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Getting customers to visit your site and place items in their cart is only half the battle. According to Baymard Institute, cart abandonment rates average around 70% on most e-commerce sites. Re-engaging even a fraction of these customers can drastically increase a business's revenue. Luckily, there are numerous straightforward ways shopping sites can reclaim abandoned cart revenue.

How to reclaim abandoned cart revenue

Personalized abandoned cart emails

Abandoned cart emails are nothing new; you’ve likely received these emails from Amazon and other e-commerce sites you frequent. However, many abandoned cart emails feel more like advertisements than personalized messages.

Personalized abandoned cart emails drastically improve revenue potential, especially those acknowledging your customers’ shopping habits. For example, triggered emails that recognize first-time shoppers may read differently than those sent to long-time customers. Emails sent to new buyers can offer introductory gifts or how-to guides, whereas those sent to long-time customers may provide benefits for their loyalty.

Engage anonymous cart abandoners

Reclaiming abandoned cart revenue gets trickier when you realize how many of your customers are unidentified. In some cases, these customers aren’t on your email list. In other cases, they’re on your email list but aren’t logged in.

Sending emails to unidentified customers can be challenging. Luckily, Retention.com’s CartID+ tool can use cookies to reach out to otherwise anonymous customers. CartID+ can even send abandoned cart emails to customers who haven’t opted into your newsletter.

SMS notifications

Emails aren’t the only way to get a customer’s attention; text messages can be a more engaging medium for retention marketing. Some sign up for website mailing lists using emails they’ve created to collect spam mail. Although abandoned cart emails aren’t spam, some of your contact attempts won’t be seen if you only use emails to engage cart abandoners.

SMS notifications can’t be flagged as spam and are more likely to be seen than emails. Additionally, some studies suggest mobile customers are more likely to abandon their carts than desktop users. Text messages are an ideal way to communicate with your mobile site users.

Learn more about your customers

Personalizing communication is an exercise in futility if you know nothing about your customers. Apps like Retention.com’s Enrich tool can provide valuable information about the people visiting your site. Learning more about your shoppers’ demographics and interests can enhance your email-campaigning efforts.

Knowing whether a customer has a kid, a pet, or a specific hobby will improve your site’s product recommendations. The Enrich tool, combined with your abandoned cart information, is vital to building a customer profile to enhance your triggered emails.

Offer discounts and alert customers when sales are live

Sometimes, people abandon their carts because they decide an item’s price is too high. Offering a discount can be an excellent way to reclaim abandoned cart revenue. As a matter of fact, some customers abandon their cart specifically because they think they’ll receive a discount.

Popular sites like LifeHacker teach customers to use cart abandonment as a method for buying products at a lower price. It isn’t uncommon for a customer to place a product in multiple carts across multiple sites and buy it from the one that sends them a coupon. Still, you don’t have to cut into your profits to engage customers.

Sites like Amazon observe products that customers leave in their carts and send them emails when they go on sale. This method lets you re-engage cart abandoners while making the most of your planned discount events.

Create a guest checkout page

Many customers abandon carts because they don’t want to waste time creating an account. Customer accounts are ideal for collecting emails, phone numbers, and addresses for future engagement campaigns. Still, customers who can’t buy your products without creating an account may choose to shop elsewhere. Guest checkout pages are a simple way to make it easier for customers to shop on your site.

Display shipping options on the product page

Some customers abandon their carts because the shipping costs catch them off guard. Some sales methodologies suggest obscuring a product’s price by hiding shipping costs until the customer is ready to check out. However, the modern consumer has grown tired of dishonest sales practices.

Although you may not be able to reduce shipping costs, being upfront about them can reduce your abandoned cart rates.

Stick with what works

There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach in retention marketing. You shouldn’t spend time on campaigns that you run blindly. Monitoring your engagement campaigns and investing more time and effort into the methods yielding the best results is essential.

If you’re considering an application or service to help you with customer retention, you should ensure it offers in-depth reporting. Retention.com tracks revenue and ROI weekly and monthly, making it easy to access your needed data. Additionally, Retention.com has valuable insights into the domains, landing pages, and times of day that generate the most emails.

What Is customer retention?

Customer retention refers to the number of people who make repeat purchases from a business. Growth hackers will tell you that by increasing customer retention rates, you can often increase your revenue faster.

