Ways to Win Back Abandoned Shopping Carts

03/01/2020 | Share:

So close, yet so far: abandoned shopping carts are bound to happen and they can happen to any business. Customers can be so close to making a purchase and then leave – it’s devastating and you’ll wonder why this happens. Sometimes it’s beyond your control – maybe there was something more important that needed their attention. In other cases, it can be things such as not offering a guest checkout, shipping costs or lack of payment options.

While there are many on-site fixes to prevent this happening again, this won’t fix the damage that is already done. But did you know that you can actually win back those customers that have already left? Here are our tips on bringing back customers that abandon their online shopping carts.

Remarketing Advertising

One way to win back online shoppers is to set up a remarketing campaign on either Google Ads or Facebook. The purpose of remarketing is to target previous visitors to your site. Both Google and Facebook have complex algorithms that can show your advertisements to people that have already had some interaction with your site, such as targeting those that added items to a cart.

Remarketing emails

If the shopper abandoning their cart has an account, there will be an email address linked to that account. Many email service providers and CRM systems will allow you to segment your emails and target people that have abandoned their carts.

Sending them something will increase the chances of them coming back. Some businesses find sending a simple message will suffice, just letting them know they’ve got items waiting in their cart. However, the best practice is to wait at least 24 hours before getting in contact as this could put your customer off completely.

Others businesses will sometimes offer something extra to help complete the purchase. This could be a limited-time discount or even free shipping. Just make sure you’ve set everything up correctly to avoid the customer exploiting this offer over and over again.

Exit-Intent Offers

Why wait until they’ve left to send them an offer? Your customer may have already decided to leave, but you can catch them right before they close their browser with an exit-intent offer. This is a window that pops up when a customer tries to close the window.

Here, you can offer something of value to the customer that might help them reconsider before leaving. This could be an offer of free shipping or a discount, much like you would in an abandoned cart email. If this doesn’t appear to work, it might be worth trying something a little different, such as a newsletter sign up or a giveaway in order to get their email address.

Improve conversion rates

Whichever combination of tools you use to reduce shopping cart abandonment and win those customers back, it’s important to at least have some strategy in place. Test what works best to win people back and then implement it into your e-commerce strategy. Combine this with preventative measures on the site and throughout the checkout process and you should see shopping cart abandonment rates drop and conversion rates increase!