Effectively recovering abandoned carts is essential to e-commerce success. Email marketing, effectively deployed, will significantly increase the cart recovery rate, thereby converting lost leads into valuable sales. My name is Gavin, and I run an email and SMS marketing agency focusing on e-commerce. We have generated over $5.8 million in revenue for our clients, and I am here to demonstrate how Klaviyo can optimise your cart recovery rate. The guide aims to explain the structure and strategies behind the abandoned cart and checkout flows, with a real focus on increasing the engagement the flows get but also the amount of revenue and lost sales they recover.
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Understanding the Abandoned Cart Flow
Initial Setup
When a customer adds an item to their cart but doesn’t progress the sale an abandoned cart flow is triggered, note this is different from the abandon checkout which is one step further along in that process (after they add an item to their cart). To activate this in Klaviyo, ensure the “Add to Cart” metric is correctly installed and integrated with your Shopify store. To get that cheeky code installed, just follow this guide here (click here). This step is vital for initiating the flow correctly.
Filtering Criteria
Emails need to be targeted and relevant and you do not want any cross-overs happening with multiple flows sending at once, so be sure to apply the following filters:
- Started Checkout: Exclude customers who have initiated the checkout process. This prevents crossover with the AB checkout flow.
- Placed Order: Exclude customers who have already ordered.
- Subscribed to Email Marketing: Only customers who have subscribed to email marketing should be included. You will be surprised by how much just this filter can influence your deliverability as a whole.
It is frustrating for customers to receive unnecessary emails when they have progressed in the purchasing process or completed their purchase. These filters aim to limit them.
Crafting Effective Emails
Splitting on Purchase History
As customers enter the AB cart flow, you should be splitting them according to their order history:
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- First-Time Customers: For new customers, the first email should remind them of the cart contents and offer a discount to encourage their first purchase. Include a dynamic product block that effectively showcases the items left in the cart. Some of you may think that adding a discount in the first email is a bad idea… but you are wrong. Priority number one is about getting the product into someone’s hands, if they have never ordered before, make that process easy and give them an incentive that is worth just as much as you gave them at the sign-up form stage.
- Returning Customers: For repeat customers, their first email should recap the items left in their cart but without offering a discount. Discount abuse by repeat customers needs to be controlled.
- Timing Delays: Email send times in cart recovery are critical. It is beneficial to research split-testing email send times to narrow down the optimal time. Test send times of 15 versus 30 minutes after cart abandonment to establish which is the most effective.
Personalisation and Dynamic Content
Personalised emails significantly increase their effectiveness. Use trigger splits based on the variety of items added to the cart. For example:
- Fruit Collection: If a customer adds apples to their cart, the email needs to highlight apple benefits, reiterate the discount, and cross-sell other fruit items.
- Vegetable Collection: If a customer adds broccoli to their cart, the email should focus on vegetable benefits and also cross-sell other vegetables.
In this way emails are tailored to the customer’s interests, making them more relevant and appealing, while maximising spend. All you need to do is create a trigger split that looks like the following and splits people based on the collection/item that triggered the flow:
Reiterating the Discount
Always reiterate the discount code in each email in the sequence that is going to those who have never ordered.. Bearing your margins in mind, consider increasing the discount to incentivise the purchase. Also, just remember if you claimed that there is an expiration date for your discount it needs need to be accurate to ensure credibility and legal compliance.
Optimising the Abandoned Checkout Flow
Initial Setup
The abandoned checkout flow is similar to the abandoned cart flow but is triggered when a customer starts the checkout process but doesn’t complete it. Ensure the “Started Checkout” metric is set up correctly in Klaviyo (this should be done by default).
Filtering Criteria
Apply the following filters to this flow:
- Placed Order: Exclude customers who have completed their purchase.
- Subscribed to Email Marketing: Include only those who have subscribed to email marketing.
Crafting Effective Emails
The abandoned checkout flow structure can mirror the abandoned cart flow, albeit with slight adjustments in messaging:
- First Email: The customer is reminded of the items in their checkout and they receive an incentive to complete the purchase.
- Follow-Up Emails: Additional email reminders are sent and the discount can be increased if the initial incentive isn’t enough.
The aim of this flow is to ensure that customers are reminded of their intended purchase, encouraging them to complete using an automation structure identical to that of the abandoned cart.
If you want an outline of these exact flows, click this link: https://in-box.co.nz/abcarts/
Conclusion
Implementing effective abandoned cart and checkout flows in Klaviyo will significantly boost the cart recovery rate and overall sales. Through strategic splitting of your client base, timing emails effectively, and personalising content, you can optimise your email marketing efforts. With these flows, and what sets them apart from your regular abandonment flows is your ability to split people up based on the items they left behind (refer to the trigger splits mentioned in the AB Cart.
Monitoring the performance of your flows is key. The importance of split-testing subject lines, timings, what items you cross and when you cross-sell them can not be understated.
For a detailed visual guide and access to the automation board, click here. If you have any questions or need further assistance, feel free to reach out.