The thing is, customer retention can be difficult for e-commerce businesses because there are so many alternatives available for consumers. However, a retention marketing plan can help you improve customer retention and increase your bottom line.

Without retention marketing, you're constantly prospecting for potential customers rather than focusing on building a loyal customer base. The truth is you need to do both, but many e-commerce businesses focus on the new consumer.

Here we discuss retention marketing and industry technology and offer five solutions to keep customers coming back.

What Is Retention Marketing?

Retention marketing focuses on engaging returning customers rather than targeting new ones. The goal is to increase customer loyalty by consistently giving them added value and more opportunities to purchase your products.

McKinsey Insights reports in 2022, more US consumers switched brands and retailers, looking for value. What's more, a little over a third of consumers opted to buy from private labels.

While your business needs new and returning customers, retention marketing will increase customers' lifetime value and long-term profitability.

Retention Marketing Tools

Retention marketing is about communication with your customers and using available technology to leverage data for actionable insights. Technology is a driver in retention marketing.

It leverages strategies to keep customers engaged and loyal to your brand based on relevant data. Real-time reporting tools provide deep insights into:

Additionally, an integrated dashboard enables businesses to connect seamlessly to top email marketing applications, such as SalesForce and Marketo. Using technology to leverage insights and act on them is the foundation of customer retention.

5 Ways to Improve Customer Retention

If you want loyal customers, focus on building long-term relationships and delivering value throughout the customer journey.

1. Provide Friendly and Efficient Customer Support

Loyal customers spend more and will likely refer their friends and family to your brand. Reliable customer support is vital to building brand trust.

Today, customers expect to be able to reach customer support 24/7. Automation makes it possible to be there at all hours, and you can follow up if needed.

Provide customer service with easy access and accurate responses to solve customer issues. Listen and collect customer feedback. Then use it to improve customer experiences.

Nurturing customer relationships by providing ongoing service and support helps build lasting customer relationships that drive revenue.

2. Make it Personal

When your customers give social endorsements, it increases customer retention. Encourage current customers to share their thoughts on your product or service, or implement a refer-a-friend campaign encouraging customers to endorse your brand.

Communities increase customer retention. Share your vision, and talk about topics your customers are interested in that naturally relate to your products or services.

Retention marketing is all about knowing your customers. To that end, you can leverage customer data to understand their preferences and motivations. Customers will come back to make purchases if they're getting value from your brand.

Use the data to build buyer personas that represent the type of person who uses your product or service. Then create campaigns that add value for them.

3. Offer Loyalty Programs and Discounts

Loyalty programs reward your customers for buying your products and services. It can be anything from surprise swag to exclusive access that only loyal customers can purchase.

Loyalty programs and discounts show your repeat customers that you appreciate their business. Similarly, referral programs reward your customers when they send friends and family to your business.

E-commerce loyalty programs help brands build community and generate data to gain personalization insights. Consider implementing VIP benefits to increase customer lifetime value.

Social media contests encourage brand loyalty, build trust, and are a low-cost way to engage customers.

4. Dedicate More Attention to Email Campaigns

Email is an opt-in channel. Once they sign up, you can use customer emails to follow up, offer discounts, and find upsell opportunities.

To that end, it's essential to dedicate more attention to email campaigns to increase customer retention.

Email represents 50% of Latico Leathers' total revenue, and they wanted to dramatically increase their email list, drive a positive ROI, and maintain or increase their sending reputation. The company integrated Resolve with Klaviyo and experienced a 45% open rate from Resolve contacts.

You can customize email marketing campaigns and messaging for your audience. Analytics reveal which emails your customers open and don't open.

The data allows you to refine your email campaigns to suit your customers' preferences. Retention emails help build your email list, and you can segment it according to the most engaged to the least active recipients.

5. Re-engage Abandonment Revenue

First, use data analytics to measure your cart abandonment rate. If it's high, revisit your email marketing campaigns to determine why they don't resonate with your audience.

Cart abandonment could also be website related. For example, checkout may not be a user-friendly experience. Once you gather insights into why customers abandon their carts, you can set out to re-engage them.

Leverage industry-leading identity technology to increase cart abandonment revenue. For example, GetEmails enables businesses to send abandoned cart emails to users, even if they still need to opt into your newsletter.

