Triggered emails are extremely useful in saving retailers’ time and effort. They maintain customers’ trust, engagement and satisfaction, as well as the customers’ relationship with the retailers.

The automatic sending of an email can be triggered by endless triggers, which can be set and customized by the retailer (time after trigger, frequency, content, design, etc.).

So if you are setting up triggered emails, where should you begin?

Follow this list to find some of the most common and most useful triggered emails.

Welcome Email

When: activity-based trigger – after a sign-up or registration.

Why: primarily, to encourage them to start shopping and increase conversions.

Since this is the first email the new subscribers receive from you, it will also start a relationship with your customers, make them comfortable with your company, give them intel, engage with them and begin forming trust.

Welcome emails are extremely effective, as Experian found they induce 3 times more revenue per email than than regular promotional emails.

What:

– A ‘thank you’ or ‘welcome’ message.

– Information- about how to use the service, how the loyalty program works, the company’s story, some tips, the benefits of shopping with the company or of being a subscriber, contact information, etc.

– A discount, demo or freebie to encourage shopping.

Cart Abandonment Email

When: behavior-based trigger – when items in the cart are abandoned (first email to be sent in one hour after behavior happens).

Why: cart abandonment is a prevailing issue in e-commerce, for which emails are the most effective solution, with an average of 18% conversion rate. Find out how to implement such a strategy and what the best practices are.

What: different messages are appropriate for different numbered email and customers. Some messages include:

– Show the cart items abandoned.

– Personalized product recommendations.

– Monetary incentives (discounts, free shipping, etc.).

– Low stock alerts.

– Social proof (reviews, ratings, logos, etc.).

Inactive Email

When: inactivity-based trigger – after a set period of time a customer has not made a purchase (i.e. half a year).

Why: primarily, to remind inactive customers of your company, show you care about them, buid loyalty and encourage them to shop.

What:

– A ‘we miss you’ or ‘come back’ message.

– Personalized product recommendations – to help find more relevant products.

– Monetary incentives.

– Help (live chat, useful links) – if confusion stopped them from buying.

– Benefits of the company and of being a subscriber.

– Social proof (reviews, testimonials, etc.).

– Survey asking why they are not shopping – shows you care and able to be more helpful.

Product Update Email

When: event-based trigger –

– A product desired by the customer is back in stock (size, color, model).

– A product desired (cart/wishlist) drops in price.

Why: this alerts the customer of when a product they desire becomes a better match to their conditions (the needed fit or color, or a lower price). It encourages the customer to return to the site and shop it.

What: the main message is about the newly available version of the item. Other messages you can include are:

– Monetary incentive.

– Personalized product recommendations.

– Social proof.

Special Events Email

When: date-based or time-based trigger, sent at set time before –

– Customer’s birthday.

– Anniversary with the company.

– Special occasions, holidays and festivals (Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc.).

– Loyalty programs-related (at a certain amount of collected points or before the customer needs to renew the subscription).

Why: these emails not only remind and entice customers to shop more but also build trust and loyalty due to the personalization of the message and the continued contact.

What: offer something of value that is specific for this event (time-limited to induce sense of urgency):

– Specific product recommendations about occasion.

– Monetary incentive.

– New, time-limited products (mostly occasion or holiday-related).

Order Confirmation (Transactional) Email

When: activity-based trigger – after the purchase is made.

Why: this email is crucial as it reduces the common post-purchase anxiety (that the order is made). This confirmation plus concising all the essential delivery information into one email create a sense of trust and build customer loyalty.  As a secondary effect, this email re-engages with the customer and builds up for a repeat purchase.

What:

– An ‘order complete’ and/or ‘thank you’ message.

– Essential information about transaction – items purchased, shipping address, link to order information, link to tracking of order progress, etc.

– Personalized product recommendations.

– A discount for the next purchase.

– Asking for feedback about the shopping experience.

Shipping Confirmation Email

When: activity-based trigger – after the items are shipped.

Why: similarly to the order confirmation email, this email mainly reduces anxiety that the items are shipped, builds trust and loyalty and encourages repeat purchases.

What:

– A ‘your items are shipped’ message.

– The same previous essential information.

– Asking for feedback about the shopping experience.

Product Delivered (Review) Email

When: activity-based trigger – when the product is delivered to the customer OR a set time (up to 2 weeks) after the purchase is made.

Why: There are three main reasons for this email. The first is to ensure the customer received the items and if not, to help with this issue. The second is to provide information to customers who wish to replace or return the product. The third is to obtain feedback about the experience (shopping, shipping, product and company). Feedback is important to:

– Re-engage with the customer.

– Show you care about them. Give satisfied customers rewards to encourage repeat purchases and give unsatisfied customers incentives and compensation.

– Improve your company according to feedback.

– Increase social proof on your site (reviews, testimonials, etc.).

What:

– A ‘thank you for purchasing’ message.

– Survey for feedback – quick and short and can provide incentive for filling it.

– Essential information: contact information, return and replacement information, etc.

Unsubscribe Email

When: behavior-based trigger – when the customer clicked to unsubscribe.

Why: this is your last chance to convince the customer to stay a subscriber and preserve your relationship.

What: a personal message expressing sadness about the decision and highlighting benefits of staying a subscriber.

The post 9 Examples of Ecommerce Triggered Emails that Draw Subscribers In appeared first on Barilliance.

Sending out cart abandonment emails is an effective cart abandonment solution in recovering lost sales.

But before the email itself can convince the customer to return to her cart, the email’s subject line must first convince the customer to click and open the email.

According to Chadwick Martin Bailey, 64% of people open emails because of the subject line, meaning it greatly influences the emails’ open rate.

As the first thing customers see in their inbox, it is the first stepping stone in the process of cart recovery; the step that starts the ball rolling.

Therefore, it is essential to write an enticing subject line so that this first step is taken by customers and they click on the email.

How do you write an enticing subject line?

There are many styles of subject lines. Each style is effective and should be used depending on different factors:

– Your company’s branding (i.e. if your brand is serious then don’t use the humor style).
– The abandonment email number sent (there is a difference if it is the 1st ,2nd or 3rd email, as the message of the emails differs with your subject line reflecting the message).
– Your customer’s shopping behavior and attributes (are they enticed by a sale, a sense of urgency, just need help in the process? – send the message accordingly).

Here are some examples of the different styles from successful companies:

Email 1: Cart Content

1. The friendly style

Simply being friendly instead of blantly trying to convince the customer to return to the cart shows the customer you are customer-focused and care for them more than just care about their money.

2. The reminder of cart style

The company reminds the customer about the cart that they abandoned and is straightforward about their intention of sending a reminder. This shows the customer that the company is helpful for saving the cart for when the customer is ready to purchase, while not trying to stress the customer out to buy it.

3. The forgot your cart? style

This style still reminds the customer of their cart, but with a specific idea behind it. This message implies that the reason the customer abandoned the cart is because they forgot it rather than any other issue (i.e. costs, shipping, confusion, etc.). This suggestive message can motivate the customer to come back as this is a reminder for something they ‘forgot’ to do.

4. The humor style

Humor is a great way to get the customer to chuckle and open the email. It also shows your company’s personality and can increase engagement and build the customer relationship.

This style can be used combined with any other style as well and at any point of the cart abandonment emails campaign (in any email number).

This is only to be used if humor is on-brand for your company.

Email 2: Customer Service

5. The customer service style

On the second cart abandonment email, e-tailers often highlight customer service (such as contact options, FAQ answers, etc.). Customers often don’t look for an answer to issues they have, therefore reaching out to offer help and a solution can motivate them to return.

This message can be communicated in the subject line by asking about problems (“Oops… Was there a problem?”) or by offering help (“How can we help?”).

Email 3: Last Effort

6. The monetary incentive style

This is one of the most common motivators for cart recovery. Make it VERY clear in the subject line that the customer is getting a discount as to eliminate any chance of them missing this and to entice them to open the email. Use words such as “deal”, “promotion”, “x% off”, etc.

7. The urgency-inducing style

Creating a sense of urgency can induce immediate, intuitive purchases. This can be done in different ways.

One is to induce urgency about the cart. Say the cart is about to expire and induce fear that other customers may purchase them instead (to the point of out-of-stock).

Another is to induce urgency about the items themselves. Notify the customer that they are low in stock to induce fear that they may sell out soon.

Another is to induce urgency about the discount for the cart items. Say the special discount on these items is about to expire.

8. The FOMO-inducing style

This is very similar to the previous style and often goes together. Instead of urging the customer to “hurry up” and inducing a sense of urgency, the subject line implies “careful you won’t miss out on these amazing items” and induces a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out).

See boohoo’s subject line that utilizes both urgency and FOMO:

Now that you know how to write an enticing subject line, it is important to learn how create effective email campaigns. Know how to time you emails and which content to use, to motivate your customers to return to the site.

The post 8 Examples Of Cart Abandonment Emails Subject Lines appeared first on Barilliance.

Is your customer about to leave the site? You can still try to stop them!

How? Implement an exit intent pop up strategy and entice them to convert and/or capture their details for later re-targeting and cart recovery.

Read this article to find out the different types and how to effectively implement this strategy.

What is Exit Intent Pop Up?

As online retailers, we have many actions we must take in order to get our shoppers to convert. First, we attract the shoppers to our site. We help them find the right items and motivate them to add them to their carts. Once they’ve added items to their carts we encourage them to checkout and finalize their purchase. If a customer leaves mid-journey, we start this process again by attracting the shopper back to the site.

Unfortunately, there are so many factors that can stop this customer journey at any stage, which prevents us from reaching our goal (having customers convert).

It is much easier and more effective to motivate customers to stay on the site and complete the purchase rather than motivating them to return to the site after they have left. One way to keep the customers on the site is by optimizing it to eliminate cart abandonment issues.

However, while it may be effective, it may not be enough and some customers may still want to leave the site.

Now imagine a Jane, who have looked at three summer dresses but was hesitant regarding the costs and decided to leave the site for now. As soon as she moves her mouse towards the ‘close tab’ button she gets a pop up screen with the message “limited offer: get 10% off summer dresses for the next hour!”. With the added value of the discount, Jane is more eager to buy the dress she wanted and makes a purchase within 40 minutes.

Say hello to the exit intent pop up (overlays), a pop up that appears when customers intend to leave the website, which gives them something of value to motivate them to stay on the site or leave details.

How does it work?

Technology tracks the shoppers’ cursors movement around the site and predicts when customers are about to abandon the site according to how and where their cursors move. An abandonment is usually detected when a visitor moves the cursor to the address bar (most likely to search for a different website) or to the back button to leave the site.

Why should you use this tool?

The main reason for using exit intent pop ups is to reduce browse, cart and checkout abandonment. The pop ups motivate shoppers who are about to leave the site to stay instead and re-engage with the site, by offering them something of value.

This is particularly aimed at first time and returning visitors as well as price-sensitive shoppers. This strategy keeps the customers on the site, increases the likelihood of a purchase due to the newly added value and as a result improves the conversion rate. Barilliance has found that this strategy induces an average of 10% conversion rate, though some companies have seen conversion rates as high as 100%.

Another major benefit of using exit intent pop ups is to acquire the shoppers’ details, in particular their email addresses. It is crucial to have customers’ emails in cases they do leave the site so we can remarket to them and increase cart recoveries.

If the customers are anonymous (no details have been provided) when abandoning the site, you cannot reach out to them to attract them back to the site. In such cases, the company is losing potential revenue as returning visitors are very valuable, being responsible for 41% of the store’s overall revenue. Therefore, you can use exit intent pop ups to capture their email address by exchanging them with something of value to the customer. For more information about how to capture emails besides using exit intent pop ups see this Barilliance ebook.

What values can you offer?

There are numerous types of values you can use in the exit intent overlays. Some are mainly for the purpose of encouraging customers to make a purchase now, while others are mainly for capturing email addresses for retargeting, remarketing and cart recoveries.

Most pop ups achieve both goals, but the focus and primary goal may differ depending on the company’s strategy, the type of customer, etc.

The various types of values used in the exit intent overlays are a categorized by the main goal to be achieved.

To Covert Shoppers in This Browsing Session:

Value: Monetary Incentives

Customers respond very well to monetary incentives, as found by DMA, the main reasons customers sign up for emails are offers/sales (61%) and discounts (59%). Being effective, this is a very common value offered in exit intent overlays, used in different forms. 

One time discount/coupon for this purchase

A one time, limited offer for any items the customer will purchase in this specific visit, presented when the customer is about to leave the site. If they come back another time this offer will be gone.

This incentivizes the customers to make a purchase during this visit and not wait for a later date. This helps to prevent both browse and cart abandonment and can appear at any page one the site. 

