In our totally free Ultimate Guide on Abandoned Cart Emails, you’ll see 30 examples of abandoned cart emails sent by the biggest eCommerce brands and learn how to increase conversion on your own cart recovery emails. 
We did this by abandoning more carts than anyone in history and then by looking at how millions of shoppers engage with abandoned cart emails sent by shops using Remarkety for their automated email campaigns.
This means we can give you real examples of abandoned basket emails, their subject lines and the best times to send for conversion.
We looked at abandoned cart emails sent by eCommerce shops that are in every industry and vertical.
Fashion, lifestyle products like home goods or supplements, athletic brands, technology, and more.
But first, let’s take in the lay-of-the-land when it comes to abandonment emails.
So many abandoned carts.
70% of shoppers abandon their cart.
This number comes from a Baymard Institute study after averaging the findings of over 30 studies on abandonment rate.
Some studies reported abandoned rates as low as 55% and others as high as 80%.
With all these shoppers leaving their carts behind, that’s where the abandoned cart email campaign comes in.
It’s going to make sure that not all of those shoppers abandon their baskets and carts forever.
Why are abandoned cart emails important?
A few reasons, actually.
Shoppers are forgetful.
Remember, these are people we’re talking about.
One minute they’re shopping for paper towels or shoes on their couch.
The next minute they’re rushing over to the stove because the noodles are boiling over.
Shoppers are price conscious.
If they weren’t, why would they start camping out days before a sale and willingly miss a turkey and pumpkin pie dinner?
Valassis published a study that found 80% of consumers are price conscious and seek a deal.
Seems pretty obvious, but it’s the reason why they’re so many abandoned carts.
Shoppers want to know they’re getting a deal, so they’re going to price check.
To do this, many shoppers will add items to their cart and then hop over to a competitor website to look at prices.
Even if one shop doesn’t have the lowest prices, a well-timed abandoned cart email can be the difference maker.
This does require a strong call-to-action and incentive though. Maybe it’s a discount, free returns or free shipping.
Shoppers engaging with email are more likely to convert.
CMO.com published a study that found product recommendations in email can increase conversion about three to five percent.
If the items in an abandoned cart doesn’t draw a shopper back, product recommendations might do the trick.
There are plenty of product recommendation types to include in an abandoned cart email (or any eCommerce-focused email).
- Best Sellers – Can be best sellers from certain categories or total best sellers
- Also Purchased With – Items also purchased with products in the cart
- Characteristics Match – Items that match color or characteristics of product in cart
Shoppers don’t click banner ads.
Well, that isn’t totally true.
0.07 percent of shoppers will click a banner ad and 0.7 percent will click a retargeted banner ad.
A retargeted banner ad follows shoppers around with the web, showing images of the items in their basket or the items they browsed.
When comparing emails to banner ads, the average abandoned cart email has over a 50% open rate, a click rate above 30% and a purchase rate around 20%.
That’s why it’s important to have a multi-step checkout where an email is required in the first step before allowing the customer to reach the second step.
How to Capture More Emails
This is where the multi-step checkout makes its grand entrance.
To repeat what was stated earlier, try capturing the email address during checkout as soon as possible.
When to Send Abandoned Cart Emails
It’s all about the follow up.
Sending an email at the “best” time can be critical for achieving higher opens, clicks and conversions.
Instead of thinking about the time of day to send an email, you want to be thinking about how soon after someone abandoned their cart to deliver a recovery email.
In a study of thousands of online stops and tens of millions of emails, we found conversion is highest when emails are sent the first few hours after abandonment.
Here’s some side reading – learn more about eCommerce email marketing benchmarks.
Conversion might certainly be highest when the email is delivered in the first handful of hours after abandonment, but don’t forget following up with a second and even third email.
That second and third follow up email, sent after 24 hours and 48 hours can recover an additional 50% of abandoned carts.
And depending on how many shoppers you have on a daily or weekly basis, this could be quite a chunk of change.
They’re Doing it Wrong
Amazingly, a lot of really massive eCommerce companies aren’t sending abandoned cart emails (at least at the time of this publishing).
Seems a bit crazy, no?
Especially when considering how much money they’re leaving on the table.
Abandoned Cart Email Examples
For many small and medium sized eCommerce shops, there isn’t enough time or volume to adequately test email messaging and design on a daily or even weekly basis.
That’s why we’ve abandoned more carts than anyone in history to show you how some of the best eCommerce companies win back their shoppers.
This includes their email template design, their subject lines and a breakdown of the elements we like (and don’t like) in these emails.
Imitation is the greatest form of flattery, right?
The 30 abandoned cart emails you’ll see span industries, from fashion and hardware to home goods and tech.
Now that that’s out of the way, get the free guide here to see all the abandon cart emails and get a checklist so you can improve your cart recovery process.
