 13+ years of experience in management consulting, with deep expertise in eCommerce and sales development that helps eCommerce businesses reach their goals.

In addition, Alex is an expert in AI-driven marketing, recommendation engines, and practical machine learning applications in eCommerce. He is also a trainer and author in business management, process optimization, and marketing strategy.

Understanding the problem with abandoned carts

Before diving into the solutions, we must understand what every marketer is up against and why drop-offs are a big deal. 

It might seem that when customers exit the funnel, new customers replace them, so what’s the point of conversion efforts? The main problem necessitating conversion initiatives is that acquiring a new customer is five to 25 times more expensive than simply retaining an existing customer.

Therefore, your main goal is to retain your existing customers and ensure that they are not leaving you midway through their shopping sessions. Consider the following statistics:

• on average, 7 out of 10 carts globally are abandoned;
• in monetary terms, uncompleted customer journeys and abandoned carts account for $4 trillion in lost potential revenue annually;
• only 28% of customers return to make another purchase at the same store.

There are many steps in the customer journey as customers progress toward completing a purchase, including the following:

• grabbing attention via email;
• providing and pitching a product that resonates with the customer via email;
• the customer adding this product to their cart;
• the checkout process.

Each of these steps may not lead to the next, and a customer could drop off at any of these points.

Knowing the point in the customer journey at which a drop-off occurs allows you to build proper communication to reengage shoppers by addressing the challenges they might have faced. Build a “safety net” filled with triggers such that for every reason a shopper may become inactive, you can deploy a solution to reactivate that potential customer. This is where triggered emails come into play.

Triggered emails 101

Triggered emails are automatic communications based on the subscriber’s actions, inactivity, or changes in behavior. They help maintain relevant, timely communication and are significantly more effective than the bulk email campaigns that most marketers actively use.

There is numerical proof for this effectiveness, as triggered emails:

• generate 24 times more revenue per email and 4 times more revenue overall;
• generate 18 times more profit;
• drive up to 20% of online shop revenue.

Evidently, triggered communications are important, and the problem with drop-offs is huge. But how do we address this problem? 

The 5 Rs of email marketing to use with triggered communications

In pursuit of ways to win back lost customers, there’s no need to be shy, and it’s imperative to revisit the fundamentals of email marketing — that is, the 5 Rs rule, in which the Rs stand for:

1. Right message — with proper design, consistent branding, effective personalization approaches, flawless responsive rendering, and perfect mobile adaptiveness.
2. Right people — who are basically your audience, segmented based on customer behavior and interests.
3. Right moment — you pick critical moments in the customer journey to send your email, with strategic timing.
4. Right channel — you want to use the right channel to reach your audience, whether it’s email, push notifications, SMS, or messaging apps, depending on subscriber activity.
5. Right context — which involves aligning the message with the subscriber’s current situation, lifecycle stage, and purchase history.

The 5 Rs rule is a long-standing, time-tested approach, and it is also applicable to triggered emails. Every triggered communication you want to implement in your marketing strategy can be — and should be — based on the 5 Rs approach to achieve maximum effectiveness.

We’ve established the basics of good communication and what triggered emails are, but what exactly should triggered emails look like? What tactics or strategies are supposed to nudge customers back onto the path to purchase?

10 triggered workflows to use in your marketing

All triggered workflows can be grouped into two major categories, each with its own distinct goals. The message, content, and other aspects of an email vary based on the type of workflow category under which the email falls.

The two workflow categories are as follows:

1. Conversion-driving workflows.
2. Retention and reactivation workflows.

Conversion-driving workflows comprise typical abandoned cart emails, “out of stock” update notifications, and weekly browse abandonment emails, while retention and reactivation workflows usually include win-back emails, special offers, and price drops.

The entire list that follows is not based on speculation or theories but on actual real-life examples, as well as the results of Yespo analyzing thousands of email campaigns and workflows to generate this list, providing you with inspiration and strong ideas for your triggered emails.

Abandoned cart

Abandoned cart workflows are the golden standard if you want to increase sales by reactivating shoppers who drop off the purchase path, and it’s pretty simple to set up.