Work With Retention Marketing Professionals

Retention.com specializes in retention marketing and e-commerce solutions, including cart abandonment and re-engaging potentially lost customers. We provide one-click integrations with leading marketing automation platforms.

Our dashboard features a user-friendly interface to easily connect to any email marketing application in under a minute. Retention's integrations automatically update and suppress contacts daily.

We can help you reclaim up to ten times more abandonment revenue by leveraging industry-leading Identity Resolution technology. When an unidentified customer abandons a cart, we identify them. Then a personalized flow automatically triggers in the messaging platform.

Scale up your abandonment flows and improve your retention marketing strategy. Get in touch with Retention.com today to find out how we can help.

7 out of 10 online shoppers abandon their carts, representing billions of dollars in lost revenue.

Imagine if you could instead reliably recoup even some of those lost sales.

Using retention marketing tactics, you can re-engage customers who have abandoned their carts and bring them back to your shop.

Read on to understand everything you need to start putting that lost revenue back in your pocket where it belongs.

What is Retention Marketing?

Retention marketing encourages customers to return to your website or store to make repeat purchases. It means focusing on the customer's experience and building brand loyalty to boost word-of-mouth advertising.

At its core, retention marketing means keeping the customers you already have and increasing their spending on future purchases.

Your business can utilize many effective retention marketing strategies, including reclaiming abandoned cart revenue.

The bottom line is to create engagement and loyalty in the customers you have already converted.

This loyalty also leads to reaching new customers or clients through word of mouth.

The Goal of Retention Marketing

Retention marketing aims to keep customers engaged with your company and product to increase their lifetime value to your business. The end goal of retention marketing is to increase your profits. For example, in a recent article, American Express noted that it costs 6 to 7x more to get new customers than to retain old ones.

By changing the focus to keeping customers interested and engaged with your brand, you can spend less to make more profit in a shorter time.

Why is Retention Marketing Important?

Spending less on marketing while making more sales is a dream come true. This is why retention marketing is essential to any modern business.

In addition, advertising on every platform has become much more expensive. According to Digital Information World and Business Insider, we are seeing huge increases in social media marketing costs.

For example, Facebook ads rose 89%, while advertisements on YouTube now cost 108% more than last year.

Clearly, the cost of acquiring new customers is only going up, so retention marketing is becoming even more critical.

Benefits of Retention Marketing

There are many benefits to retention marketing.

One of the most significant benefits, besides the increase in profit margins, is that it increases the lifetime value of your customers.

Happy and loyal customers will buy more, come back more often and tell others about you.

When you make efforts to engage with old customers, they reward you with increased sales. As a result, you will have to spend less on advertising.

Challenges of Retention Marketing

Understanding your customer's wants and needs deeply enough that you can keep them happy and engaged takes some work.

Likewise, setting up the required metrics to accurately measure your campaigns' results can take time.

Making sure your customers have a positive experience with your brand takes time and effort.

Customer service can be expensive and hard to get right if customers have unrealistic expectations.

It can also be challenging to show customers over time that they are still appreciated.

Retention Marketing vs. Acquisition Marketing: What's the Difference?

Retention marketing and acquisition marketing are two very different types of marketing. They have different goals and employ different tactics.

Acquisition marketing is more direct and easier to measure.

In contrast, retention marketing is often concerned with subjects such as loyalty, which is more of an indirect result of many combined efforts.

Main Differences Between Retention and Acquisition Marketing

The most significant difference between these tactics is the type of customer they focus on.

Retention marketing focuses on customers you already have, while acquisition marketing focuses on getting new customers.

The actions taken in Retention marketing campaigns ensure that customers continue purchasing products in the long term.

Retention marketing tactics build loyalty and connection with your customers.

In contrast, acquisition marketing strategies focus on advertising to gain new customers.

How Should You Divide Your Marketing Spend Between Retention and Acquisition

Deciding how to divide your marketing budget between retention and acquisition depends on your current customer profile.

Brandalyzer does a great job of breaking down the mathematics of this complicated formula.

However, you can't go too far wrong if you spend 75% of your marketing budget on retention.

However much you decide to spend, it is clear that focusing more on retention than on acquisition will lead to greater success for your business.