Furthermore, having the customer fill in their email address to get the code, it helps you not only to capture their email address but to also be able to auto-apply the coupon code to avoid the coupon trap at the checkout.

Time limited discount/coupon

A time limited offer that expired at a certain time (i.e. at 6pm) or within a certain time using a countdown clock (i.e. in one hour).

Since this type of offer constraints the customer with a time frame, it induces a sense of urgency that stimulates the customer to make  a quick purchase. The code for the offer should be exchanged only for an email address and should be automatically embedded during checkout.  

Additionally, you can perpetuate the sense of urgency by setting a constant reminder of the time left for being able to use the coupon/discount. This can be done by utilizing the banners on your site that are shown on all pages, throughout the customer’s journey on the site, as shown below.

Personalized discount

Rather than a general discount for whatever the customer purchases, this type of offer is a personalized discount for the specific products, item categories or brands the customer was viewing or put in their cart. Since the person has an interest in these products, a specific discount for those items will further that interest and give a sense of a great bargain.

This is mostly used to helps the customer form the belief that this specific product is worth buying. Additionally, this creates a sense of individuality, uniqueness and personal care by the company and gives the customer a more relevant experience.

As shown below, the customer must fill in their email address to have their personalized discount revealed.

     –>   

Furthermore, you can personalize your offers according to other indicators besides the shopper’s visit. Such indicators include the geography of the customer (for example, shipping to Japan is 10% off), the device they are using to browse the site and more.

Shipping discount or free shipping

While the previous points offered discount on the purchase or the specific products, this offer is specific to the shipping cost. This value can tackle cart abandonment as it elminates the biggest reason for cart abandonment – unexpected or high shipping costs found at checkout.

It is effective to use in cases where a shipping cost is existent and the customer is about the abandon the cart or checkout pages.

Value: a reminder of existing values

This type of exit intent overlay allows you to present customers of some things that are already existent in your site that may incentivize them to finalize their purchase.

The customer may have not been aware these things existed in the first place, or have known of them but the reminder helped emphasize them. Either way, the pop up brings these things to the customer’s attention. Such values include:

Existing promotions

Presenting the customer with discounts/coupons that are available to all shoppers. Although they are not unique to the customer, they can be conveyed as such in order to heighten the sense of uniqueness. For example, replace “use our 10% discount” with “enjoy your extra 10% discount”.

You should still ask for their email address in exchange for the discount, even if the customer can get the code on the site without it, in order to get as many leads as possible.

In the example below the customer will click the “get coupon” button to enter their email address and have the code auto-applied.

Existing contests/raffles

If you are holding any contests or raffles you should incorporate them into your exit intent overlay strategy, as some customers may not know they exist until it literally appears before their eyes. It is a very effective way to publicize your contest and increase opt-ins, as well as increase the number of emails provided and conversions.

Price match guarantee

Another valuable reminder is of your price-match policy. This is extremely useful to target at price-sensitive customers who highlight and copy product names to search for lower prices on other sites. This pop up reduces such act and so reduces cart abandonment.

Existing products

We can present customers with items or product categories they may have not seen yet and entice them to view these products. The types of products we may want to promote in the pop up are new arrivals, top selling items, “must-haves”, or on-sale items. This overlay offers customers who have not yet found items they wish to buy a more relevant selection to look at, thereby preventing browse abandonment.

The type of items shown to a customer on the overlay should depends on the type of customer, which can be segmented and targeted easily using Barilliance’s service. For example, if the customer was looking at the reviews and testimonials then present them with the top selling category, while if the customer was sorting items from low to high then present them with the on-sale items (see below).  

Their cart items

Sometimes customers get distracted and forget they have put items in their carts. To avoid cart abandonment from happening, it is worth to remind customers that they have items in their carts.

This is a simple reminder, without offering a discount or to save the items, in order to keep the customer aware and on site and encourage conversions.

Value: a more relevant and better experience

Sometimes the customer isn’t price-sensitive and isn’t looking for a discount, but is rather looking for a better, more relevant experience. As research shows, a better experience leads to higher conversions.

So how can exit intent overlays induce a better experience?

Personalized product recommendations

Perhaps the customers are leaving because they could not find what they were looking for, or were not truly interested in the items they viewed.

In such cases, there is no need to offer a discount but rather a need to aim the person towards what they may be more interested in. Therefore, this strategy gets the customers’ attention towards more relevant items and gets them re-interested and re-engaged.

Interactive Quizzes

The pop ups can ask the customers to do a quiz, to find their measurements, preferences and habits and then show them personalized product recommendations. This allows us to acquire more information about the shopper and at the same time give them a more relevant experience in an engaging manner.

Helping customers

Sometimes customers leave the site because they get confused or cannot find an answer to a question. To combat this problem, the pop up can bring the availability of customer service to the shopper’s attention.

For example, by presenting them with a question such as “can we help you?” and a call for action to enter a live chat. This could be specifically targeted at people who are about to leave the site after being at the “help” or “FAQ” pages as well as after viewing measurement charts.

For example, FloraQueen uses Barilliance for such overlay:

If the customer hasn’t used this help or closed the pop up, it is expands to the pop up below, further attempting to grab the customer’s attention:

Offer more content

If the customer was looking at the blog of your site, you can refer them to more articles that may be relevant to them according to what they have been looking at.

For example, if they were reading an article about jeans, you could ask “do you want to know how to wear mom jeans?”. A click on “yes” will lead them to the related article, giving them a more relevant experience and keeping them on the site.

To Capture Email Addresses:

In the previous section we tried to look at tactics of exit intent pop-ups to keep the customers on the site. Now we will look at tactics that won’t necessarily contribute to keeping the customers on-site but will aim and contribute to getting the customers’ emails.

It is extremely important to capture this detail so you will be able to motivate customers to return to the site at a later date and give them freedom in case they are hesitant at the moment.

Moreover, having the emails of customers allows you to begin and build a relationship that can result in not only this purchase but further purchases in the future.

Value: save items for when you are ready to buy

Save items

Some of the common reasons for not being ready to make a purchase are not being completely committed, being in a hurry or wanting to wait until their next paycheck. Indeed, 24% of customers who put items in their carts do so for later consideration. Whatever the reason is, we can help the customers by calling them to save their carts, wishlists or even their visits (items they’ve viewed but have not put in their carts).

Customers saving their carts is beneficial for the customer, as they have the items saved to refer to and look back on at a later, more comfortable date without needing to re-search for them.

It is beneficial for the company, as they are able to capture the customer’s email for re-targeting and cart recovery purposes. It also helps the company to prevent the issue of cross-device hopping, as customers can access these items on any device by clicking the link sent to their emails.

You can also give them the option to post their items to social media or send them to people, to consult about the products and at the same time to advertise the company.

One time discount/coupon for this cart

Although customers are often happy to save their carts without any incentive, it is possible to induce more saving to emails by offering a monetary incentive for when they do decide to buy the items.

They can only redeem the discount/coupon if they access the site through the link sent to the email with the cart content. This further encourages customers to return to the site to buy these items and builds a relationship and trust by giving the customers time and freedom.

Value: get on-going personal care

It is important to acquire emails of anonymous users for remarketing purposes and future leads. Furthermore, it is important to keep in touch with customers and create an on-going relationship. This relationship continues the shopping experience offsite and nurtures visitors into becoming loyal customers.

You can do this by offering customers some value to agreeing to the on-going relationship that gives them an advantage over other customers. Such values as below:

Get members only promotions

Customers who sign up and become members will receive special offers only members receive, in terms of coupons, discounts, gifts and more. This allows customers to feel special and feel they have an added value from this relationship.

The example below gives the shopper many reasons to subscribe, one of which is receiving “exclusive deals”, shown on the top right hand corner.

Be the first to know of things

You can also offer not to be treated differently, rather to be prioritized. Meaning, the subscribed customer will be the first to know about things such as events, competitions, promotions, new products and more. These offers will be given to non-subscribers as well, but in delay. This allows customers to feel like ‘insiders’ and having an advantage over non-subscribers.

Get notified for what you want

Customers can also use this relationship to get notified via email about things they desire to know, rather than to be constantly checking the website.

For example, they can get notified when the price drops for desired products, when a product (or specific size or color of the item) is back in stock (on average 15% of customers abandon the site for such reason) and more.

Subscribe to the newsletter

Customers could gain free content from the on-going relationship, which can be acquired by signing up to the company’s newsletter.

This is one of the most effective ways to capture the customers’ emails, for re-targeting purposes and nurturing loyal customers. Further ensure the customer will sign up by also offering a coupon at the sign up.

Value: help us and get incentive

Another reason you may use exit intent pop-ups is to ask for feedback. This helps you understand why customers are leaving and how you could improve as well as shows the customer we care about their experience and satisfaction.

At the same time you can capture the customer’s email, making it a must field in the form. We can use incentives to effectively induce more opt ins for filling the feedback form.

Other messages could include: “rate us”, “tell us why you are leaving”, “help us improve” and more.

To Keep Engaging With Customers Offsite:

If the customer is about to leave you can also attempt to interact with them on a different platform. Therefore the overlay can include a link to the company’s social media profiles.

This allows you to get more followers and likes, generate leads via social media and interact and re-target them on such platforms. This can also be targeted at customers who have made a purchase to induce them to continue to engage with the company.

Additionally you can offer the customers to download your company’s phone application. Phone applications could be extremely useful to prevent cross-device hopping issues.

Tips for making an effective exit intent

Now that you know what kinds of exit intent pop ups you could use and for what reasons, here are some tips to consider when implementing such strategy.

Personalize:

It is most effective to personalize your messages so they would be more relevant to the specific customer viewing them. This way they will be more motivating and therefore will optimize your conversion process and increase your conversion rate. You should personalize according to first time vs. returning visitors, price sensitivity, pages they have viewed, using geo-targeting and more.

With Barilliance you can easily personalize your overlays messages as well as customize the timing they appear on, the pages they appear on and their frequency. You can also perform A/B testing to test which pop-up version produces the best results.

A Clear Message:

The message should be short and clear. The value offered to the customer and the action they must take to obtain the value should both be very obvious. Therefore, be precise about what you are offering and use clear calls for action.

Giving out the email address should be extremely quick and easy, so avoid a long form or many elements and only ask for the email address (and perhaps their name).

Furthermore, if you have a “yes” and “no” options, make the “yes” button more desirable by making it clearer, bigger, with brighter colors and more.

What next?

Now you are ready to implement your own exit intent overlays. When implementing the strategy think of your customers, your branding and the message and goal you are trying to achieve.

To learn more about how to implement the exit intent pop up software, see this page.

The post Exit Intent Pop Ups: Increase Your Conversion Rates and Cart Recovery Ability appeared first on Barilliance.

Introduction

Cart abandonment is a familiar issue to retailers in e-commerce.

When shoppers add items to their carts and don’t finalize their purchases retailers lose potential revenue. CPC strategy found it accounts to approximately $18 billion of lost revenue per year.

There are many reasons shoppers abandon their carts, including website difficulties, shipping and return related issues, personal hesitation and more.

Some of these issues can be tackled. You can optimize your customers’ shopping and checkout experience by following the cart abandonment prevention checklist.

However, some issues cannot be tackled. So, you can implement a multi-stage triggered emails campaign to recover the abandoned carts and lost sales.

Effectiveness of Cart Abandonment Emails

This campaign is very effective.

It allows you to retain your customers instead of spending money on acquiring new ones.

It re-engages and interacts with your abandoners, presents them with relevant communication and therefore, builds trust, a relationship and loyalty – which increase the likelihood of future purchases.

The campaign also enables you to discover the reasons behind the customer’s cart abandonment. Knowing the reason allows you to help the individual shopper with the issue as well as to tackle the underlying problem to prevent some future carts from being abandoned.

The campaign is successful in reducing cart abandonment by up to 30% and inducing an average of 18% conversion rate from emails (that can even reach 40%). A Barilliance study found that 1 in 5 shoppers who opened and clicked on a link within a cart abandonment email, made a purchase (19.6%). On top of that, conversions from a cart abandonment email found to have a 14.2% higher average order value than normal purchases (ones directly via the site) (Econsultancy).

Starting a Cart Abandonment Emails Campaign

A prerequisite of the campaign is to have the abandoner’s email address. Since most abandoners abandon sites without providing any details, you could implement some strategies to capture more visitors’ email addresses. Strategies include optimizing the checkout form, using exit intent pop ups and using the triggered email booster feature.

Cart Abandonment Emails Best Practices

So now that we know what cart abandonment emails are, why we should use them and how to capture more emails, we can begin learning how to craft our email campaigns in the most optimal way.

The following will present some of the best practices of cart abandonment emails. In part 1, the best practices will include how to best execute the emails and how to best individualize them.

Best Practices for the Campaign’s Execution

The Ideal Number of Emails:

Three.

