Abandoned Cart Reminders: Best Practices and Tips

If you've set up abandoned cart notifications, you're already re-engaging and capturing anonymous shoppers who wouldn't have otherwise. But, it isn't enough to switch on these automated notifications! For better clicks and conversions, you need to optimize your abandoned cart reminders so that more shoppers convert. From copy to strategy, we've listed a few best practices that are sure to drive more results and recover carts better.

Best Practices to Set Up Optimized Abandoned Cart Reminders

1. Make your copy relevant to your products and brand

Make the notifications sound like you by using your brand tone and tailoring the notification to fit the problem you're solving. For instance, if you sell headphones, you can use phrases like "improve the way you enjoy music" or if you're a fashion brand, you can nudge shoppers to "upgrade their wardrobe".

Another way to personalize your cart recovery notifications is by focusing on your customer. Make your communication more intimate by using words like ‘you’ and ‘we’.

2. Keep your copy short

When writing copy for your abandoned cart reminders (and even other notifications), keep your character length for both title and message under 20 characters. Any longer and your subscribers will receive notifications with text that is cut off, ruining your brand experience. Read our guide on notification lengths for different devices.

3. Use emojis

Push notifications with emojis have an 85% increase in open rates, compared to push notifications without them. Add emojis to make your abandoned cart notification more creative and playful. You can use them to also indicate tone or build excitement for the shopper.

4. Use urgency words

Phrases like 'Limited time offer' and 'expires soon' increase urgency over the abandoned cart and nudge your shoppers to take action. Use urgency words within the copy to drive faster action.

5. Add a discount (and a shareable discount link)

If you have any discounts running on your store, you can add them to your abandoned cart notification to incentivize shoppers who have abandoned their cart to take action. You can also use non-discount promotions like free shipping, a gift card, or loyalty points (if you don't have a discount to offer).

If you've mentioned a discount within one of your abandoned cart reminders, add a Shareable Discount Links within the notification link or even within one of the buttons to automatically apply the discount to the cart.

Note: Add the discount to the second or third reminder so that shoppers who merely forgot to checkout will place an order from the first reminder without having to incentivize them with a discount.

6. Format text to enable bold and italics within your notification

You can add formatted text to your abandoned cart notifications by using tools like FSymbols to generate bold text that stands out.

7. Lead shoppers to different parts of the store with buttons

Buttons allow you to direct shoppers to take a specific action. By default, your abandoned cart notifications use 2 buttons— "Checkout" and "Continue Shopping".

You can try different copy for your button based on your brand tone and through testing. Persuasive phrases like "Shop now" or "Grab this offer" are quite effective at capturing immediate attention.

8. Set up discount ladders

While discounts aren’t a bad idea, you may worry that you’re compromising on your profit margins.

Not all shoppers need an incentive to purchase. While offering a flat discount for every abandoned cart would help you recover more sales, you’d definitely be losing out on a fair bit of revenue.

Let’s say you offer a 10% discount for all abandoned carts. Instead of giving away this discount in every cart reminder, you can stagger it in a discount ladder.

Here’s how you do it.

• First reminder - don’t offer any discount. Certain visitors might simply be distracted while shopping and fully intend to purchase from your store. For them, just a simple reminder without any discount will get the job done.
• Second reminder - 5% discount. If a reminder doesn’t do the job, some others are likely to take the bait with a small discount.
• Third reminder - 10% discount. Still nothing? Go all out with 10% to convert the rest of the stragglers.

Recover carts better by optimizing your Abandoned Cart Reminders

Abandoned Cart Reminders are one of the most important tools for any store owner. Using these ten hacks, you can improve your abandoned cart reminders by experimenting and leveraging the hacks that work best for your store.

Push marketing is still picking up steam and the only way to ensure higher conversions is to experiment with new strategies.

Try various techniques and refine your abandoned cart reminder funnels to ensure you are working towards higher conversion rates.

Here’s to fewer abandoned carts and more sales on your store with PushOwl.

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