Forbes recently conducted a study, and one of the notable findings was that merchants that spent more on retention in the last 1-3 years had close to a 200% more likelihood of being successful than their counterparts who spent more on acquisition.

Types of Retention Marketing

There are many types of retention marketing, and you can choose the tactics that resonate most with your business.

For example, an online coaching portal could send personalized messages to encourage clients through SMS messaging.

Here are some other types of retention marketing campaigns:

What Are the Most Effective Retention Marketing Tactics?

Retention marketing tactics don't have to be expensive. However, the most effective strategies are thoughtful to engage repeat customers.

Email marketing to recapture abandoned cart revenue is one of the most profitable and effective strategies.

According to the Harvard Business Review, It is best to concentrate on the initial experiences a customer has with you in your retention marketing efforts.

Focusing on the first purchase experience statistically brings the most ROI and should be taken care of first in a retention marketing campaign.

Personalization as an Effective Retention Marketing Campaign

Personalization can be used to enhance any of the other highly effective tactics mentioned above. You can employ personalization as a tactic through the many stages of the customer's journey.

Personalization as a retention marketing strategy has been shown to increase the number of customers a business gains and their lifetime value to you.

This personalization tactic provides valuable content across channels like email, social media, or even (SMS) text messages!

Which Retention Marketing Tactics are Right for Your Business?

Finding the right tactics for your business can depend on your niche. Make data-driven decisions to decide on the best customer retention strategy.

First, find the right tools and formulas and measure your customer's data.

Then find out what successful metrics are for your business.

Looking at what successful metrics are for your industry is an effective way to begin. Then measure your customer data.

With the data in hand, you can see where you fall short. This will empower you to create the best retention marketing tactics for your business.

How to Create an Effective Retention Marketing Strategy

Decide what tactics will bring you the most profit and quickest returns. Target these first to create an effective retention marketing strategy.

Using the right tools is integral to creating an effective retention strategy. They will help you determine your goals and inform your strategy.

For example, if you recognize that you have a lot of dead emails on your list and want to bring these lost customers back, you can utilize Retention.Com's Reactivate campaign. This can help you increase your email opening rate from 2-3% all the way up to 40%.

What Tools Should be Implemented?

Having Customer Retention Management tools and identity resolution software can make all the data about your customer base easily accessible.

Another way to increase customer satisfaction while gathering data about them is to install a chatbot on your website.

When you have the information you need about your customers, it is much easier to tailor content for them.

Steps to Creating Your Retention Marketing Strategy

To create an effective retention marketing strategy, we recommend the following steps:

  1. Determine your churn rate.
  2. Make a User Journey Map.
  3. Focus on the first purchase experience and onboarding to begin.
  4. Use behavior analysis tools.
  5. Create personalized customer communications using data.
  6. Implement an easy way to collect feedback from your customers.

It is a great idea to concentrate first on the projects that will give you the most significant return and then go to the less profitable but still rewarding projects. For example, focus on the first purchase.

How to Measure the Success of Your Retention Marketing Efforts

Measuring the success of your marketing efforts with cutting-edge tools that give you accurate data will bring you the most accurate results.

Use mathematical formulas that allow you to accurately pinpoint your statistics.

You can find many of these on the Appcues Blog, where they explain the different statistics you can measure along with the formulas.

For example, churn rate = (number of customers at the end of the year - new customers)/number of customers at the beginning of the year.

Here are some of the ways you can measure your success with your retention marketing efforts:

Why are Success Measurements Important?

Peter Drucker, the first thought leader in business management, famously said, "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it."

To guide your strategy, measure which tactics work best with your customers. This way, you can direct your budget to the most effective campaigns.

The Best Success Measurements for Retention Marketing

In retention marketing, some of the most profitable success measures are product return rate, ROI, revenue and customer churn, customer lifetime value, repeat purchase ratio, and time between purchases.

It is best to find the measures that mean success for your niche. For example, in some niches, buying only one or two products in a lifetime is common.

Comparing the repeat purchase ratio for that business to the ratio desirable for most stores would create unrealistic expectations.

Finding out what metrics are considered successful for your niche is worthwhile.

Tools to Measure the Results of Your Campaign

Every website needs tools that measure your marketing data. These tools will let you know the ROI of your retention efforts.

Some of the essential tools are Google Analytics and Retention.com.