The Ideal Timing of Emails:

Timing the emails is an important factor in their open rate and effectiveness.

If you send the email too long after cart abandonment occurs, the customer may forget about the items or may lose interest. On the other hand, if you don’t wait long enough, the email may bother the shopper and may be perceived as intrusive.

A Barilliance study of 200 e-commerce sites worldwide has found the optimal timing of each cart abandonment email for maximal conversion rates to be the following:

Email 1 – one hour after cart abandonment

The conversion rate of the first email:

– Sent after one hour = 20.3%

– Sent after 24 hours = 12.2%

The longer you wait past an hour after abandonment, the less fresh and relevant the experience on the site becomes and so the lower the conversion rate becomes.

Email 2 – 24 hours after cart abandonment

The conversion rate of the second email:

– Sent after 24 hours = 17.7%

– Sent after 48+ hours = 7.7%

It is important to note that shoppers tend to shop at the same time of the day.

For this reason, it is optimal to send the second (and third) cart abandonment email at the same time of the day as when the cart abandonment occurred. This way, the customer receives the email when he is likely to be shopping online or be in a ‘shopping mood’.

Email 3 – 72 hours after cart abandonment

The conversion rate of the third email:

– Sent after 72 hours = 18.2%

If you wait too long with the third email it may be so far away from when the cart abandonment occurred, that the customer may not remember they put items in your cart, lost interest or already bought them from competitors.

Surfstitch follows this guideline impeccably.

I abandoned my cart on Surfstitch on March 9th at approximately 3:30pm. The first email from Surfstitch arrived on the same day at 4:09pm. So, the first email was sent in a little less than an hour after the cart abandonment, but it wasn’t sent too quickly either.

The second and third emails arrived on the two consecutive days, March 10th and March 11th. Both emails arrived promptly at 3:37pm – the same time I was shopping on their site.  

The Ideal Rules of Stopping Emails:

Yes, sometimes not sending cart abandonment emails can work in your favor.

When?

Customers opt out

You must allow your customers to opt-out of your cart abandonment emails via a link in each email you send.  If the shopper has decided to opt out you must respect that choice and cease from sending cart abandonment emails.

Conversion during the cart abandonment campaign

If your customer has completed the purchase before you’ve sent all three emails, congratulations – the campaign worked!

Is there still a reason for you to send cart abandonment emails to this consumer? Of course not.

Do some companies still do? Unfortunately yes.

If you continue to send cart abandonment emails after the customer has converted, your messages are irrelevant and outdated. If your customer sees this, their experience will be degraded, lowering the brand’s perceived value.

This is a small but important detail in your campaign. So, ensure your triggered emails are set to stop once the customer has converted.

Previously converted customers

Some of your abandoners may be shoppers who have recently converted.

For example, you may have a consumer who converted a day ago but wanted to research more items today, so she put some in her cart and then left the site.

Is it useful to send her a cart abandonment email? Not really.

Since she made a purchase, we can assume that she already got what she wanted, so sending her more messages would be futile. It may be irritating for this customer to receive so many emails from the company and can perceive the company as ‘desperate’.

For this reason, you should set your triggered emails so that cart abandonment emails are not sent to abandoners who have converted x days ago – our guideline is 4 days.

After 4 days we can assume that they might have added new items they could use a reminder for. It’s a good balance between not being too close or too far away.

Incentive-seekers

Some customers know that if they abandon their cart they might get an email from you offering a discount.

So they don’t complete the purchase on purpose until they receive a discount.

Since these are most often ‘willing’ customers, if they realize they would not receive a discount, most of them would complete the purchase anyways. Therefore, you should prevent them from receiving a discount to stop this behavior of ‘abusing the system’ and to stop continuously selling items at discounts.

Set your triggered emails so that if the abandoner received a discount the last time they made a purchase, this time they won’t.

Best Practices for Individualizing the Emails

Be Responsive to Cross-Device Hopping:

Nowadays, shoppers have a cross-device hopping behavior, which refers to the use of different devices throughout one shopping journey.

A Barilliance study examining this behavior found that approximately 1 in 3 shoppers who started their shopping session on a smartphone or tablet and converted via a cart abandonment email, converted on a different device (30% and 34% respectively).

Retailers must adapt to this behavior.

A customer may click through a cart abandonment email on a different device than the original shopping session. It may lead to an empty shopping cart page (the session didn’t transfer) because of a different session cookie. If this happens, the customer can get frustrated and have a disrupted shopping experience.

To tackle this issue, you must implement a Cross Device recognition technology, that recognizes and presents the original shopping session and items abandoned on any device the email is opened on. This creates a seamless experience and can lead to higher conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

Furthermore, you must have responsive emails’ templates and design, so that the customer is able to properly open and view the cart abandonment email regardless on which device it is opened on.

Continually Test and Optimize the Emails:

You must remember that e-commerce strategies are never ‘one size fits all’ and these best practices are not set in stone.

Yes, the best practice is to send your first email in an hour. But maybe your customers are more reactive to emails sent within 40 minutes? And yes, the CTA should be in an urgency-inducing color, but maybe your customers are more attracted to calm-inducing colors?

Your customers are unique and may respond to slightly different things, depending on your brand’s personality, the industry you operate in and their demographics and values.

So, these best practices are good guidelines for you to start with.

Once you begin, continually monitor your performance and analyze your emails’ effectiveness using A/B testing to optimize your emails.

Learn what the best practices for the emails’ content are to optimize your emails and their conversions.

The post Cart Abandonment Email Best Practices & Samples – Part 1 appeared first on Barilliance.

In Cart Abandonment Email Best Practices & Samples Part 1 we learned it is important to implement a cart abandonment emails campaign to recover as much of the lost sales as possible.

We learned what the best practices for the emails’ execution and individualization are. In part 2, we will learn what the best practices for the emails’ content are.

Best Practices for the Emails’ Content

The Ideal Subject Line:

The cart abandonment email’s subject line is the first thing customers see, therefore it greatly influences the email’s open rate.

It is essential that your subject line is crafted optimally to entice customers to open the email, because if they don’t open it, they won’t click-through and convert.

How to craft the ideal subject line?

Your subject line must be clear and must clearly convey the email’s message.

Your subject line should be personalized to create a personal connection and enhance relevancy. A personalized subject line refers to using the customer’s name or the name of the abandoned cart product. According to marketingsherpa, subject line personalization can increase the email’s open rate by 29.3%, the transaction rate by 49% and revenue per email by 73% on average.

To attract more attention, consider using special characters, such as “!!!”, a symbol (e.g. a heart, a letter), an emoji, etc., or using all caps.

On top of this, there are many techniques and approaches to a subject line you can utilize. The approach should match the email’s message and your brand’s personality.

Take a look at FloraQueen’s subject line. It clearly states the purpose of this email – motivating you to continue shopping by offering you a discount. They also made the subject line personal by adding the shopper’s name, which implies the discount is unique to you.

Black Milk Clothing knows how to catch your eyes. First off, asking a question and one that implies desperation and attachment is a clever way to intrigue the viewer. To add on to its distressed feel, the question ends with “?!” instead of a simple “?” and is written in all-caps – a sure fire way to stand out.

The Ideal Call-to-Action (CTA):

Once the customer has opened the email, we want to entice them to click-through to our site, which is done by clicking the CTA.

The email’s copy and visuals are meticulously produced to convince the customer to click through and convert (you’ll learn about this soon). However, it is not alone in the act.

A big, central player in attracting customers to click-through is the CTA. An eye-catching, desireable CTA is a critical factor to your click-through rate.

How to craft the ideal CTA?

Have one CTA per email. Too many CTAs can confuse and overwhelm the customer to the point in which he wouldn’t act at all. When you have one CTA, your customer’s attention is focused and he’s more likely to click through.

Relate the CTA to the email’s message. The CTA cannot be a stand alone button, it has to relate to the email’s message. In cart abandonment emails we want to motivate customers to recover their abandoned carts, so the CTA must be a link to the cart.

Lead up to the CTA. Have a short sentence before the CTA to lead up to it, as to make the CTA’s purpose clearer, put more focus on the CTA and to entice the click. You can ask a question (“want to see how to…?”) or use an enticing sentence (“find out how to…”).

Have an enticing copy for the CTA. The copy of the CTA should stimulate a click.

How?

– Stimulate action with words of action (“take”, “complete”, “continue”).

– Convey personal choice with a first person point of view (“I”, “me”, “my”).

– Be clear about where the CTA will take the customer (“basket”, “order”), so they know what they are clicking on.

For example, some common CTA copies for cart abandonment emails are “show me my items”, “complete my order”, “take me to my cart”.

Place your CTA in the center of your email. This way it will be more visible, easier to notice and will increase likelihood of click-throughs.

Use urgency-inducing, attention-drawing colors for your CTA button, i.e. red or orange. To contrast this, use a neutral color for the background of your email.

Use buttons instead of linked text for your CTA. Buttons are bigger, more visible and therefore more attractive to click on.

Have your CTA change on hover. Either change the color of the CTA on hover or use 3D buttons that move on hover (or both). This makes the button more interactive and engaging and therefore more attractive to click on.

Some of the best examples are the following:

In FloraQueen’s email, the CTA is the main focus of the email, making it very attractive to click on. There is only one CTA for the customer to look at. The CTA is a big button, centrally located, in an urgency-inducing, eye-catching color.

The copy leading to the CTA motivates the viewer to click on it (a 10% discount) and uses words to induce a click-through such as “complete” and “now”. The copy on the CTA is also very attractive (although the use of “you” instead of “I”), by using the action word “continue” and clearly indicating it leads to making a “purchase”.

Boohoo is superb at writing CTA copies. Although the company uses 4 different CTAs in one email (each with the same link – to the cart) with no lead to any of them, their excellent copy must be noted. All of the CTAs have action words (show, complete, view), use personal pronouns (I’m, my) and clearly tell the end-location of the CTA (order, basket).

Some companies use more than one CTA – one for the cart and one to shop on the site. But there are companies that make it work well by emphasizing the cart CTA more than the shopping one. This gives customers more choice but also directs them to the CTA we prefer them to click on (the cart one).

Mothercare does this by fading out the color on the less desirable CTA.

Hello Merch does this by making the desirable CTA a button while the less desirable CTA a small link.

The Ideal Main Message of Each Email:

It is a common practice to have a different main message for each cart abandonment email.

Why?

First off, it makes each email unique and more interesting instead of sending the same email three times.

Secondly, each email provides a ‘solution’ for a different cart abandonment reason. This way, most of the reasons can be addressed and tackled.

Lastly, retailers prefer to begin with the least resource-intensive solutions and gradually add on more resource-intensive solutions if the need arises (i.e. the customer has still not converted). It is not ideal to use the most resource-intensive solution (e.g. offer a discount) in the first email, as a customer might be willing to convert without it.

For these reasons, the following is the best practice for each cart abandonment email’s main message.

Email 1: reminder of cart

This email targets customers who have abandoned their carts because of technical issues, being distracted and forgetting, conducting research to buy later, etc.

Present the abandoned cart content in detail – images, price, size selected, etc. You can also induce a sense of urgency here by expressing scarcity – showing that only few items are left in stock.

Show the customer you care for them and are being helpful with a statement such as “we’re holding these items for you”, “we saved your cart”, etc.

One email we love is boohoo’s. The email makes it very clear what the cart item is – it shows a decent sized image, the full name of the product and its color, the quantity and price of each item and the total price. Boohoo expresses it is very helpful with statements such as “we’ve saved it for you (you’re welcome)” and by offering customer service contact points.

Another good example is Princess Polly’s cart abandonment email. The email clearly implies the customer has forgotten the cart and the company is just sending a helpful reminder for forgetful customers. They present the abandoned items with big images, reminding the shopper how attractive they are. The email also includes personalized product recommendations to entice the shopper with additional products.

Email 2: customer service

This email targets customers who abandoned the items because of a certain issue – shipping and payment issues and concerns, long or confusing checkout, unfavorable return policy, technical issues and more.

To combat those issues provide your customers with accessible information – a link to the FAQ page, show commonly searched for information or common questions and their answers.

Provide your customers with customer service contact points –  an email (the cart abandonment email should enable replies), a phone number and live chat.

Create social proof, such as ratings and reviews of the abandoned items, to motivate hesitant shoppers to make a purchase.

Use customer service tone rather than sales tone to appear as caring and helpful. Use sentences such as “how can we help?”, “can we do anything?”, “was there a problem?”, etc.

One company that does this wonderfully is Surfdome. The customer service tone is inherent all throughout the email – from the email’s subject line and header “thanks for visiting” to literally asking “is there anything we can help with?”. There is no part of that email that has sales tone.

