Great Abandoned Cart Email Templates to Improve Your Conversion Rate
Want to generate more sales for your ecommerce business?
Easy. Just drive more traffic onto your site.
The problem? This approach isn’t sustainable.
And if you’ve got a leaky sales funnel you might soon end up with empty pockets.
That’s why today, we’re going to explore a more sustainable way of growing your ecommerce sales.
We’re going to look at how different ecommerce businesses improve their conversion rates thanks to abandoned cart email templates.
Why Bother with Cart Abandoned Emails?
Case #1. American Giant
Case #2. Adidas
Case #3. Winc
Case #4. Doggyloot
Case #5. Whisky Loot Box
What to do next?
Ready?
Here it goes.
Let’s lay the groundwork for cart abandonment emails first.
Why should you pay attention to them?
First of all, because cart abandonment is a problem worth fighting over.
Nearly 70% of all online shopping carts are being abandoned. If you were able to recover even a fraction of these transactions, it could be a game-changer for your business. Click To TweetHow big of a fraction could that be? According to recent studies, around 50% of all cart abandonment emails are opened, and abandoners intend to return the cart.
Bear in mind that the average open rate for newsletters is just over 22%, according to the Email Marketing Benchmarks report.
What’s even better is that like with other types of automated emails, you can set up cart abandonment emails relatively quickly.
In general, you design and set them up once. Then your system sends these emails out, automatically, for as long as you want.
Naturally, it’ll be worth updating your design every few months, but that’s about it.
It’s one of the most cost-effective ways you can increase your ecommerce conversion rates.
Convinced?
Let’s now look at the examples.
This win back campaign was originally covered in a post on the GetResponse blog.
And it’s an interesting one, for sure.
The team behind American Giant takes ecommerce conversion optimization seriously.
They don’t want to stand still and do nothing, knowing that nearly 70% of all online shopping carts end up abandoned.
To fight back, they’ve got a cart recovery program in place. And it’s a clever one, too.
Instead of just sending one abandoned cart email, they send you four — but all of them are interesting.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not the mailing frequency that sparked my interest. It’s the approach the brand took in each of these emails.
The first email strikes you with an unexpected headline – Your new favorite is still available.
It’s a bold statement, but not an ungrounded one.
After all, you’ve checked out this product and added it to the shopping cart so you must have liked it to some extent.
Below the headline is the main copy.
There, all they’re saying is that you’ve left something behind and they want to make sure that you’ve got all the necessary information to buy your new favorite product.
Their message doesn’t mention anything about a discount code or that it’s your last chance to buy their hoodie.
Instead of using scarcity and other psychological triggers aimed at converting you, all they want is to show you that they care about you. And that they want you to be able to complete the purchase with ease.
Now let’s move onto the second message in the cart abandonment email series.
This email is very similar to the first one in terms of design, but the copy’s very different.
This time, they’ve decided to focus on what makes their offer different a.k.a. their unique selling proposition.
The message states that their products are built to last a lifetime. If for any reason you’re not satisfied with the purchase, you can return it free of charge at any time.
Lifetime warranty isn’t something many brands do these days, so as a potential customer you’d probably think twice before skipping this offer.
The above goes well with what’s coming up in the third email.
The email doesn’t even mention the fact that you’ve left something behind and you should complete the purchase.
Instead, it tells you the story behind their hoodies — how and for whom they’re designed; what the product consists of and what others say about it.
Woohoo! You’ve just signed up. Check your inbox to confirm the subscription.
As a customer, thanks to this email, you learn that the product isn’t an ordinary hoodie. People behind the brand crafted it carefully, and they’ve got social proof to back their claims.
Also, this ties in very strongly with their lifetime warranty offer. By reading the story and product description, you start to believe that these hoodies are of only the best quality.
Alright, let’s now look at the fourth and final email.
This one is the least exciting one in the cart recovery series, which is somewhat disappointing.
It looks like the first two emails and focuses on the benefits that have already been mentioned before.
It’s almost like a last-resort type of offer, except for one element you’d typically expect to see in this kind of email — a discount code or some other type of incentive.
Having been subscribed to their newsletter campaigns for some time now, I can only assume that it’s their standard policy not to use discount codes in general.
And that’s perhaps why they focus mostly on copywriting when optimizing their email campaigns for conversions.
There are a few things I like about this particular email campaign.
First of all, it’s surprising.
You’ve abandoned the cart, and probably the least likely reason for that to happen is that your wifi stopped working.
But then you received an email from Adidas asking if your wifi is OK as if this is the only possible reason why one would want to miss out on their “iconic Gazelle silhouette.”
This copy draws you into their message, and you want to learn more what’s inside.
As you dig deeper into the email, you notice that they’ve got several positive customer reviews
Once again, this is social proof in action.
Interestingly, however, not all of those are five-star reviews. One has four stars, yet it’s still positive.
Why would they show that?
To make their message more trustworthy.