Combining these two tools will give you the information you need to gather the statistics to measure your retention marketing efforts.

For example, with Retention.Com, you can measure and keep track of your cart abandonment rate and the abandoned cart recovery rate.

On your Retention.com dashboard, you get real-time reporting. For example, you can easily see your revenue and ROI tracking and how many people have added to the cart, all in one place.

Re-engage with Your Customers and Reclaim Abandoned Cart Revenue

Now that you know how to start measuring your data and how you can utilize retention marketing to 5- 10x your current profit margins, nothing can stop you!

If you're still unsure how to re-engage with your customers and reclaim those abandoned carts, then book a demo with Retention.com. We can show you how easy it is.

set up email automation for your shopify business

In this article, we'll cover why email automation is important for your Shopify and Shopify+ business, especially when it comes to cart abandonment, and we'll walk you through how to do it on one of the most popular automation platforms out there - Klaviyo

So let's get started!

What's the problem?

Have you ever been shopping online, added an item to your cart, and then left the site without completing the purchase? We've all been there. Life gets in the way, or we get distracted, and before we know it we've abandoned our cart and moved on with our day. 

Sometimes we don’t even get to the point of dropping something in the cart. We browse generally, dive deep into a specific category of products, or simply spend time pondering the purchase of just one product.

As an eCommerce business owner, it's important to have email automation in place to recapture shoppers who have abandoned without purchasing. It’s core to any retention marketing plan

Statistics show that over 70% of people who add items to their online shopping carts abandon them before completing the purchase. That's a lot of potential sales that are being lost! Not to mention the other folks who spent time browsing then disappeared. They’re probably just as interested!

With email automation, you can send a series of emails to shoppers who have abandoned their carts, abandoned their browse, abandoned a category, or abandoned a product, reminding them of the items they were interested in and giving them a special offer or incentive to complete their purchase. Email automation is a highly effective way to increase sales and revenue for your eCommerce business.

Email automation can seem daunting if you've never set it up before, but there are many software platforms out there that make it easy to get started. In this blog post, we'll give you a step-by-step guide on how to set up email automation for your eCommerce business using the popular platform Klaviyo. 

Why Email Automation is Important for your Shopify or Shopify+ Businesses 

Email automation is important for Shopify businesses because it helps increase sales and revenue by recapturing shoppers who have abandoned their carts. By sending a series of targeted emails reminding shoppers of the items they were interested in and providing them with a special offer or incentive, you can encourage them to complete their purchase. 

According to statistics, over 70% of people who add items to their online shopping carts abandon them before completing the purchase. That's a lot of potential sales that are being left on the table! With email automation in place, you can recover some of those lost sales and boost your revenue. 

Email automation can also help you create more personalized experiences for your customers and build relationships with them over time. By segmenting your email list and sending targeted emails based on shopper behavior, you can create more relevant and engaging experiences that will make customers want to do business with you again and again. 

How to Set Up Email Automation using Klaviyo   

Klaviyo is one of the most popular platforms for setting up email automation flows for eCommerce businesses. Klaviyo integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, and custom stores built on other platforms like ReactJS. In addition, Klaviyo offers a wide range of features and customizable options to fit the needs of any business size or type.        

 Follow these steps to set up your first email flow in Klaviyo: 

  1.  Log into your Klaviyo account (or create an account if you don't have one already). 
  2.  Click on "Flows" in the left sidebar menu and then click "Create Flow."  
  3.  Give your flow a name (for example: "Abandoned Cart Flow") and select "Build from Scratch."  
  4.  In the next step, select "Abandoned Cart" as your trigger event type."   
  5. Choose when you want this flow to trigger (for example: "1 hour after an item is added to cart").   
  6. In the next step select "Email" as your desired action type."   
  7.  Select which template you want to use for this email (you can choose from pre-built templates or create a custom template).   
  8. Enter the subject line for your email and design your email content (you can use HTML or plain text).   
  9. In the final step, click "Activate Flow."   

Now that your flow is set up, Klaviyo will automatically send out emails according to the schedule and trigger events that you specified. You can always go back into your flow at any time and make changes if needed. 

You also need a strategy for these emails

Fortunately, we have a trove of resources to help you out at every turn. Check out these articles for deep dives on the following topics: 

You should find everything you need in those links to build a robust marketing program around abandonment flows. 