The email is extremely informative, providing the shopper with essential information – a link to the FAQ page, to the delivery and return section on the site and to a customer service representative. At the bottom, it gives snapshots of the delivery and return policies and of customer service contacts via phone, email and live chat.

Another exemplar email is the one by Fat Face. At the bottom at the email, Fat Face takes a similar approach giving a quick snapshot of the essential information. Fat Face integrates social proof using the abandoned item’s rating and a review to ensure hesitant shoppers.

Email 3: monetary incentive and urgency

This email targets abandoners of all causes, though it mainly targets price-sensitive customers who abandoned the cart due to the costs.

A Barilliance study found that including an incentive in the third email is likely to increase the click-through-rate and conversions. The monetary incentive could be a discount/coupon code or free shipping.

The incentive should be personalized based on the customer’s cart content, purchase history, brand affinity, demographics and more.

A Barilliance study found that offering free shipping performs 100% better than a 10% discount.

Beyond incentive, use this last cart abandonment email to induce a sense of urgency and fear of missing out on the items, to prompt the customer to act quickly and convert.

The sense of urgency could be about:

– Time limit on saving the items for the customer.

– Time limit on incentive offered.

– Scarcity of abandoned items (i.e. limited inventory, low in stock).

Take a look at Eyebuydirect’s cart abandonment email. It offers a personalized incentive- 15% off of the order. It creates a sense of urgency and fear of missing out by putting a time limit on that discount, and by using phrases such as “what are you waiting for?”.

See the example of Surfstitch, which follows this guideline to change up their three cart abandonment emails and target almost all types of customers and abandonment reasons:

Use Personalized Product Recommendations:

Offer personalized product recommendations in each of your cart abandonment emails. These recommendations are presented in real-time to fit changes of the items’ inventory and customer’s shopping process.

Customers may have abandoned their carts because of hesitation regarding the item (due to the product’s characteristics, price, color, etc.). Therefore you can recommend similar items of better fit to customers’ demands and tempt them to purchase these instead.

Alternatively, you can offer complementary items, so that while you’re convincing the customer to complete her purchase, you are also tempting her to purchase additional products, increasing the order value.

These recommendations are extremely important for your emails’ effectiveness. They can lead to 35% increase in click-throughs and 30% increase in sales conversion rates.

Take a look at Nordstrom’s cart abandonment email, which presents product recommendations that are similar to the abandoned item (jeans of various styles), but at lower costs than the abandoned item.

On the other hand, Fab shows personalized product recommendations that are completely different than the abandoned item (no pillows are recommended), intending to cross-sell and increase the order value.

Use Humor:

Humor is an effective approach for emails. It shows your brand’s personality, makes the email memorable and attractive to open and click-through, creates a connection and builds a relationship with the customer.

Humor can be communicated through both visuals and copy.

Black Milk Clothing’s main tool in their cart abandonment email is humor. The image is unrelated to the abandoned item, but is truly engaging. They present the cart as a sad little dog that the shopper abandoned. They entice the shopper to come back for the cute dog.

The copy is also quite funny, saying the cart (read: dog) is lonely and needs someone to love it. They can only hope the shopper is not a cat person.

Chubbies is a company that impeccably utilizes humor in all of their emails. Their copy is brilliantly hilarious, letting their brand’s personality shine through. They use slang language and made up words (such as “Linky McLinkington”) and write in a very friend-like, joking manner.

Conclusion

It is important to set up cart abandonment emails. They can reduce cart abandonment by up to 30% and engage and build a relationship with your customers.

Follow our best practices for your emails’ execution, individualization and content to optimize your emails and their success (click-throughs and conversions).

Get started with a cart abandonment software. Begin with the best practices and test them (A/B testing) to optimize your emails specifically for your brand and customers for maximal conversions.

The post Cart Abandonment Email Best Practices & Samples – Part 2 appeared first on Barilliance.

What is click & collect?

Click & Collect is a delivery option where the shopper orders the items online and picks them up at a location instead of having them delivered.

The most common and favorable pick up location is the retailer’s local store. In this article, we will focus on and refer to this location only. However, pure-play companies or ones who want to offer more choice to customers can offer other locations. Options include: lockers (e.g. Amazon lockers), stores of other retailers, local post office (i.e. the Royal Mail service) and other third party locations (e.g. Doodle stores).

Retailers can offer click & collect according to items’ availability in-store (the quicker-collect option) or items can be delivered to the store according to orders (the always-in-stock option).

Popularity and statistics of click & collect

The service has become the third most popular service in the UK.

The proportion of customers who use this service has increased. In the UK it increased from 63% in 2014 to 73% in 2015 and to 76% in 2017. In the U.S. in 2015, 49% of shoppers used it for the first time.

According to IMRG, the global share of orders that were click & collect has steadily increased each year. Overall, it increased by 155% between 2011 (8.8%) and 2015 (22.5%).

Statista shows the popularity of the implementation of this service by retailers.

Customer order fulfillment options that retail executives worldwide offer or plan to offer in the next 12 months in 2016 and 2017:

The classic click & collect option is already offered by 47% of retailers in 2016, while 51% are planning to offer it in the next 12 months. This means 98% of retailers surveyed (if all follow through) will offer this service by 2018.

The other variations of click & collect are also pretty popular, such as “buy online, ship to store”, using third party retailers for collection, same day click & collect and a drive-thru option.

Why is it popular?

Shoppers use this service as it provides them with the choice and convenience of online shopping (finding the product more easily than in-store) while eliminating any delivery issues (high costs, unexpected costs, waiting for delivery, late deliveries and wrong deliveries). Customers are more in control of the time they obtain their order and can save costs by cutting delivery.

This service is particularly popular during holiday seasons. Since late deliveries are more probable (due to the higher order volume of overall orders) and punctual deliveries are more crucial. Customers prefer to take control over the timing. This way, they also spend less time in physical shops than they would’ve if they shopped in-store (as they are often packed with shoppers in such seasons).

Why is it beneficial for retailers?

Click & collect creates a solution for customers who enjoy shopping online but don’t like the delivery aspect of it. Delivery aversion or concerns may result in cart abandonment. Therefore click & collect tackles this issue and reduces cart abandonment.

It also prevents the heavy consequences of bad deliveries (late or wrong). According to Barclaycard, a failed delivery costs on average £150 and a late delivery results in 59% of customers not shopping again with the retailer.

Another issue it reduces is the high product returns that are prevalent in online deliveries. Since customers collect items in the store, they can touch, see and try on the product there. If they need to return the item, they can do so immediately and therefore it happens faster and more efficiently.

More than that, it can increase your offline sales!

How click & collect increases online to offline sales

Click & collect drives your in-store traffic. Being in-store often encourages customers to buy more items. So, click & collect can result in cross-selling in-store and thereby a higher final order value. Indeed, 60%-75% of click & collect shoppers purchase more products during item collection.

Another reason click & collect drives offline sales is because sometimes customers don’t go through with the purchase. Once shoppers see the item is available in-store and the store is nearby, some prefer to go to the store and buy the item there, after they can physically examine it.

Considerations for implementing a click & collect service

– The location of stores should be convenient (close to population with nearby parking).

– The service should be free.

– Consider the costs of moving stock around, implementing digital systems and training staff vs. the higher online and offline sales.

– The inventory update system should be the most up-to-date.

– The website data should be connected to and include your brick & mortar data, to make the decision easier by presenting all of the relevant information.

Integrating offline and online data

Due to the nature of click & collect being a combination of online and offline channels, it is important to improve your omni-channel capabilities to properly provide this service.

With Barilliance’s omnichannel capabilities, you can integrate a shopper’s data from all channels. You will create the most relevant, accurate and up-to-date personalization of your site, product recommendations and post-purchase emails.

Furthermore, including brick and mortar information (using geo-location feature) can effectively drive offline sales. Information provided includes product inventory in a nearby store, nearby store’s opening times and click & collect information. Customers will have complete knowledge over all of your company’s channels and so will be able to make better purchasing decisions.

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What is Retention Marketing?

You put resources into attracting online shoppers to become visitors of your site and then into converting them. Once they make a purchase you have achieved your goal. Now you need to do the same with different online shoppers – spend those resources and go through the same process again.

Or wait – is there another option?

Yes! You could convince the same shoppers that have converted to convert again. And guess what – it is more efficient and effective than to convince new shoppers (quicker, easier and less resourceful).

This is called retention marketing – the marketing strategy which focuses on the existing customer base, with the aim of making them repeat customers as much as possible by keeping them happy.

This strategy aims to nurture existing customers throughout their lifetime to ensure they are engaged, satisfied, have a relationship with the company and are loyal. These ensure predictable future spending (security) and higher profitability in the long run.

The success of this strategy is measured with customer retention rate.

What does customer retention mean?

Customer retention is the desired result of retention marketing – keeping customers happy, satisfied and loyal that they continue being your customers and re-purchasing from you.

This is calculated with customer retention rate, which represents the percentage of retained customers you have gained during a certain time period.

The formula, according to Inc., is customer retention rate = ((CE-CN)/CS) * 100, where:

– CE= number of customers at end period

– CN= number of new customers during period

– CS= number of customers at start of period

The higher your customer retention rate is, the more successful you are in your retainment strategies, the more customers are loyal and make repeat purchases and the more benefits you reap.

According to Client Heartbeat, what is considered a good rate depends on the industry. However, most companies set the target to 90% and higher.

Why do you need to start focusing on retention marketing?

Retention marketing is very profitable as retained customers are very powerful. According to Gartner Group, 80% of a company’s future revenue will come from 20% of their existing customers.

Bain & Co. research found that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profitability by 75%. Additionally, according to Forbes research, brands that spent more on retention marketing in the past 1-3 years, had a 200% higher chance of growing their market share.

Why is it so profitable? Let’s break it down…

1. Existing customers are easier to sell to

Customers who have converted and were satisfied already know and trust your brand to be credible and of desired value. Thanks to the relationship and loyalty, you do not need to do as much to attract and educate them as you need for a new customer. They will come to you willingly, without much convincing.

Additionally, due to familiarity with your company, existing customers are more open to upselling and cross-selling efforts, and due to loyalty, they are more resistant to competitors’ sales efforts.

On top of that, you are able to use the customers’ past experiences with the site to send personalized, relevant messages and convince them more effectively. This you are unable to do with new customers.

Therefore, it is 50% easier to sell to existing customers than to new ones. Consequently, existing customers are 9 times more likely to convert than a new shopper.

2. Existing customers spend more

In fact an average of 33% more than new customers. Furthermore, they are less price sensitive, because they are aware of the value of your products or services.

Therefore, with each repeat purchase, the average order value and thus profitability is higher. This results in increasing conversion rates over time.

3. Existing customers are useful

If your existing customers are satisfied and loyal, they often become advocates and increase your customer acquisition without any marketing efforts on your part. Customers’ advocacy is extremely important as it presents social proof for your company. It is often more effective than any of your own marketing campaigns, as shoppers are viewed as unbiased.

Furthermore, you can also use existing customers to improve your company, as loyal customers are often more open to providing feedback.

4. It costs less to retain than to acquire customers

According to Harvard Business Review, it is 5-25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. According to Martech, it is 16 times more expensive to bring a new customer to the same level of profitability of an old one. Furthermore, an increase in customer retention of 2% can lower costs by as much as 10%.

Why is it less expensive to retain than to acquire?

Firstly, according to AdAge, acquisition has become more expensive than it used to be. Secondly, in general, keeping existing customers is cheaper than acquiring new ones. This is because your existing customers are already familiar with your business. Consequently, there is no need to convince them of your worth and educate them, just to remind them of your existence and attract them to products.

So as a result….

Retained customers have higher ROI:

Since retained customers are more likely to purchase again and have higher order value, as well as bring in more customers – they generate higher revenue than new customers.

Since you need less resources to convince them to make another purchase, they are less costly than new customers.

Because they bring more revenue and cost less, retained customers generate higher ROI.

Retained customers have higher long term profitability:

Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the predicted profit from a customer during the entire lifetime of their relationship with the company. It is the product of purchase frequency and repeat purchase rate.

Since those two metrics are higher for retained customers than new customers, retained customers have higher CLV. A higher CLV means every customer you acquire will be more valuable, which leads to long term profitability. This ensures predictable revenue and stability.

How can you implement it?

There are many manners in which a company can nurture their existing customers, but in the core of each technique is the continuous messaging and engaging with the customers to create and maintain the brand’s value and a personal, loyal relationship.

Remember while you implement such techniques to consistently monitor your customer retention rate, in order to observe the effect of your strategies.

FAQ:

What is the meaning of customer loyalty?
Customer loyalty is the is the preference and affinity of one company over others, resulting in repeat purchase for a long time period.

