Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. If you have a digital product shop, chances are high you’re losing out on some of your potential sales. Why? The average rate online shoppers leave their cart without checking out is high — nearly 70%! 

But the good news is, you can recover some of those lost sales by paying attention to this one marketing tool: your abandoned cart emails. Writing effective abandoned cart emails won’t bring back every shopper who ghosted you, but you will convince at least a few of them to finish the checkout process. Let’s talk about how you can do that through your abandoned cart emails.

What is an abandoned cart email?

Just like it sounds, an abandoned cart email is sent to a customer who added products to their shopping cart, but left without completing their purchase. Abandoned cart emails remind a customer (gently and politely!) that they haven’t finished checking out yet, and include a link back to the shop.

Why do people abandon their shopping carts, anyway? There are so many reasons, but just to name a few:

• The checkout process is too long, complicated, or buggy
• A shop doesn’t have enough or preferred payment methods
• The website is too slow or not mobile-friendly
• Shipping isn’t free or fast enough
• Shoppers don’t want to create an account to checkout

With all these obstacles to overcome, do abandoned cart emails even work? According to studies on hundreds of brands, yes. Over 44% of abandoned cart emails are opened, which is pretty dang high. And nearly 30% of those emails led to a recovered sale.

What makes an effective abandoned cart email

As a small biz owner, time is money, and every second of your workday counts! Luckily, abandoned cart emails don’t have to be long or complicated to be effective.

Make sure you include these elements in your abandoned cart emails:

• An attention-grabbing subject line. You can create a sense of FOMO or exclusivity with a catchy subject line like “Are you forgetting something?” or “Your cart misses you, name.” Don’t be afraid to be witty or silly if it’s on-brand for your biz!
• A reminder of what they left behind. Always include what the customer left behind in their shopping cart! Images will help convince someone to go back and buy.
• Simple, straightforward design. You don’t even have to write that much copy to make it a great email. A clean layout and eye-catching visuals with the basic details of their order can make a huge impact.
• Extras to encourage them to buy. Why not add a coupon code or bonus to see if that entices a shopper to buy?
• A call-to-action button. Most importantly, don’t forget a CTA button that takes your customer back to your shop so they can complete your order! Make the button big, colorful, and easy to find when skimming the email.

Not sure if your abandoned cart email is as good as it can be? Think back to one you might’ve received the last time you bailed without checking out online. What email nudged you to go back and finish your order? Or, at the very least, what email do you remember reading (even if you didn’t go back to buy?)

Send the email at the right time

Just as important as what your email includes, if not even more important, is when you send your abandoned cart email.

I recommend sending your first abandoned cart email after 1 hour of abandonment. According to SalesCycle research, less than an hour was too soon, and 24 hours later was much too late:

• The conversion rate on abandoned cart emails sent less than 1 hour was about 3%
• Emails sent 1 hour later averaged 6.3%
• At 24 hours after abandonment, the average conversion rate was 2.5%

The sweet spot seems to be 1 hour. Either way, time is of the essence here; the longer you wait to send an email, the more likely it is you won’t win that shopper back.

Use follow up emails to your advantage

What do you do if your abandoned cart email doesn’t encourage someone to go back and finish their purchase? Or worse yet, what if it’s not even opened and read?!

You don’t have to give up! If this happens, I recommend sending one follow up email. And if that doesn’t work, send one promotional email. 

What do you put in a follow up email? Think about why a shopper didn’t finish their original order. If they bought that item elsewhere, maybe you can recommend a different item that they may like even more.

As for a promotional email, it’s pretty simple. Sweeten the deal with an exclusive offer or discount. Not only will you recover a lost sale, you’ll strengthen your relationship with that shopper to boot.

And if those emails don’t work? You can keep folks on your email list and keep engaging with them, but you don’t have to do any direct, hard-hitting promotions. Anything more will seem too salesy or too desperate. Let them come to YOU now.

Start closing more sales now!

There’s no one right way to write an effective abandoned cart email, but I know these tips will give you the jumpstart you need on those lost sales. If one tactic doesn’t work, play around with your method and try something new! You might find that different subject lines or other incentives work a little better when persuading shoppers to come back.

Recovering sales with these emails is one way to drive up your revenue, but I have another way that’s a bit more proactive and less reactive. Increasing traffic to your digital product shop in the first place! The more eyes you have on your shop, the more likely you’ll nab a sale or two.

Growing your digital product shop and bringing in more site traffic is definitely easier than it sounds, which is why I dedicated an entire YouTube video to the topic. Make sure you watch it if you’re ready to take your shop to the next level!