There’s still one question in your head, though… how do I even identify who these abandoners are, if they haven’t signed up or purchased something from me in the past? 

Grow Your First-Party Dataset, and Unlock A Whole New Segment of Interested Customers

Retention.com specializes in retention marketing and e-commerce solutions, including cart abandonment and re-engaging potentially lost customers. We provide one-click integrations with leading marketing automation platforms.

Our dashboard features a user-friendly interface to easily connect to any email marketing application in under a minute. Retention’s integrations automatically update and suppress contacts daily.

We can help you reclaim up to ten times more abandonment revenue by leveraging industry-leading Identity Resolution technology. When an unidentified customer abandons a cart, we identify them. Then a personalized flow automatically triggers in the messaging platform.

Scale up your abandonment flows and improve your retention marketing strategy. Get in touch with Retention.com today to find out how we can help.                              

Conclusion     

Email automation is key for any eCommerce business that wants to boost sales and revenue. By sending targeted emails reminding shoppers of items they were interested in and providing them with an incentive to complete their purchase, businesses can increase their conversion rate and recapture lost sales. 

Abandoned carts represent billions in lost revenue. That’s why every Shopify and Shopify+ brand should have a strong abandoned cart plan.

Abandoned carts can be the bain of a Shopify eCommerce brand’s existence. Imagine being a brick-and-mortar store and having people walk in, fill up carts, and then simply walk out, leaving a jumble of filled shopping carts near the front door. 

It happens in the outside world too, but it's epidemic online. And these abandoned carts represent billions in lost revenue. That’s why every Shopify and Shopify+ brand should have a strong abandoned cart plan as part of their overall retention marketing strategy. 

This article will look at some of the top reasons that shoppers abandon their carts, and what you can do to not only minimize abandonment but also to get some of those shoppers back in to make the purchase. 

Top Reasons That Shoppers Abandon Carts

Why, oh why, do they do it?

Lack of urgency

Shoppers don't feel a sense of urgency to complete their purchase when they're just browsing an online store. They can always come back later and buy the item, so there's no need to act now.Second-guessing the purchase

Second-guessing the purchase

Will this item really be worth it? Is it the best quality? Do I really need it? shoppers may have doubts about an item before finalizing their purchase.

Distractions

Online shoppers can get easily distracted by other tabs, notifications, or emails. Once they click away from your website, they may not come back.

Complicated checkout process

If the checkout process is too complicated or takes too long, shoppers get frustrated. This one happens plenty in the physical world as well.  

What Can Shopify Brands Do to Prevent Abandoned Carts?

Obviously, it’s hard to control for some of the reasons above. You can’t keep a shopper from getting distracted by an email or call, can you? So you focus on what you can control. Oh and don’t worry, we’ll show get to how you win back those distracted shoppers later.

What Can You Control?

Let's focus on #4 above - a complicated checkout process. What are some of the main reasons consumers find checkout processes too complicated?

Too many steps:

Online shoppers want to be able to check out quickly and easily. If there are too many steps involved in the process, they will likely abandon their cart.

How can e-commerce brands avoid having too many steps in their checkout process?

Required account creation:

Some websites require users to create an account before they can checkout. Many shoppers simply do not want to create an account in order to complete their purchase. If this is a requirement, they will likely leave your site and find a similar product elsewhere.

What is your solution to this? Allow guest checkout. You can still capture vital information like name, address, phone and email, which every shopper expects to have to give to make a purchase. Once you have this identifying information, you can continue to market to them and convert them to account holders down the road. 

Hidden fees:

Nothing is more frustrating to an online shopper than finding out there are hidden fees at the end of the checkout process. These unexpected costs can cause shoppers to abandon their purchase altogether. This can include things like shipping or VAT that were hidden from the customer until deeper into the checkout process.

You can solve this by being transparent early in the cart process as to what fees will be included, or simply add them to the total cart cost as the customer is shopping.

Confusing layout:

If the layout of the checkout page is confusing or difficult to navigate, shoppers may become frustrated and abandon. Keep it simple - customers should be able to easily go back a step and make changes without losing the inputs they have already made. Don’t make them enter info twice. The road to purchasing should be clearly marked and easy to get to. 

