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3 Multichannel Abandoned Cart Tools that Don’t Require Email

April 10, 2020

Over the years, abandoned cart strategies and tools have largely focused on email campaigns – and it’s an excellent place to start. Nearly 76% of US adults use email, and 82% of those check their inboxes at least once a day; some as many as 15 times. 

But the humble inbox is becoming an increasingly crowded joint, and, if you caught our recent blog on email deliverability, it’s also becoming increasingly difficult to enter. To enhance your chances of recovering abandoning visitors, you need a multi-channel abandoned cart strategy. 

A multi-channel abandoned cart strategy supplements the power of email campaigns, with a series of cart abandonment tools that don’t require an email. 

In this week’s blog, we’re sharing our top three multi-channel abandonment cart tools that don’t require email, along with best practice tips for success, and some real-life examples of how they can be implemented. 

The Importance of a Multi-Channel Customer Recovery Strategy

According to Shopify, multi-channel marketing and multi-channel selling increase revenue by an average 38%, 120%, and 190%, with each additional channel. It’s therefore only natural that a multi-channel customer recovery strategy can achieve the same.

A multi-channel customer recovery strategy respects the fact that customers use multiple channels throughout the purchasing journey. In fact, according to Statista, one of the top reasons for cart abandonment is heading to another channel to conduct research. 

Adopting a multi-channel customer recovery campaign takes advantage of this multi-channel shopping approach by:

• Increasing the chances of your message being seen

As mentioned, the email inbox is crowded and difficult to be noticed in. If you read our recent blog on abandoned cart subject lines, you’ll know with the right wording, timing, and content, you can achieve an open rate of up to 70%, but what about the remaining 30%?

By using more channels to connect with your customers post-abandonment, you statistically increase the chances of your message being seen and opened.

• Empowering customer choice

It’s a well-known psychological trait that humans don’t like being told what to do. Being given a choice, even a guided one, gives us control that appeases our survival instinct.

By communicating with customers on a variety of channels, you’re giving them control by saying: “hey, which channel do you want to continue shopping on?” This is far more likely to result in a positive action than saying: “hey, you must re-engage with us through this email link.” 

• Being more personal

The email inbox is no longer a personal place. It’s full of generic newsletters, boring updates, and long-lost cousins who have £1,000,000 to put into your bank account. This has led to alternative communication channels, such as SMS and Facebook Messenger, being used to speak with friends and family. 

By connecting with abandoned website visitors on these alternative channels, your message is more likely to opened and viewed with compassion – allowing you to build a personal relationship built on familiarity and trust. 

Multi-Channel Abandoned Cart Tools That Don’t Require Email

The key to succeeding with a multi-channel abandoned cart strategy is leveraging different channels to honor customer choice, purchase patterns, and platform usage. Our three favorite tools for achieving this are as follows. 

Abandoned cart push notifications

An abandoned cart push notification is a timed, clickable notification that appears directly on your shoppers computer screen when their web browser is open. One of their best features is that they appear regardless of which website the user is on, or whether the user is even browsing the internet. If the browser application is open, they’ll see the notification!  Plus, their instant nature means they’ll rarely go “unread”, due to the fact that the message and content are both right in front of them from the start.

To receive a push notification, customers must opt-in when they’re on your website – something that should form part of your on-site customer recovery strategy. 

Push notifications are, therefore, an excellent tool for recovery because the act of opting in demonstrates high buyer intent that can be reignited through a simple reminder. Also, the on-screen nature of push notifications means that they appear when your customer is best positioned to finalize their purchase (on their computer). It’s reasons like these why users are seeing an average 50% increase in revenue following push notification use. 

Abandoned cart push notification best practices

There are three top tips for running a successful push notification abandoned cart campaign. These are:

• Using an engaging opt-in message

Too often, brands rely on the generic opt-in wording: “Ecommerce store wants to show notifications – block or allow.” This take it or leave it approach isn’t persuasive, personal, or likely to result in positive action. Instead, you should conduct a short, compelling message that incentivizes opting in by teasing with information, offers, or content. 