What is the meaning of customer defection (a.k.a attrition, churn, turnover)?
Customer defection is the loss of customers.

What do you mean by customer retention?
Customer retention is the ability of a company to keep customers loyal and repurchasing for a long time period.

What is retention rate in business?
Retention rate represents the percentage of retained customers a company has gained during a certain time period.

What is a good customer retention rate?
According to Client Heartbeat, what is considered a good rate depends on the industry. However, most companies set a target to 90% and higher.

The post What is Retention Marketing and Why do You Need It? appeared first on Barilliance.

Did you know that 70% of Amazon.com is devoted to product recommendations?

When such a big, successful e-commerce company focuses that much of its resources on something it must be important.

So what is it?

Similarly to an in-store sales advisor asking you about your preferences and then showing you items accordingly, in e-commerce a software does this automatically. This is one of the core activities in website personalization. This feature is called personalized product recommendation, which displays suggested items that are specifically relevant to each individual shopper, according to algorithms and data collected.

How does it work?

Barilliance’s personalized product recommendations engine combines three factors.

1. The intent of the customer

The software uses data collected about the visitor’s recent activity, overall shopping behaviors, past purchases and browsing history.

2. The wisdom of the crowd

It uses aggregated data from the site that makes correlations between people who bought similar items and the individual shopper.

3. Customized set of variables

Lastly, you can set some categories you would like to include, such as top sellers, items with a good click-through-rate and manually selected items.

Where is it displayed?

Product recommendations on-site can be displayed on any page. The most common ones are the home, category, product detail and cart pages. It is also effective to use it on out-of-stock pages.

It is also possible to have more than one type of product recommendation on one page.

Product recommendations in triggered emails, in particular in cart abandonment emails, are another motivator for customers to return to the site.

When is it generated?

The recommendations are generated according to changes of the shoppers’ preferences and items’ availability, in order to be accurate.

1. On-site

The product recommendations are generated and changed according to real-time shopper engagement.

For example, if a shopper has sorted a category from low to high, it is likely they are price-sensitive. Therefore, from then on, the product recommendations will present only cheaper items. Additionally, once the shopper has selected a size, the product recommendations will only include items that are in-stock for that size.

2. In emails

The product recommendations are generated when the customer opens the email, rather than when it is sent.

What is displayed?

There are many types of product recommendations that suggest different types of product sets.

New, anonymous shoppers the system has no data on will see common generic recommendations, which include new arrivals, best sellers, top rated and sales.

Returning customers and customers who have engaged with the site for some time and the system has collected data, will see personalized product recommendations. The common ones include similar items (upselling), complementary items (cross-selling) and recently viewed.

Similar items recommendations help customers to find items that fit more of their demands and desired, and by this increase the likelihood of a purchase. Complementary items help customers to find different items of interest and as a result, increase their average order value.

These can be titled in different ways that affect the shoppers’ perception. For example, “Customers who viewed this product also viewed…” and “inspired by your shopping cart”. Involving other shoppers in the title provides social proof to shoppers, which encourages purchases.

Besides images and names of the items themselves, you can also display other information in the recommendations, such as price, colors, and sizes available, social proof notifications and more.

Why is it useful?

Product recommendations create a “shortcut” to items that are specifically relevant to the individual shopper. They transfer the right message to the right shopper at the right time.

Not finding desired items and spending too much time and effort browsing through options can cause a poor customer experience and browse or cart abandonment.

As a helpful tool, product recommendations are a quick and easy way to finding items and optimizing the product discovery process, enhancing and focusing the shopper’s choice, increasing engagement and loyalty. They also trigger impulse purchases and can induce a higher average order value.

Consequently, the feature induces higher revenues and profit margin. Customers who click on product recommendations have a 5.5 times higher conversion rate than those who do not. On-site, personalized product recommendations account for 12% of total revenues. In remarketing emails they can lead to 30% increase in sales conversion rates and 35% in click-through rates.

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Why is cart abandonment unfavorable?

Shopping cart abandonment describes the phenomenon where customers add items to their shopping carts but then leave the site without making a purchase. It is a widespread issue in e-commerce, with an average rate of 68.63% in 2016 (see chart below).

Online shopping cart abandonment rate worldwide from 2006 to 2017, Statista.

E-tailers use large amounts of resources to motivate the shopper to browse the site and entice the shopper to add items to the cart. The moment the shopper leaves the site, the e-tailer must repeat this process and spend those resources again.

Furthermore, those abandoned items are potential sales and revenue that the e-tailer has lost. Ultimately, CPC Strategy found that cart abandonment contributes to approximately $18 billion lost revenue per year.

Why should you measure it?

Not only desirable metrics (e.g. conversion rate) should be measured, tracked and monitored, but also (if not more so) undesirable metrics – such as the cart abandonment rate.

Measure and monitor the rate so you can be knowledgeable of the company’s state at all times. This allows you to react accordingly if any changes occur or if there are any persisting trends. If the rate rises, use tools (explained later on) to be knowledgeable of where your customers abandon. This way you can find the issue and combat it quickly.

In particular, measure and monitor the rate when you make changes to your site. Anything from small changes, such as the site’s colors, to big changes that directly affect the rate, such as changes on the ultimate prevention checklist and these solutions.

It is important to monitor the rate especially during big campaigns of which the goal is to affect the rate – the multi-stage emails campaign. Monitoring the rate allows you to test the campaign’s overall effectiveness, test variations of small changes within the campaign (such as timing, visuals, copy) and to track progress. This way you can find the optimal strategy for your specific customers for maximal conversions.

How do you measure it?

1. Calculate the rate

The cart abandonment rate is calculated with the formula: added to cart/(added to cart+made conversions). It represents the percentage of customers who abandoned cart items out of all the customers who added items to their carts.

For example, if 100 people added items to their carts but only 25 of them converted, the cart abandonment rate is: 100/(100+25)=0.8=80%. Therefore, 80% of customers who added items to their carts have abandoned them.

2. Use Google Analytics

You can also use Google Analytics, which uses the same formula. You will need to define your goal (conversions), success and Funnel URLs (Funnel being the process for conversion). Once this is done, you can view the figures on your Funnel Visualization page.

This page shows you the overall conversion rate (of which the cart abandonment rate is complementary to). It also shows you the breakdown of proceeding customers per page, which reveals at what stage most customers abandon. This can help you discover the abandonment location and cause to be able to combat it.

3. Use heat mapping

Heat mapping visually represents shoppers’ activity and interaction with pages, which reveals how they behave and where they abandon. The discovery of users’ activity can help you solve issues and improve usability, process and conversions.

Most companies use mouse-tracking as it is found to be very accurate. It is on average 90 pixels of difference between the shoppers’ eye gaze and mouse location.

You can use heat maps on the cart and checkout pages to discover customers’ eye gaze, clicks and scrolling habits. This will uncover issues such as:

– Pages’ clarity in regards to finding information, help and how to proceed to the next step (CTA discovery).

– Disengagement of customers (scrolling down the page is often stopped halfway).

– Distraction by irrelevant information (hovering over irrelevant information to the conversion).

4. Other measurements for discovering abandonment location

Usability tools:

Usability tools test how easy to use your site is. For these tests, real users will go through a shopping process while being recorded or observed. This can help you find the exact points and reasons customers abandon a site (issues or confusion) and combat them.

Surveys:

Simply ask the person why they are leaving. You can ask it when they are just about the leave (i.e. use exit intent pop up, live chat) or after they have left (use cart abandonment email).

The post Why Should You Measure Cart Abandonment? appeared first on Barilliance.

Cart abandonment is an inevitable part of ecommerce.

However, it can be viewed as positive.

According to an article by Jeremy Smith there is a different way of looking at cart abandonment. Instead of viewing abandoners as lost customers, you should view them as potential customers you can recover.

Almost all of your first-time visitors won’t make a purchase. However, 75% of them will return. In fact, the more times a shopper abandons the more likely they are to recover their carts if targeted. This is because the more times they view the desired item, the more interested they are and the more they are truly considering to purchase it.

So your abandoners represent a huge potential of sales. But how can you actually turn their abandoned carts into sales?

Here are the best ways to do so:

1. Capture emails with an exit intent pop up

This pop up appears when technology detects the shopper is about to leave the site (the mouse moves to the address bar or the back button).

One intention of this pop up is to keep the about-to-abandon shopper on-site by giving them something of value. This reduces abandonment and induces an average of 10% conversion rate, though some companies have seen conversion rates as high as 100%.

Another intention of this pop up is to capture the shopper’s email address. This is essential for being able to remarket to the shopper in case they abandon. This is done by offering something of value in exchange for the email, however, the value does not have to be used at that moment.

The pop up can motivate the shopper to do both – stay on the site and leave their email address.

The value can be anything, such as ‘save my cart’, ‘save my visit’, a discount or promotion (e.g. for the next hour, for your first purchase), subscribe to the newsletter, etc.

2. Convince the shopper to return with a multi-stage email remarketing campaign

Once you’ve captured the shopper’s email address and they’ve abandoned you can reach out to them to motivate them to return to the site and complete their purchase.

The best way to do so is using a multi-stage, personalized, triggered email remarketing campaign.

This allows you to re-engage with the abandoners, build trust and a relationship and offer values to convince them to recover their carts. Consequently, it can reduce cart abandonment by up to 30% and lead to an average of 18% conversion rate (though some companies can reach even 40%).

The emails can include different messages and values, such as the cart content, real-time generated product recommendations, and incentives.

The best practice for the emails’ timing is 1 hour, 24 hours and 72 hours after cart abandonment occurs. Most often, the first email is a simple reminder, the second one intends to solve issues and the third gives an incentive plus a sense of urgency.

3. Convince the shopper to return with website push notifications

Another way to remind abandoners to return to the site and finish the purchase is with push notifications.

Similarly to mobile push notifications, these are messages that are sent by a website that can be clicked on to move to a certain page.

When a customer browses a site they can opt-in for such notifications. Notifications will appear in different times and frequencies depending on the company, even when the person isn’t browsing the site.

This strategy reminds the shopper of their cart in real-time and engages and offers values in a timely manner.

The main message should be personalized as well as clear and concise, as there is a limit on the number of characters. It must emphasize your advantages (e.g. your customer service, offering free shipping or a discount) and can induce a sense of urgency (e.g. limited-time sale).

4. Make the site welcoming and the cart easy to recover

When the abandoner decides to return to the site you must continue to encourage them to recover the cart.

Use the same tone as you have used in your email or notification to continue the customer journey.

Personalize the site for them with a welcome back pop up, saving their carts for them with persistent cookies and auto-applying any discounts offered.

Now it’s up to you to implement these strategies and see your sales increase. Capture more emails, remarket to more customers, remarket more effectively and continue the campaign and experience on-site.

We at Barilliance are always busy creating new ways of fighting cart abandonment. One of our recent unique capabilities is our triggered email booster tool. The tool allows you to identify visitors coming from an email sent to them, so that without logging in you know who they are. This way you have the ability to recover their sale if they abandon their cart.

Follow these points and see more abandoned carts being recovered!

The post What are the Best Ways to Turn Abandoned Cart Into Sales? appeared first on Barilliance.

It is quite the common knowledge amongst e-tailers that cart abandonment emails are the way to recover abandoned carts.

Barilliance’s recent studies show that our clients can convert up to 30% from their abandoned cart emails.

But what should you include in your emails?

The Must-Include:

1. The Cart Content

The main point of cart abandonment emails is to remind the abandoner they have left items in their carts that are worth purchasing.

So how can you remind them of how wonderful that shirt they forgot about is, if you don’t show it to them?

Include the cart content in detail to give the abandoner the full picture – a big, clear image of the product and a description of the color, quantity, price, size selected, how many left in stock, etc.

2. A Click-to-Action (CTA) to the Cart

And what would be the point of reminding the abandoner of their cart if you don’t provide them a way to return to the cart?

You must make it super easy for the abandoner to do what you want them to do.

Create a clear, big, stand-out CTA that when clicked on leads to the abandoner’s cart.

3. An Option to Opt-Out

You must allow your customers to opt-out of your emails. Provide a link to unsubscribe at the top or bottom of the email.

The Should-Include:

4. Great Copy

An excellent copy is a big player in convincing the viewer to take the desired action. Motivate the abandoner using customer service language, actionable words and persuasive language.

5. Great Visuals

Great visuals are as important as the copy if not more. This includes visuals of the product as well as the visual theme of the email itself, its design, etc.

Different colors can motivate the viewer to do different things. Remember to always be on-brand.

6. Personalized Product Recommendations

It is a wonderful plus to include personalized product recommendations in your cart abandonment emails. If the abandoner isn’t fully motivated to purchase the item they’ve left, they might be attracted to a different item presented to them.