Difficult payment options:

If the shopper is having trouble inputting payment options, they will likely prefer to buy from a competitor that has ApplePay, Paypal, or other widely-used and easily automated services. Some people simply find that getting their credit card out of their wallet is more daunting than just finding the product on another site with easier checkout options.

This one is a no-brainer, but you should be employing every mainstream payment option out there. 

But even if you work against all of the above, shoppers will still abandon carts… it’s just a fact of eCommerce life. What’s a brand to do about it? 

Capture abandoned cart user identity, and bring them back with email and SMS marketing. 

Abandoned Cart Email Marketing

Email marketing to cart abandoners will help get them past some of the other stumbling blocks mentioned in the intro, like a lack of sense of urgency, or second-guessing the purchase. It can also help recapture shoppers who simply got distracted before they checked out. 

You can send a series of email reminders, each with a different offer or incentive, to encourage them to come back and complete their purchase.

Here are some high-level tips for your abandoned cart email strategy:

This is just the tip of the iceberg though…

Abandoned Carts Resource Library

Fortunately, we have a trove of resources to help you out at every turn. Check out these articles for deep dives on the following topics: 

You should find everything you need in those links to build a robust marketing program around abandonment flows. 

There’s still one question in your head, though… how do I even identify who these abandoners are if they haven’t signed up or purchased something from me in the past? 

Grow Your First-Party Dataset, and Unlock A Whole New Segment of Interested Customers

Retention.com specializes in retention marketing and e-commerce solutions, including cart abandonment and re-engaging potentially lost customers. We provide one-click integrations with leading marketing automation platforms.

Our dashboard features a user-friendly interface to easily connect to any email marketing application in under a minute. Retention’s integrations automatically update and suppress contacts daily.

We can help you reclaim up to ten times more abandonment revenue by leveraging industry-leading Identity Resolution technology. When an unidentified customer abandons a cart, we identify them. Then a personalized flow automatically triggers in the messaging platform.

Scale up your abandonment flows and improve your retention marketing strategy. Get in touch with Retention.com today to find out how we can help. 

Conclusion

Email marketing can be a powerful tool in getting shoppers to come back and complete their purchases. By using email subject lines, images, videos, and countdown timers, you can create a sense of urgency that will encourage abandoned cart email conversion. And by offering discounts, coupons, and free shipping, you can provide shoppers with incentives to come back and buy. So if you're looking to recapture lost sales, email marketing is a great place to start.

recapture lost revenue with abandoned cart emails

If you run an e-commerce business, especially on Shopify or Shopify+, then you know that abandoned cart emails are an essential part of your email marketing strategy

These emails are designed to reach shoppers who have put an item in their cart and then left without purchasing. And while they may seem like a small thing, abandoned cart emails can make a big difference in your bottom line. 

What's the big deal?

In fact, one study found that the average abandonment rate for all e-commerce businesses is 69.23%. That means that for every 100 people who visit your site, almost 70 of them will leave without making a purchase. Ouch. 

But it doesn't have to be this way! With a few simple tweaks to your email automation flows, you can increase your sales and recapture lost revenue.

Here's how:

Capture as much information as possible

The first step is to make sure you have email capture forms on all of your product pages. This seems like a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised how many e-commerce sites don't have email capture forms on their product pages. 

Beyond email capture forms or other capture incentives (like discount offers, etc), you can leverage retention marketing tools like retention.com. When an unidentified customer abandons a cart, we identify them. Then a personalized flow automatically triggers in the messaging platform.

Set up automation flows

The second step is to set up automated flows in your email marketing system. There are a variety of ways to do this, depending on which platform you use. Retention.com provides one-click integrations with leading marketing automation platforms. We've even got a guide for how to set one up on Klaviyo

We’ve written extensively on how to build out strategies for a variety of automation flows including cart abandonment and browse abandonment.

But a flow is incomplete without the content, so you have to...

Set up the email templates

The third step is to actually set up your emails that will be triggered by the automated flows. 

Of course, number one among all the tips is to create a sense of urgency in your abandoned cart emails. Remember, these customers have already shown an interest in your product by adding it to their cart. So all you need to do is give them a little nudge to seal the deal. You can do this by offering a discount code or by highlighting the benefits of the product. You can also try using images or video to show off the product in action. 