• Personalization

Push notifications may be restricted to 128 characters, but that shouldn’t mean you can’t personalize the content. Use a catchy headline, an engaging message, and an image relevant to the customer’s visit. 

• Call to action

Since your push notifications appear while your customer is on their computer browsing the web, playing games, or catching up with their admin, it’s essential that your call to action both compelling and easy to complete. For example, “Find out more” suggests that the shopper must complete an action, such as reading, to proceed; whereas “Checkout” suggests that all they need to do is click that buy button. 

Abandoned cart push notification examples

As you’ll see from the following examples, the usual tactics employed in cart and browse abandonment campaigns (scarcity, incentives, and risk aversion) work just as well in abandoned cart push notifications. 

Abandoned cart SMS (text messages)

SMS messages are a highly effective, yet often overlooked marketing channel for sellers looking to recover customers. SMS messages have a 90% open rate within just three minutes of receipt. Why? Because the average American spends 5.4 hours a day on their phone, and SMS messages come with their own alert – making them a quick and easy way to capture attention. 

In addition to being highly openable, text messages appear away from the hustle and bustle of the internet, social media, and emails. The SMS inbox is a personal place reserved for one-to-one conversations; subconsciously, recipients will automatically attribute familiarity, warmth, and trust to anyone appearing here – perfect for persuading abandoners back to their shopping cart. 

Abandoned cart SMS best practice 

However, there is an art to sending effective cart abandonment SMS. This includes:

• Personalization

Personalization is still key when it comes to customer recovery. It makes your content relevant to the recipient while also creating familiarity. Personalization in SMS can be achieved by using sender ID to show your brand name as the sender and adding custom fields to insert personal information such as the recipient’s name and what they were browsing. 

• Timing

Timing is particularly crucial when it comes to SMS – after all, you don’t want to give your customers a panic attack by waking them up with a 3 am message. We recommend following a similar schedule to you abandoned cart emails, being careful to avoid unsociable hours (work time and bedtime). 

• Length

Text messages are limited to 160-characters per message, and it’s good practice to stay within this limit. Anything longer defeats the purpose of SMSs being the quick way to communicate.  This gives you 160-characters to hook, engage, and compel your audience to your CTA. 

Abandoned cart SMS examples

The following ecommerce SMS examples demonstrate how powerful 160-characters can be when combined with the right tone and content. 

Abandoned cart Facebook Messenger

Facebook Messenger is available on both web browsers and smartphones, enabling you to cover all bases to ensure that your message is read – any it usually is. Open rates can be as high as 98% and click-through rates 44%, thanks to the 64.5 minutes an average adult spends on the platform. 

In addition, clicked links open within the app, preventing disruption and creating a frictionless customer experience that discourages further abandonment. It’s also easy to get started with, by using CartStack’s enriched contact records to find social profiles and transfer leads to your social media chatbot using Zapier. 

Facebook Messenger best practice 

Similar to abandoned cart SMS, you’re entering a private and personal space here. This necessitates the following:

• Personalization

We’ve mentioned it twice already, and we’re going to mention it again. Personalization is key to winning back customers because your message becomes highly relevant to them. Use your visitor tracking information to segment shoppers into the right Facebook Messenger re-engagement campaign. 

• Conversation

Since Facebook Messenger is a conversation tool, you can generate great results from entering into a conversation. Saying “Hey, we saw you were looking at this – is there anything we can help you with?” will likely perform much better than copying and pasting your cart abandonment email. 

• Imagery

The Facebook Messenger app allows you to send images and videos – do it. Send one or two images of what the customer had added to their basket to engage them, remind them, and reignite their interest. 

Abandoned cart Facebook Messenger examples

These Facebook Messenger examples demonstrate how a simple conversation starter could lead to increased customer recovery rates. 

Main takeaway

Abandoned cart emails are undoubtedly the best place to start with your customer recovery strategy. But once you’ve perfected the email, it’s time to delve into different ways and channels to connect with the customer who’s gone, but never forgotten. 

Whatever multi-channel abandoned cart strategy you adopt, the following four necessities never change: timing, relevance, content, and testing. Good luck!