Segment shoppers who did not complete their purchases within an hour. Send them an email presenting everything that was in their cart, with a gentle reminder them to complete the purchase. The tricky part here is deciding whether to send this email in one hour, two hours, three hours, or even 24 hours.

Price drop for products in abandoned carts

This workflow is a perfect match for a segment of customers who have added products to their carts but did not complete the purchase. Basically, it helps you reactivate these shoppers with an even more persuasive offer because the item is something that was already in their cart — and now the price has dropped. The automated workflow is activated if your customer adds an item to their cart and the price of the item(s) decreases within seven days.

Win-back campaign

A win-back campaign’s goal is to reengage inactive customers, reignite the interest of inactive subscribers, lower the churn rate, and increase customer loyalty.

Following the right person and the right time elements of the rule of the 5 Rs, the workflow is activated when a subscriber does not visit your website for 30 days, as this is the perfect segment for this triggered email.

A win-back campaign is a great tool for reactivating inactive subscribers in your database, as these campaigns can bring up to 8.3% of subscribers back on track, enabling you to actively reengage with them.

Price drop for viewed items

This workflow is also personalized and based on viewed and recommended items, but the rationale behind the trigger is slightly different. In this case, you want to reactivate customers by providing them with a logical and positive reason for the communication. The best use case for this workflow is a scenario in which a subscriber has viewed a product, has not made a purchase in seven days, and the price of that product has since dropped.

You need to set a threshold for what qualifies as a significant price decrease and trigger an email featuring the products that were viewed by the customer and are now discounted.

Back-in-stock notification

The back-in-stock workflow is designed to show care for your customers and is one of the most important triggers for improving the subscriber experience and building loyalty. It’s the perfect option for a scenario in which a shopper indicates an interest in your product by viewing it on your e-commerce platform but is unable to purchase the item because it is unavailable for some reason.

Next best offer

Unlike the previous workflows, this is a post-purchase communication. At its core, the next best offer is based on a customer’s previous purchases. The workflow can be activated from 1 to 7 days after the customer’s first initial order, and the message typically presents products that are frequently bought together or are complementary to the previously purchased product(s).

Special offer

With this trigger workflow, you’re also engaging individuals who are already in your active customer base. You can address different customer segments differently, and the entire workflow can be triggered once a month — for example, on the first Monday of each month. The message typically presents automatically selected offers that are currently running in your store.

The special offer workflow can be subdivided into the following three subtypes depending on the target audience for the message: 

• workflow for new customers to motivate them to place a second order, and you can word the message specifically for this customer segment;
• workflow for regular customers who are engaged and interested, presenting them with an offer that motivates them to complete their purchases;
• workflow for inactive customers to motivate them to visit your store and take advantage of special offers.

New arrival announcement

The new arrival announcement triggered email is best used to stimulate interest and reengage customers who have shown interest in a specific product category. You can identify categories of interest based they are most interested in.

Price drop for similar items

The goal of this triggered workflow is to motivate customers to make a purchase, and the value it brings to the customer is that you present additional options that are presently discounted.

If there are price drops on products similar to those the target customer was viewing, showing them additional available options from which they can choose is a good way to care for the customer.

Browse abandonment

The goal of this triggered workflow is to proactively reengage subscribers who have viewed products on the website or app — these shoppers are still at the top of the funnel. Although they have not yet added anything to their carts, you can already identify their interests. The browse abandonment workflow is triggered when a product is viewed but not added to the cart or purchased in your offline shop. In this case, you can send the email or push the notification within an hour. Typically, the message presents the products viewed by the customer, with the email presenting several of the viewed items.

Wrapping up

Reactivating your customers is a top priority if you don’t want to jeopardize your business’s performance. It not only saves you money, as you don’t need to invest heavily in finding new customers, but it also gives you a boost in the long run, as you retain your existing audience by building loyalty and providing them with the personalized experience they crave. These triggered emails are at the cutting edge of email marketing. They’ll be your trusted assistants in the battle for shoppers’ attention.