Personalized product recommendations in emails can lead to 35% increase in click-throughs and 30% increase in sales conversion rates.

7. Customer Service Information

Your customer may have left due to an issue, concern or a problem. They might not actively seek help to resolve it but if you provide them help they might take it.

You may include: a link to the FAQ page, a summary of commonly asked questions and answers, the company’s email, phone number and a live chat.

8. Security Symbols

Shopping online can sometimes be risky in terms of identity and cart theft. So it is natural for shoppers to have security concerns about your site. Tackle these concerns with security proofs such as SSL and customer reviews of the site.

The Could-Include:

9. Ratings and Reviews

Social proof works extremely well in convincing a shopper to make a purchase. You can include the cart items’ ratings and a review or two to ensure the abandoner these items are worth buying.

10. Delivery and Return Policy Information

Similarly to security concerns and issues, some shoppers abandon their cart due to shipping and return concerns and issues. This includes costs, timing and options.

Provide your shoppers an easy access to this information to ease their concerns with a link to the delivery and return FAQ page on your site.

Ensure customers of your wonderful policies by highlighting the good aspects. Is your delivery free? Do you offer express shipping? Do you allow long and free returns or exchanges? Mention these assets in your email in big font to attract the shopper’s attention.

11. Incentives and a sense of urgency

As you probably already know, offering incentive is an easy tool to convince shoppers to convert. You can offer a discount, coupon or free shipping.

However, use this as a ‘last resort’ as you don’t want to offer discounted items for abandoners who might have converted without that discount.

Introduce a sense of urgency as well. You can have limited time on the saving of the cart items, limited time on the incentive or limited number of items. Use one of these three options and the abandoner will be more willing to make a purchase.

12. A Survey

Lastly, you might want to include a survey in order to receive feedback about why the abandoner has left their cart and to improve your site.

Of course, you can’t include all of these points in every cart abandonment email you send. That would be too much in one email. Especially since you will likely send the same shopper more than one cart abandonment email.

So, ensure to include the must-include points in every email but alternate the rest of the points throughout the three emails of your campaign. This way you’ll include most of the points but your emails won’t be too cluttered.

The post What Should I Include in Abandoned Cart Recovery Emails? appeared first on Barilliance.

In the past, companies common practices were mass production, consumption, and marketing. Nowadays, companies focus on niche markets, customization, and personalization.

Catering to individual’s needs has become so common that customers expect companies to meet their specific needs and get frustrated if they don’t.

The Personalization tool satisfies this rising need of individualization.

Personalization in eCommerce is the real-time tailoring of online customer experience to each specific shopper.

An eCommerce software generates personalization automatically and in real-time. Personalization in eCommerce has many applications, including the website, product recommendations, social proof notifications, and emails.

Why should you personalize?

Personalization creates a sense of individuality and uniqueness. Customers feel special and important, as though the company is paying particular attention to them. Moreover, by segmenting and targeting different shoppers, personalization answers each customer’s different needs, thereby optimizing customer experiences rather the same average experience to all.

Shopper value personalization. According to a study by Invesp, 53% of shoppers believe that e-tailers who personalize the shopping experience provide a valuable service.

Aberdeen found that 75% of shoppers favor brands who personalize their messages and offers. According to Smart Insights, 48% of consumers spend more when their experience is personalized. Janrain found that 74% become frustrated when brands provide irrelevant content to them.

E-marketers enjoy personalization’s benefits. Invesp found that 59% of marketers experiencing good ROI after personalizing their online store. According to Marketing Week, providing a personalized experience can improve conversions by nearly 8%.

How does the software personalize?

Which data is collected and used?

1. General data about the user – their demographics, geo-location, the number of visits, etc.
2. The intent of the customer – data collected about the visitor’s recent activity, overall shopping behaviors, past purchases and browsing history. This information indicates on the shopper’s preferences, affinities, and price-sensitivity.
3. The wisdom of the crowd – aggregated data that makes correlations between people who bought similar items and the individual shopper, to create predictions based on big data.
4. Customized set of variables – rules the company manually sets. For example, preferable categories to present, such as top sellers, items with a good click-through-rate and manually selected items.

What are the bases for segmenting?

1. Demographics.
2. Geo-location (country, weather, holidays).
3. Time (of the month, week, day of browsing).
4. Browsing device.
5. New vs. Returning visitor.
6. Social media attributes.
7. Real-time shopper engagement (behavior onsite, preferences, viewed/put in cart/purchased in terms of brand, style, type, size, etc.).

Personalization Applications:

1. Website Personalization

What is it? Website personalization is the tailoring of a website’s dynamic content, message, visuals and offers to each individual shopper.

Where is it done?

Promotions and offers: personalize the offer itself, the amount of discount, the time limit if there is one, etc.

Modified content: personalize the copy, visuals, product recommendations and social proof notifications. Personalize the order of items displayed in categories when sorted by a general statement such as “best match”.

Add/eliminate content: such as auto-applying coupons and auto-filling some elements in the checkout form.

Why is it effective? A more personalized website creates a more relevant customer experience.

A higher relevancy results in higher visit duration, product views, site visits, average order value and revenue as well as reduce shopping cart abandonment. According to Barilliance, website personalization can increase conversions by as much as 30%.

2. Personalized Product Recommendations

What is it? Personalized product recommendations are items suggestions that are specifically relevant to each individual shopper.

The recommendations display the item’s name, image, price, colors and sizes available, social proof notifications (e.g. “2 more items left in stock”, “best seller”) and more.

The recommendations’ personalization is relevant to the shopper’s data and to the time it is viewed. On-site recommendations are generated in real-time engagement and email recommendations are generated when the email is opened. This way the recommendations are the most accurate as they match the dynamic shoppers’ preferences and items’ availability.

The types of recommendations:

Personalized general recommendations: new arrivals, best sellers, top rated, etc.

Similar items (upselling): items that are a better match to the visitor’s preferences and needs than items they’ve viewed, to increase the likelihood of a purchase.

Complementary items (cross-selling): items that are different to items they’ve viewed, to increase the average order value.

Recently viewed items.

Where is it done? On any page and any triggered email. You may also display more than one set on one page.

Why is it effective? Personalized product recommendations provide a shortcut to the most relevant items to the individual visitor at the right time.

Personalization is crucial, as Barilliance found that personalized “top seller” recommendations is twice as effective as the non-personalized “top seller” recommendations.

The easy and quick direction to relevant items enhances customer experience, customer engagement and loyalty as well as reduces shopping cart abandonment. It also increases impulse purchases and the average order value.

Consequently, it increases the revenues and profit margin. Barilliance study has found that the conversion rate of visitors clicking the on-site product recommendations is 5.5 times higher than those who do not click it.

3. Personalized Social Proof Notifications

What is it? Personalized social proof notifications are real-time updates about product inventory (i.e. how many are left in stock) and other shoppers’ behavior (i.e. what they are viewing or purchasing).

The notifications’ location on page, timing, frequency, and number varies depending on the company.

The types of notifications:

Statements about the company, e.g. “x people are shopping now”.

Statements about the item’s popularity, e.g. “x shoppers have this item in their shopping cart”.

Statements about the item’s availability, e.g. “only two items left in stock!”.

Why is it effective? These notifications provide –

Transparency: providing complete knowledge of external factors, to create better and favorable decision making.

Urgency: creating a sense of pressing, high priority matter because of time limit or competition. So, customers will act quickly and automatically rather than analyze the decision, to entice a decision of purchasing.

Social proof: changing or strengthening the shopper’s perception of the value of the company or an item, by displaying other shoppers’ activity. Shoppers will trust an unbiased shopper and will trust more a group of shoppers.

All of these factors combined help finalize a purchase. They increase the perceived value, trust, customer confidence, engagement and conversions by as much as 8%.

4. Personalized Triggered Emails

What is it? Personalized triggered emails are cart abandonment emails and other triggered emails that have real-time personalized content.

Where is it done?

The subject line: personalize by using the shopper’s name, an item viewed, etc. to create a personal connection and increase the email’s open rate and conversions.

The email’s main message: for cart abandonment emails, personalize the main message depending mostly on the reason for abandonment. For example, for abandoners because of shipping cost offer an incentive, while for those left because of confusion offer customer service.

The email’s content: personalize the email’s copy and visuals. For example, in cart abandonment emails, personalize the cart content displayed, social proof (notifications, ratings, and reviews) about the abandoned items, and the incentive (different percentage or discount on different items, categories or brand.

The product recommendations: help customers find better match items if they left due to hesitation about the item or increase their average order value with cross-selling. Personalized product recommendations in emails can lead to 35% increase in click-throughs and 30% increase in sales conversion rates.

Why is it effective? Emails engage and build a relationship with your customers.

Personalized emails optimize the engagement by sending out the most relevant and effective emails to each customer.

Apply personalization in these four areas to create a highly relevant online customer experience and you’ll be able to increase the customer engagement, satisfaction, loyalty and retention as well as your conversion.

The post What is Personalization in Ecommerce appeared first on Barilliance.

Retention marketing is a rising topic in the e-commerce community for being extremely vital and profitable.

Its importance can be summarized with the famous statistic by Bain & Co. – a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profitability by 75%.

Indeed, retaining more clients increases the repeat purchase rate, average order value, conversion rate, ROI, customer lifetime value and long term profitability.

So what can you do to achieve all of these?

There are many retention strategies that you can implement. In the core of each strategy is the goal of keeping customers happy, repurchasing and loyal.

This aim is achieved by establishing and maintaining a relationship with those customers, by continually engaging with them and creating a relevant and valuable experience.

Read this article to find out what the client retention strategies that work the best are and how exactly you can implement them.

1. Exceed your customers’ expectations

What is worst than unhappy customers? Disappointed customers.

If you’ve ever heard the sentence “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed” I’m sure you understand the severity of this feeling.

Once customers have expectations, if they are not met, they will be disappointed. According to InReality, only 16% of shoppers would give a site a second chance after a poor experience and BI Intelligence estimates it takes 12 positive customer experiences to negate the impression after 1 bad experience.

But, if there are no expectations, to begin with, the same customer will feel less bad about the same experience.

For this reason, you must set customer expectations early and lower than you can provide. This way, you have certainty that you will always (at least) reach customers’ expectations, perhaps even exceed them.

When you do measure up to the expectations, you secure happy and satisfied customers who may repeat purchase. When you exceed expectations, you acquire customers who are ecstatic about you and are likely to become loyal and repeat purchasers.

As Shannon Kohn from Datta said, “under promise and over deliver”. You will display integrity, consistency, and care, and seem as a brand that goes above and beyond.

Pragmatically, this could involve saying delivery is a week’s time but having the order arrive in 4 days. Another example is having a return policy of 2 weeks but if it took a customer 2 weeks and 4 days you will still allow the return. Simple things, big surprises, and much admiration.

2. Provide excellent customer service

Oh customer service, the backbone of any company. If you want to retain your customers (and achieve point 1) this is a vital strategy.

According to BI Intelligence, a poor customer service experience caused 60% of customers to not complete a purchase and 24/7 found a day of it drove 47% of customers to competitors.

Accenture estimates that 52% of consumers have switched providers in the past year because of poor customer service, which is estimated to cost $1.6 trillion.

So how can you provide excellent customer service?

First of all, you must be forever attentive to your customers from their very first interaction with you. Never end the contact, even post-sale, continue to contact, help and engage your customers. This can make the difference between a satisfied and a retained customer.

Secondly, provide your customers multiple ways to contact you, so that it is easy for them to interact and get help from you. This includes an email address, a phone number, a live chat (crucial to 42% of consumers), social media accounts and any creative channel of communication you can think of.

Third, ensure to respond quickly.

Lastly, have a proactive customer service. This means that you don’t just help individuals, but you learn from their needs, issues, and complaints and improve these aspects. This improves your site, brand and customer service by preventing such issues from recurring as well as shows customers you care.

According to Apptentive, 97% of shoppers will become more loyal to a company that implements their feedback.

3. Indulge in regular communication

Regular communication is essential for retention.

This involves emails, phone calls and letters about anything related to your business such as follow ups, cart abandonment emails, post-purchase confirmation emails, special offers and promotions, events and more. Continue to engage with the shopper even after they have purchased and even if they don’t go on-site anymore.

This strategy helps with client retention as: it reminds the shopper about the company, makes the company engaging, makes them feel important, provides them information and eliminates any doubts and fears (particularly after purchase).

However, don’t just engage with the customer for the sakes of engaging. Your contact must have a purpose and provide value to the customer. Otherwise, it isn’t engaging and the customer will not be interested.

4. Use a retention/CRM platform

If you want to retain customers, you must need to know which customers to retain and how to communicate with them. This you can easily know with a retention platform.