Studies show that consumers trust online reviews more than they trust the word of advertisers. Real people don't always leave perfect reviews. There's no point in pretending that everyone adores your product. Click To TweetAnd if it turns out that your product gets a four out of five-star rating, which is still a very positive one, most will trust that you’re offering an excellent product and your brand can be trusted.
Taking into account the humor, social proof, and the fact that they’re showing you a product you’re already familiar with — this cart abandonment email is likely a high-converting one.
This example from Winc is using a similar tactic to the one we’ve seen in the Adidas campaign – it revolves around humor.
It starts with the headline:
You accidentally left some amazing wine in your cart.
No biggie.
Then it goes into the main copy:
You have wine in your cart. But, it belongs in your home.
Unlike the previous examples, however, this email also includes two other essential elements — a discount ($20 on your first order) and two calls to action with some more well-crafted copy (“let’s do this”, “I’m ready for wine”.)
Why is the discount so important?
We intuitively know that people like deals. That's why events like #BlackFriday or #CyberMonday have gotten so big over the years. Click To TweetBut that’s not the only reason why discounts are so powerful in the cart recovery emails.
Based on the data from Statista, the two key reasons why U.S. digital shoppers abandon their carts are related to money:
The email also lists four products, which I’m going to assume are the ones the user left in their shopping cart.
If that’s the case, we can safely say this is a good cart abandonment email.
It follows several of the email marketing best practices — it’s fun, relevant, sent at the right time, and includes a discount code for those who are slightly more hesitant.
We’ve seen several different ways how you can approach cart abandonment email templates. Here’s another one.
This time Doggyloot is using both humor and a sense of urgency, at the same time.
Take a look.
Unlike with the previous examples, this email doesn’t just remind you that you’ve left something your shopping cart.
Instead, it tells you that the products you wanted to buy are almost sold out.
Usually, you might not care about this kind of message.
This time, however, you’re not buying products for yourself. You’re buying them for your dog. And if you don’t buy these products on time, your dog might be hungry and even worse — disappointed, too.
The email ends with a short message:
“Lots of licks,
Your friends at doggyloot”
This message ties in very well with their image as a brand that cares about animals and their wellbeing.
It sounds genuine. Not like an ecommerce store that sells cheap products and doesn’t care about anything else.
And as a dog lover myself, I’ll go ahead and say that this is very important.
It seems that humor is a common theme for brands that send remarkable cart abandonment emails.
The same applies to Whisky Loot Box, which you’ll see in a moment.
Here’s what I like about this email.
First of all, it’s creative.
The main part of the message consists of 14 things you could do with the brand’s product. This list includes some obvious but still important ideas, like trying new whisky every month, and some slightly less obvious ones, like buying 3,207 bottles and making yourself a whisky bath.
In between the humor, you find all the aspects that make their product distinctive and therefore worth buying.
The second great thing is the quick FAQ section.
They go over the three most common questions they get asked by those who’re hesitant towards signing up for their subscription — how many bottles do you get, how do you skip a box, and finally what else is inside of it.
And if you happen to have a question outside of this list, they’re giving you a direct way to contact their team, which is to reply to that email.
Finally, there are two more elements that are worth paying attention to.
The email ends with a single very visible call to action button that says — Treat yourself.
Right away, instead of thinking about whether it’s reasonable to buy this product, you’re thinking — do I deserve to be treating myself with this?
And as soon you’ve finished reading this copy, there’s a second message that’s meant to reassure you that this offer is a treat.
It’s the subtle faint message underneath the button, which says — Treasure the taste.
These two elements combined reassure you that this isn’t a mere product but a treat, that shouldn’t be ignored.
What’s even better is that it’s easy to picture the value of this product.
After all, there’s a photo showing a nice and slick whisky box slightly above it.
It would be easy to copy the approach used by the brands I’ve mentioned above and apply them to your campaigns.
But it doesn’t mean it’s going to be the most effective way of converting your target audience.
As we often see, good email campaigns come in all shapes and forms. And it’s your recipients who decide what will or won’t work.
My best recommendation is that you should test different approaches — the ones above or your own — and observe the results.
In the past, I’ve even seen brands that have managed to use cart abandonment emails to upsell their customers by focusing on the value they’d get if they bought more than just one single item.
Who knows, maybe you’ll be able to do the same with your cart recovery program?
And while we’re at it, let me know if you’ve seen some other great emails aimed to capture the abandoned orders.
Perhaps something that landed in your inbox, recently?
Be sure to share it 🙂
Abandoned cart emails are indeed important. But it’s only one small part of ecommerce optimization. To ensure that you’re covering all the bases when it comes to optimization, download your free 115 point ecommerce checklist. It covers everything you need to know about every type of page on your site, from your homepage to your About Us page.
Content Marketing Manager at GetResponse with multiple years of experience in online B2B marketing and SaaS.
On a daily basis, he plans, creates and optimizes content, that generates sales leads and reinforces page position in search engines. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and visit his Blog.
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