You’re driving plenty of people to your product pages — so why aren’t you making more sales?
An abandoned cart happens for several reasons you’ve probably experienced yourself: You’re scrolling through your Instagram feed and see a product you love, but you don’t have your credit card handy. Or you see a box to enter a promo code, so you hold off, hoping the retailer will send you one.
Whatever the case, there are a few simple tactics you can use to improve cart recovery.
Many people who add products to their online shopping cart are just looking and have no intention of making a purchase at that time. However, customers who are ready to buy often encounter obstacles that hold them back.
Research by the Baymard Institute found the most common reason for shopping cart abandonment was additional costs customers encountered when checking out.
Half of the over 4,500 U.S. shoppers surveyed said taxes, high shipping costs and other fees caused them to forego a purchase.
Other cart abandonment culprits include:
If your company is struggling with shopping cart abandonment, take a closer look at your e-commerce platform and your check-out process first. If your customers are encountering any of these issues, there’s a good chance you can improve sales by eliminating some of these barriers.
The average cart abandonment rate for all online orders across industries was 88% in March 2020, according to Statista.
The rates were lower for companies in the insurance, pharmaceutical and travel industries, with cart abandonment rates ranging from 68% to 80%, and higher than average for clothing, luxury items and cars.
When it comes to reducing shopping cart abandonment, what actually works? Here are a few tactics that have been successful for our clients.
Shopify offers a variety of apps designed to improve checkout conversions and retarget customers who have abandoned shopping carts.
The Recart App reaches out to customers using Facebook Messenger, which is quickly becoming one of the most popular ways to connect with your audience. The app boasts a 5%-14% conversion rate, which is significantly higher than many emails get.
In addition to sending cart abandonment reminders, you can also use the Recart App to:
You may not think your customers are on Facebook, but the numbers don’t lie. The platform had more than 2.6 billion monthly active users as of August 2020. Even professionals in the most technical industries spend time scrolling through their Facebook feeds, so there’s a good chance you’ll reach them with Facebook retargeting ads even if they ignore all your emails.
One of our clients, a power cord manufacturer, used this tactic to retarget abandoned cart shoppers.
Kuno helped the company create a custom list of anyone who had visited a page that included “cart” in the URL and excluded anyone who visited a “Thank You” page, indicating they had completed a purchase. The ad was part of a campaign that offered same-day shipping on power cords, a great way to entice people who were already considering a purchase.
The Results: The Facebook retargeting ads drove almost 7,000 people back to the website, and altogether, the campaign resulted in $370,000 in sales.
You might be skeptical about email, but it’s still among the most cost-effective digital marketing strategies. Eighty percent of marketers reported an increase in email engagement over the past year, according to HubSpot’s most recent marketing statistics.
Cart abandonment emails are easy to create and automate. If you already use a content management system like HubSpot’s, you can create a workflow to email people who have visited a product page or demo page recently but haven’t filled out the form.
A simple reminder might be all they need to nudge them toward the next step.
This email from Famous Footwear came with the subject line, “Don’t Forget! Your Rewards Cash Is Waiting!” and offered $10 in rewards cash, plus an online promo code for 25% off.
That’s an offer that’s hard to refuse.
While it certainly makes sense to send abandoned cart emails within 24 hours of an attempted purchase, sometimes you might need to send more than one.
Research by Omnisend found a series of three emails for cart recovery resulted in 63% more orders than a single email.
An email workflow for cart abandonment is also more successful than manual emails.
Omnisend found that, on average, cart recovery email workflows had a 40% open rate and a 9% click rate.
That’s 154% more opens and 176% more clicks than what the same emails had when they were sent manually!
Many people who abandon their carts are waiting for a better offer to come along. Some might be more receptive to a coupon code, while others will jump on an offer for free shipping.
Whether you use Facebook Messenger, launch retargeting ads or send an email, don’t be afraid to test different offers.
You might be surprised by what performs well. One of our clients tested free shipping compared to a promo code during Cyber Monday and found the promo code was more enticing.
An offer that is personalized to your prospects’ interest will be even more enticing.
Research by Mailchimp found email campaigns segmented by interest have 74% higher click rates compared to more general ones.
If you’re a B2B company like many of our clients, you can certainly try some of these cart abandonment tactics. You’ll just need to think about it a little differently since the sales cycle for your products and services is most likely longer.
For instance, your prospects might visit a demo page and leave because:
These are all concerns you can address as you think about your buyer’s journey.
For instance, you could consider adding trust symbols like client logos or testimonials to your demo page so prospects can see you have proven expertise.
It might be helpful for them to see a side-by-side comparison of how your product’s features stack up against your top competitors.
Maybe you can share a resource with them to help communicate the value of your product to their executive team and how quickly they can expect to see a return on their investment.
You might want to re-evaluate the questions you ask in your demo request form to make it easier to fill out. If they’ve already filled out another form on your website, you can use smart content to pre-populate the form fields or ask different questions.
Make sure your demo request page clearly states what they can expect during the demo. For those who visit the page but don’t convert, you might consider sending them a list of the most common questions your sales team receives during demos to help guide the conversation.
You might also consider sending a link directly to a salesperson’s calendar so they can schedule a meeting with them right away, instead of filling out a form.
Consider testing other offers, too. Your buyers might prefer a free trial instead of watching a demo.
When a prospect has added something to their cart or visited a demo page, chances are they are much closer to becoming a customer than a lead you’ve been nurturing for months.
Why wouldn’t you invest the same amount of time and effort into nudging them to make that purchase.
Giving some extra attention to a customer who has abandoned their cart can be an easy way to score a quick win. Make sure you’re covering this critical stage in your digital marketing strategy.
To reel in these prospects who are already nibbling the bait, you need a compelling offer, a strong message and eye-catching design. That’s where a digital marketing agency like Kuno Creative can help.
To learn more about how we helped Stay Online achieve success with marketing strategies that included cart abandonment tactics, read the full case study.
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