How many times have you found yourself browsing your favourite e-commerce site, adding items to your cart along the way, only to get distracted by something and having to abandon the whole process? I know. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. In fact, statistically speaking, you fall into the 70% of online buyers that abandon their carts without following through on their purchase. If I could summarise in a couple of words why having the right cart abandonment campaign in your e-commerce strategy is important, it would be this: revenue recovery. Estimates vary across e-commerce sites and different industry groups but employing the right cart abandonment program into your marketing activities could help you recover as much as 63% of sales that would otherwise have slipped through fingers.
Of course, it’s not just about the money. As marketing professionals, we want to make sure our strategies are performing to the very best of their capabilities so keep reading to find out more about the difference cart abandonment campaigns can make to your e-commerce efforts.
The E-Commerce space is on fire
Let’s start off with an easy one. How many people do you know that don’t shop online? I bet you can count them on one hand. Buying online was already an established trend before 2020, add in the COVID pandemic and what you’ve got now is an ever-growing pool of consumers that are going digital for the products or services they require. Short of the internet collapsing, this trend is going to stick. In fact, by 2023, the forecasted growth rate of online shopping in the UK alone is expected to be as high as 34.5%. So what does this mean for you and your webstore?
Well, with a flourishing consumer base, that means more opportunities to entice new customers on to your site. It also means a higher risk of losing potential customers without the right strategies in place.
Improve your chances of connecting and converting those contacts
Cart abandonment campaigns offer you an opportunity to engage visitors browsing your site in a more direct manner. It gives you an insight as to why that individual failed to complete their customer journey, whether they were browsing that item at random or whether they were looking for a similar product. In many cases, it’s simply an issue of them forgetting to complete their order so you’re bound to pull in some easy sales.
You can also gain valuable feedback on price points and whether your offering is competitive to what other sellers are promoting. The truth is, cart abandonment programs can increase conversions by 10.7% so another reason to implement them into your marketing tool kit.
An opportunity to test incentives or retarget your audience completely
As with other marketing strategies, your cart abandonment campaigns give you the chance to run trial tests with your consumer base. Perhaps your buyers didn’t complete their check out process was because they felt that additional fees were too high or maybe they were offered a better bundle deal from one of your competitors? A follow up email offering a discount or free shipping might be all the incentive that buyer needed to complete their respective purchase. Or perhaps you can retarget your audience with products or services from similar categories? A well-orchestrated cart abandonment campaign should aid you in recovering lost opportunities and allow you to build relationships with future long-term customers.
Choosing the right communication channel
In the world of e-commerce, we’re finding that certain communication channels outperform others on a consistent. For example, email still performs to an incredibly high standard when used to convey your cart abandonment campaigns. Remember that these are consumers that have already expressed an interest in your services so in most cases they’ll already be opted-in to your communications. Opted-in data always performs to a much higher standard anyways with an average open rate of 15.68%. An email re-offering a service or product may be all it takes to finally win that customer over, with the best emails always containing user content specific promotions.
And remember emails attached to any cart abandonment strategies are intrinsically linked to actions that have already been taken by contacts that have either purchased or shown purchasing intent. Statistically, these types of triggered campaigns tend to perform up to three times better than typical batch sends and present a good line of enquiry for future sales. In order to achieve this, make sure to take advantage of AI capability in your email platform by adding campaigns featuring relevant product categories or content that have been viewed by other buyers.
Conclusion
Always keep in mind that your cart abandonment program is there to help you recapture any lost opportunities that might have slipped through your sales funnel and maintain contact with customers that might potentially turn into repeat buyers. If you’re looking to run a competent e-commerce site that consistently draws in visitors and builds a loyal base, then there are few marketing tools that will be as effective as the cart abandonment campaign.