A retention platform collects information with each interaction of each customer with the company (online and offline) and creates a 360 profile. The profile is composed of demographic information and tracked engagement with the site, which reveals the shopper’s needs, interests, preferences, and habits.

With this information, you can segment your customers to be able to target (via emails or phone calls) specific segments that are in need of communication to remain retained. Examples of segments include:

• At-risk customers. Reactivate customers who have not purchased in a while just before you completely lose them. Remind them of your existence and ask them why they have stopped buying.
• Valuable inactive customers. Reactivate customers who used to make big/frequent purchases, but haven’t purchased in X time.
• Profitable customers. Reward your current profitable customers who have the highest returns, to encourage continuous purchasing and retention.
• Abandoners. Send personalized offers to customers who put items in their carts and didn’t make a purchase.

Final thoughts

Following these client retention strategies will jumpstart your customer retention rate improvement. Remember to consistently monitor the rate to know the effect of your strategy.

The post Client Retention Strategies/Tools That Work The Best appeared first on Barilliance.

Retention marketing is the marketing strategy which focuses on the existing customer base. The strategy aims to make them repeat customers by nurturing the relationship and keeping them happy, engaged and loyal.

Retention marketing is essential for increasing your long term profitability.

The more customers you retain, the higher your conversion rate, ROI and customer lifetime value are.

There are numerous strategies and tactics to retaining more customers. They mostly revolve around the idea of continuous, personalized communication and keeping customers satisfied and loyal.

In this article, we share tactics and tools you can implement right now to increase your retention abilities.

1. Reviews

Customer input is extremely important for creating social proof for your company. Shoppers care about other shoppers’ actions and opinions as, unlike the company, shoppers’ advocacy is perceived as unbiased and objective.

Therefore, you should allow and encourage customer reviews for your products and the company as a whole.

Pay attention to negative reviews. Reply to the negative reviews, asking what is wrong or showing your intent of correcting the wrongdoing. If it is possible to fix the issue for the individual and to fix it in general – do so and thank the reviewer for their help in improving your site.

Your customers will see that you are – about their opinions and their experience – and that you are proactive in creating the best experience for them.

2. Surveys and Questionnaires

Similarly to reviews, surveys and questionnaires are there for you to improve your services and at the same time to engage with the shoppers and show them how much you care.

Use surveys and questionnaires to receive more in-depth individual feedback than reviews from shoppers.

This can help you find out:

• What your strong and weak points are in the customers’ eyes.
• Any issues you need to fix.
• How you are performing compared to the shoppers’ expectations. Reaching (or even better- exceeding) expectations is crucial.

Track your feedback so you can see changes and improvements over time.

3. Social Media

Social media is another channel of communication where you can engage with your customers. Use this space to connect with your customers and create personal, unique relationships.

So what exactly should you do?

First, create a social media profile on media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin and Pinterest.

Include links to all of these profiles each time you communicate with a customer (on-site, in emails, etc.) and include a link to your website in each of your social media profiles.

Be active on social media. Post related photos, share articles about your company (blog posts, case studies, your products or services), share related articles to your industry and engage with consumers who engage with you (consumers who comment, retweet, etc.).

Social media is a place where shoppers browse in their free time, therefore you should be fun, engaging and interesting on these channels rather than sales-oriented.

Additionally, encourage your shoppers to use social media to share their experiences with the company, making them brand advocates, such as: posting on your wall, sharing products on their wall, etc.

4. Post-Purchase Email

If you want your customers to be one-timers then after the customer made a purchase you needn’t interact with them. However, if you want loyal, retained customers, your nurturing continues way past the purchase.

The first step of engaging with the customer post-purchase is with a post-purchase email. This is usually a transaction confirmation email that confirms the purchase details and ensures the customer the transaction is done and the order is on its way.

Beyond this information, you could include aspects of the email that nurtures the relationship.

Include a “thank you” somewhere in the email to show the shopper you are grateful and to ensure them that they made the right choice.

Provide them post-purchase care to show them they are not alone and have support if anything goes wrong. Provide them with contact information (email address, phone number, social media profiles, live chat, etc.) and encourage them to use it.

Let your excellent customer service shine to create a great customer experience and therefore satisfaction and retention.

These 4 retention tactics are great to implement quickly to kickstart your retention work. After these 4 simple, yet big, changes are implemented, continue to implementing more complex, long-term strategies.

The post 4 Retention Tactics/ Tools You Can Implement Right Now! appeared first on Barilliance.

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Did you know that 70% of Amazon.com is devoted to product recommendations?

When such a big, successful e-commerce company focuses that much of its resources on something it must be important.

So what is it?

Similarly to an in-store sales advisor asking you about your preferences and then showing you items accordingly, in e-commerce a software does this automatically. This is one of the core activities in website personalization. This feature is called personalized product recommendation, which displays suggested items that are specifically relevant to each individual shopper, according to algorithms and data collected.

How does it work?

Barilliance’s personalized product recommendations engine combines three factors.

1. The intent of the customer

The software uses data collected about the visitor’s recent activity, overall shopping behaviors, past purchases and browsing history.

2. The wisdom of the crowd

It uses aggregated data from the site that makes correlations between people who bought similar items and the individual shopper.

3. Customized set of variables

Lastly, you can set some categories you would like to include, such as top sellers, items with a good click-through-rate and manually selected items.

Where is it displayed?

Product recommendations on-site can be displayed on any page. The most common ones are the home, category, product detail and cart pages. It is also effective to use it on out-of-stock pages.

It is also possible to have more than one type of product recommendation on one page.

Product recommendations in triggered emails, in particular in cart abandonment emails, are another motivator for customers to return to the site.

When is it generated?

The recommendations are generated according to changes of the shoppers’ preferences and items’ availability, in order to be accurate.

1. On-site

The product recommendations are generated and changed according to real-time shopper engagement.

For example, if a shopper has sorted a category from low to high, it is likely they are price-sensitive. Therefore, from then on, the product recommendations will present only cheaper items. Additionally, once the shopper has selected a size, the product recommendations will only include items that are in-stock for that size.

2. In emails

The product recommendations are generated when the customer opens the email, rather than when it is sent.

What is displayed?

There are many types of product recommendations that suggest different types of product sets.

New, anonymous shoppers the system has no data on will see common generic recommendations, which include new arrivals, best sellers, top rated and sales.

Returning customers and customers who have engaged with the site for some time and the system has collected data, will see personalized product recommendations. The common ones include similar items (upselling), complementary items (cross-selling) and recently viewed.

Similar items recommendations help customers to find items that fit more of their demands and desired, and by this increase the likelihood of a purchase. Complementary items help customers to find different items of interest and as a result, increase their average order value.

These can be titled in different ways that affect the shoppers’ perception. For example, “Customers who viewed this product also viewed…” and “inspired by your shopping cart”. Involving other shoppers in the title provides social proof to shoppers, which encourages purchases.

Besides images and names of the items themselves, you can also display other information in the recommendations, such as price, colors, and sizes available, social proof notifications and more.

Why is it useful?

Product recommendations create a “shortcut” to items that are specifically relevant to the individual shopper. They transfer the right message to the right shopper at the right time.

Not finding desired items and spending too much time and effort browsing through options can cause a poor customer experience and browse or cart abandonment.

As a helpful tool, product recommendations are a quick and easy way to finding items and optimizing the product discovery process, enhancing and focusing the shopper’s choice, increasing engagement and loyalty. They also trigger impulse purchases and can induce a higher average order value.

Consequently, the feature induces higher revenues and profit margin. Customers who click on product recommendations have a 5.5 times higher conversion rate than those who do not. On-site, personalized product recommendations account for 12% of total revenues. In remarketing emails they can lead to 30% increase in sales conversion rates and 35% in click-through rates.

The post What is a Product Recommendation? appeared first on Barilliance.

Why is cart abandonment unfavorable?

Shopping cart abandonment describes the phenomenon where customers add items to their shopping carts but then leave the site without making a purchase. It is a widespread issue in e-commerce, with an average rate of 68.63% in 2016 (see chart below).

Online shopping cart abandonment rate worldwide from 2006 to 2017, Statista.

E-tailers use large amounts of resources to motivate the shopper to browse the site and entice the shopper to add items to the cart. The moment the shopper leaves the site, the e-tailer must repeat this process and spend those resources again.

Furthermore, those abandoned items are potential sales and revenue that the e-tailer has lost. Ultimately, CPC Strategy found that cart abandonment contributes to approximately $18 billion lost revenue per year.

Why should you measure it?

Not only desirable metrics (e.g. conversion rate) should be measured, tracked and monitored, but also (if not more so) undesirable metrics – such as the cart abandonment rate.

Measure and monitor the rate so you can be knowledgeable of the company’s state at all times. This allows you to react accordingly if any changes occur or if there are any persisting trends. If the rate rises, use tools (explained later on) to be knowledgeable of where your customers abandon. This way you can find the issue and combat it quickly.

In particular, measure and monitor the rate when you make changes to your site. Anything from small changes, such as the site’s colors, to big changes that directly affect the rate, such as changes on the ultimate prevention checklist and these solutions.

It is important to monitor the rate especially during big campaigns of which the goal is to affect the rate – the multi-stage emails campaign. Monitoring the rate allows you to test the campaign’s overall effectiveness, test variations of small changes within the campaign (such as timing, visuals, copy) and to track progress. This way you can find the optimal strategy for your specific customers for maximal conversions.

How do you measure it?

1. Calculate the rate

The cart abandonment rate is calculated with the formula: added to cart/(added to cart+made conversions). It represents the percentage of customers who abandoned cart items out of all the customers who added items to their carts.

For example, if 100 people added items to their carts but only 25 of them converted, the cart abandonment rate is: 100/(100+25)=0.8=80%. Therefore, 80% of customers who added items to their carts have abandoned them.

2. Use Google Analytics

You can also use Google Analytics, which uses the same formula. You will need to define your goal (conversions), success and Funnel URLs (Funnel being the process for conversion). Once this is done, you can view the figures on your Funnel Visualization page.

This page shows you the overall conversion rate (of which the cart abandonment rate is complementary to). It also shows you the breakdown of proceeding customers per page, which reveals at what stage most customers abandon. This can help you discover the abandonment location and cause to be able to combat it.

3. Use heat mapping

Heat mapping visually represents shoppers’ activity and interaction with pages, which reveals how they behave and where they abandon. The discovery of users’ activity can help you solve issues and improve usability, process and conversions.

Most companies use mouse-tracking as it is found to be very accurate. It is on average 90 pixels of difference between the shoppers’ eye gaze and mouse location.

You can use heat maps on the cart and checkout pages to discover customers’ eye gaze, clicks and scrolling habits. This will uncover issues such as:

– Pages’ clarity in regards to finding information, help and how to proceed to the next step (CTA discovery).

– Disengagement of customers (scrolling down the page is often stopped halfway).

– Distraction by irrelevant information (hovering over irrelevant information to the conversion).

4. Other measurements for discovering abandonment location

Usability tools:

Usability tools test how easy to use your site is. For these tests, real users will go through a shopping process while being recorded or observed. This can help you find the exact points and reasons customers abandon a site (issues or confusion) and combat them.

Surveys:

Simply ask the person why they are leaving. You can ask it when they are just about the leave (i.e. use exit intent pop up, live chat) or after they have left (use cart abandonment email).

The post Why Should You Measure Cart Abandonment? appeared first on Barilliance.

Cart abandonment is an inevitable part of ecommerce.

However, it can be viewed as positive.

According to an article by Jeremy Smith there is a different way of looking at cart abandonment. Instead of viewing abandoners as lost customers, you should view them as potential customers you can recover.

Almost all of your first-time visitors won’t make a purchase. However, 75% of them will return. In fact, the more times a shopper abandons the more likely they are to recover their carts if targeted. This is because the more times they view the desired item, the more interested they are and the more they are truly considering to purchase it.

So your abandoners represent a huge potential of sales. But how can you actually turn their abandoned carts into sales?

Here are the best ways to do so:

1. Capture emails with an exit intent pop up

This pop up appears when technology detects the shopper is about to leave the site (the mouse moves to the address bar or the back button).

One intention of this pop up is to keep the about-to-abandon shopper on-site by giving them something of value. This reduces abandonment and induces an average of 10% conversion rate, though some companies have seen conversion rates as high as 100%.

Another intention of this pop up is to capture the shopper’s email address. This is essential for being able to remarket to the shopper in case they abandon. This is done by offering something of value in exchange for the email, however, the value does not have to be used at that moment.

The pop up can motivate the shopper to do both – stay on the site and leave their email address.

The value can be anything, such as ‘save my cart’, ‘save my visit’, a discount or promotion (e.g. for the next hour, for your first purchase), subscribe to the newsletter, etc.