We have a great resource for cart abandonment templates and tips as well as browse abandonment email templates and tips. Dig in to get inspired!

Don't make it difficult

The fourth and final step is to make it easy for the customer to complete their purchase. This means including a direct link back to the product page in your email and making sure that the checkout process on your site is quick and easy. You also want to make sure that there are no roadblocks along the way that could cause the customer to abandon their cart again. By following these simple steps, you can increase sales and recapture lost revenue with ease!

To unlock the vast segment of consumers that you have yet to identify and capture (ie: cart and browse abandoners, work with retention marketing professionals. It’s less expensive than you may think, and can bring anywhere from 20-40x ROI. 

Retention.com specializes in retention marketing and e-commerce solutions, including cart abandonment and re-engaging potentially lost customers. 

Our dashboard features a user-friendly interface to easily connect to any email marketing application in under a minute. Retention’s integrations automatically update and suppress contacts daily.

We can help you reclaim up to ten times more abandonment revenue by leveraging industry-leading Identity Resolution technology. Allowing you to engage personalized flows to a vast new network of interested prospects, all while building that valuable first-party dataset. 

Scale up your abandonment flows and improve your retention marketing strategy. Get in touch with Retention.com today to find out how we can help.

Conclusion

Abandoned carts are inevitable if you run an e-commerce business. But with a few simple tweaks to your email automation flows, you can increase sales and recapture lost revenue.

5 Steps to Properly Test Retention.com

Retention.com works for most e-commerce businesses, but it’s important that appropriate expectations are in place going into the test, and that the test is executed properly for success.

Here are 5 things to keep in mind when you are testing Retention.com for your brand.

1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) generally comes in close to Facebook


Under our current setup, we’ve generally seen people achieve $20 to $40 CAC with Email-Based Retargeting.

While that’s not a Christmas Miracle (I’m writing this in December), it’s another high-quality source of traffic that you can monetize at a comparable price to your other channels.

2. Give it 60 days; this is COLD traffic


Unlike the rest of your e-commerce email marketing list, Retention.com’s email addresses didn’t purchase from you or raise their hand to be contacted. They are further up the funnel than your current list members are, so you’ll need to warm them up before they will buy.

The rules of marketing and sales funnels apply.

Once you’ve installed Retention.com, take your first day’s volume and multiply it by 20. That should give you an approximate monthly estimate for your lead count.

This will help you determine which plan is best for your brand. Put yourself on that plan and run the test.

3. Put them in an e-commerce welcome series IMMEDIATELY


From what we’ve observed so far, sending to these recipients as quickly as possible is the goal. Most e-comm brands add their Retention.com leads into an existing welcome series, which seems to work just fine.

The only problems we’ve seen are when people wait to email these contacts — over a week or so — then blast them with a normal newsletter.

Based on our years running an ESP (Robly), we believe that the current state of email is shifting. For the most part, if someone hits a website and then receives an email from that business, it’s not weird, infuriating, or altogether unexpected — as long as the brand is recognized by the person.

What is infuriating is when you receive email from a brand that you do not recognize whatsoever.

Email them quickly. Then once the welcome flow has finished, drop them into your regular emailing program.

We give you the landing page they hit, so you can get as sophisticated as you want in terms of targeting. We don’t think that’s necessary though. Just hit them quickly, with something.

4. When real-time collection comes, use it


We don’t have a real-time collection feature yet, but in 2020 we will be able to deliver you the records immediately as they come in.

Since we don’t have the feature yet, we can’t tell you how much it will benefit your e-commerce business. But with marketing and advertising in general, the sooner you can contact someone who’s visited your website or reached out in some way, the better. So intuitively, real-time collection will be beneficial, so you should plan to do it.

We’ll also be lowering the price of a lead to a starting cost of 15¢ (vs 25¢ now) if you don’t need a postal record.

That will lower CAC, and should make Email-Based Retargeting more efficient for you.

5. Tag the email addresses “Retention.com,” and evaluate after 60 days

The last thing you need to make sure you do is label the Retention.com addresses inside your ESP.

You’ll be able to look back over 60 days and see whether Email-Based Retargeting was profitable for you or not.

Feel free to email me any time about your test at adam[at]retention[dot]com.

We launched a month ago, so we’re still in learning mode. Any intel from you really helps.