2. Convince the shopper to return with a multi-stage email remarketing campaign

Once you’ve captured the shopper’s email address and they’ve abandoned you can reach out to them to motivate them to return to the site and complete their purchase.

The best way to do so is using a multi-stage, personalized, triggered email remarketing campaign.

This allows you to re-engage with the abandoners, build trust and a relationship and offer values to convince them to recover their carts. Consequently, it can reduce cart abandonment by up to 30% and lead to an average of 18% conversion rate (though some companies can reach even 40%).

The emails can include different messages and values, such as the cart content, real-time generated product recommendations, and incentives.

The best practice for the emails’ timing is 1 hour, 24 hours and 72 hours after cart abandonment occurs. Most often, the first email is a simple reminder, the second one intends to solve issues and the third gives an incentive plus a sense of urgency.

3. Convince the shopper to return with website push notifications

Another way to remind abandoners to return to the site and finish the purchase is with push notifications.

Similarly to mobile push notifications, these are messages that are sent by a website that can be clicked on to move to a certain page.

When a customer browses a site they can opt-in for such notifications. Notifications will appear in different times and frequencies depending on the company, even when the person isn’t browsing the site.

This strategy reminds the shopper of their cart in real-time and engages and offers values in a timely manner.

The main message should be personalized as well as clear and concise, as there is a limit on the number of characters. It must emphasize your advantages (e.g. your customer service, offering free shipping or a discount) and can induce a sense of urgency (e.g. limited-time sale).

4. Make the site welcoming and the cart easy to recover

When the abandoner decides to return to the site you must continue to encourage them to recover the cart.

Use the same tone as you have used in your email or notification to continue the customer journey.

Personalize the site for them with a welcome back pop up, saving their carts for them with persistent cookies and auto-applying any discounts offered.

Now it’s up to you to implement these strategies and see your sales increase. Capture more emails, remarket to more customers, remarket more effectively and continue the campaign and experience on-site.

We at Barilliance are always busy creating new ways of fighting cart abandonment. One of our recent unique capabilities is our triggered email booster tool. The tool allows you to identify visitors coming from an email sent to them, so that without logging in you know who they are. This way you have the ability to recover their sale if they abandon their cart.

Follow these points and see more abandoned carts being recovered!

The post What are the Best Ways to Turn Abandoned Cart Into Sales? appeared first on Barilliance.

It is quite the common knowledge amongst e-tailers that cart abandonment emails are the way to recover abandoned carts.

Barilliance’s recent studies show that our clients can convert up to 30% from their abandoned cart emails.

But what should you include in your emails?

The Must-Include:

1. The Cart Content

The main point of cart abandonment emails is to remind the abandoner they have left items in their carts that are worth purchasing.

So how can you remind them of how wonderful that shirt they forgot about is, if you don’t show it to them?

Include the cart content in detail to give the abandoner the full picture – a big, clear image of the product and a description of the color, quantity, price, size selected, how many left in stock, etc.

2. A Click-to-Action (CTA) to the Cart

And what would be the point of reminding the abandoner of their cart if you don’t provide them a way to return to the cart?

You must make it super easy for the abandoner to do what you want them to do.

Create a clear, big, stand-out CTA that when clicked on leads to the abandoner’s cart.

3. An Option to Opt-Out

You must allow your customers to opt-out of your emails. Provide a link to unsubscribe at the top or bottom of the email.

The Should-Include:

4. Great Copy

An excellent copy is a big player in convincing the viewer to take the desired action. Motivate the abandoner using customer service language, actionable words and persuasive language.

5. Great Visuals

Great visuals are as important as the copy if not more. This includes visuals of the product as well as the visual theme of the email itself, its design, etc.

Different colors can motivate the viewer to do different things. Remember to always be on-brand.

6. Personalized Product Recommendations

It is a wonderful plus to include personalized product recommendations in your cart abandonment emails. If the abandoner isn’t fully motivated to purchase the item they’ve left, they might be attracted to a different item presented to them.

Personalized product recommendations in emails can lead to 35% increase in click-throughs and 30% increase in sales conversion rates.

7. Customer Service Information

Your customer may have left due to an issue, concern or a problem. They might not actively seek help to resolve it but if you provide them help they might take it.

You may include: a link to the FAQ page, a summary of commonly asked questions and answers, the company’s email, phone number and a live chat.

8. Security Symbols

Shopping online can sometimes be risky in terms of identity and cart theft. So it is natural for shoppers to have security concerns about your site. Tackle these concerns with security proofs such as SSL and customer reviews of the site.

The Could-Include:

9. Ratings and Reviews

Social proof works extremely well in convincing a shopper to make a purchase. You can include the cart items’ ratings and a review or two to ensure the abandoner these items are worth buying.

10. Delivery and Return Policy Information

Similarly to security concerns and issues, some shoppers abandon their cart due to shipping and return concerns and issues. This includes costs, timing and options.

Provide your shoppers an easy access to this information to ease their concerns with a link to the delivery and return FAQ page on your site.

Ensure customers of your wonderful policies by highlighting the good aspects. Is your delivery free? Do you offer express shipping? Do you allow long and free returns or exchanges? Mention these assets in your email in big font to attract the shopper’s attention.

11. Incentives and a sense of urgency

As you probably already know, offering incentive is an easy tool to convince shoppers to convert. You can offer a discount, coupon or free shipping.

However, use this as a ‘last resort’ as you don’t want to offer discounted items for abandoners who might have converted without that discount.

Introduce a sense of urgency as well. You can have limited time on the saving of the cart items, limited time on the incentive or limited number of items. Use one of these three options and the abandoner will be more willing to make a purchase.

12. A Survey

Lastly, you might want to include a survey in order to receive feedback about why the abandoner has left their cart and to improve your site.

Of course, you can’t include all of these points in every cart abandonment email you send. That would be too much in one email. Especially since you will likely send the same shopper more than one cart abandonment email.

So, ensure to include the must-include points in every email but alternate the rest of the points throughout the three emails of your campaign. This way you’ll include most of the points but your emails won’t be too cluttered.

The post What Should I Include in Abandoned Cart Recovery Emails? appeared first on Barilliance.

In the past, companies common practices were mass production, consumption, and marketing. Nowadays, companies focus on niche markets, customization, and personalization.

Catering to individual’s needs has become so common that customers expect companies to meet their specific needs and get frustrated if they don’t.

The Personalization tool satisfies this rising need of individualization.

Personalization in eCommerce is the real-time tailoring of online customer experience to each specific shopper.

An eCommerce software generates personalization automatically and in real-time. Personalization in eCommerce has many applications, including the website, product recommendations, social proof notifications, and emails.

Why should you personalize?

Personalization creates a sense of individuality and uniqueness. Customers feel special and important, as though the company is paying particular attention to them. Moreover, by segmenting and targeting different shoppers, personalization answers each customer’s different needs, thereby optimizing customer experiences rather the same average experience to all.

Shopper value personalization. According to a study by Invesp, 53% of shoppers believe that e-tailers who personalize the shopping experience provide a valuable service.

Aberdeen found that 75% of shoppers favor brands who personalize their messages and offers. According to Smart Insights, 48% of consumers spend more when their experience is personalized. Janrain found that 74% become frustrated when brands provide irrelevant content to them.

E-marketers enjoy personalization’s benefits. Invesp found that 59% of marketers experiencing good ROI after personalizing their online store. According to Marketing Week, providing a personalized experience can improve conversions by nearly 8%.

How does the software personalize?

Which data is collected and used?

1. General data about the user – their demographics, geo-location, the number of visits, etc.
2. The intent of the customer – data collected about the visitor’s recent activity, overall shopping behaviors, past purchases and browsing history. This information indicates on the shopper’s preferences, affinities, and price-sensitivity.
3. The wisdom of the crowd – aggregated data that makes correlations between people who bought similar items and the individual shopper, to create predictions based on big data.
4. Customized set of variables – rules the company manually sets. For example, preferable categories to present, such as top sellers, items with a good click-through-rate and manually selected items.

What are the bases for segmenting?

1. Demographics.
2. Geo-location (country, weather, holidays).
3. Time (of the month, week, day of browsing).
4. Browsing device.
5. New vs. Returning visitor.
6. Social media attributes.
7. Real-time shopper engagement (behavior onsite, preferences, viewed/put in cart/purchased in terms of brand, style, type, size, etc.).

Personalization Applications:

1. Website Personalization

What is it? Website personalization is the tailoring of a website’s dynamic content, message, visuals and offers to each individual shopper.

Where is it done?

Promotions and offers: personalize the offer itself, the amount of discount, the time limit if there is one, etc.

Modified content: personalize the copy, visuals, product recommendations and social proof notifications. Personalize the order of items displayed in categories when sorted by a general statement such as “best match”.

Add/eliminate content: such as auto-applying coupons and auto-filling some elements in the checkout form.

Why is it effective? A more personalized website creates a more relevant customer experience.

A higher relevancy results in higher visit duration, product views, site visits, average order value and revenue as well as reduce shopping cart abandonment. According to Barilliance, website personalization can increase conversions by as much as 30%.

2. Personalized Product Recommendations

What is it? Personalized product recommendations are items suggestions that are specifically relevant to each individual shopper.

The recommendations display the item’s name, image, price, colors and sizes available, social proof notifications (e.g. “2 more items left in stock”, “best seller”) and more.

The recommendations’ personalization is relevant to the shopper’s data and to the time it is viewed. On-site recommendations are generated in real-time engagement and email recommendations are generated when the email is opened. This way the recommendations are the most accurate as they match the dynamic shoppers’ preferences and items’ availability.

The types of recommendations:

Personalized general recommendations: new arrivals, best sellers, top rated, etc.

Similar items (upselling): items that are a better match to the visitor’s preferences and needs than items they’ve viewed, to increase the likelihood of a purchase.

Complementary items (cross-selling): items that are different to items they’ve viewed, to increase the average order value.

Recently viewed items.

Where is it done? On any page and any triggered email. You may also display more than one set on one page.

Why is it effective? Personalized product recommendations provide a shortcut to the most relevant items to the individual visitor at the right time.

Personalization is crucial, as Barilliance found that personalized “top seller” recommendations is twice as effective as the non-personalized “top seller” recommendations.

The easy and quick direction to relevant items enhances customer experience, customer engagement and loyalty as well as reduces shopping cart abandonment. It also increases impulse purchases and the average order value.

Consequently, it increases the revenues and profit margin. Barilliance study has found that the conversion rate of visitors clicking the on-site product recommendations is 5.5 times higher than those who do not click it.

3. Personalized Social Proof Notifications

What is it? Personalized social proof notifications are real-time updates about product inventory (i.e. how many are left in stock) and other shoppers’ behavior (i.e. what they are viewing or purchasing).

The notifications’ location on page, timing, frequency, and number varies depending on the company.

The types of notifications:

Statements about the company, e.g. “x people are shopping now”.

Statements about the item’s popularity, e.g. “x shoppers have this item in their shopping cart”.

Statements about the item’s availability, e.g. “only two items left in stock!”.

Why is it effective? These notifications provide –

Transparency: providing complete knowledge of external factors, to create better and favorable decision making.

Urgency: creating a sense of pressing, high priority matter because of time limit or competition. So, customers will act quickly and automatically rather than analyze the decision, to entice a decision of purchasing.

Social proof: changing or strengthening the shopper’s perception of the value of the company or an item, by displaying other shoppers’ activity. Shoppers will trust an unbiased shopper and will trust more a group of shoppers.

All of these factors combined help finalize a purchase. They increase the perceived value, trust, customer confidence, engagement and conversions by as much as 8%.

4. Personalized Triggered Emails

What is it? Personalized triggered emails are cart abandonment emails and other triggered emails that have real-time personalized content.

Where is it done?

The subject line: personalize by using the shopper’s name, an item viewed, etc. to create a personal connection and increase the email’s open rate and conversions.

The email’s main message: for cart abandonment emails, personalize the main message depending mostly on the reason for abandonment. For example, for abandoners because of shipping cost offer an incentive, while for those left because of confusion offer customer service.

The email’s content: personalize the email’s copy and visuals. For example, in cart abandonment emails, personalize the cart content displayed, social proof (notifications, ratings, and reviews) about the abandoned items, and the incentive (different percentage or discount on different items, categories or brand.

The product recommendations: help customers find better match items if they left due to hesitation about the item or increase their average order value with cross-selling. Personalized product recommendations in emails can lead to 35% increase in click-throughs and 30% increase in sales conversion rates.

Why is it effective? Emails engage and build a relationship with your customers.

Personalized emails optimize the engagement by sending out the most relevant and effective emails to each customer.

Apply personalization in these four areas to create a highly relevant online customer experience and you’ll be able to increase the customer engagement, satisfaction, loyalty and retention as well as your conversion.

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