Cart abandonment rate

According to SaleCycle, the cart abandonment rate in 2016 was about 75% across all regions. (source)

Baymard mentions it is 69.57%, based on 41 studies, and that stat was last updated in September 2019.

Abandonment emails

Cart abandonment emails are one way to convert some of those people who left their cart behind.

Based on Omnisend’s research, 46.1% of people open cart abandonment emails, 13.3% click inside the email, and of those clicks, more than 35% end up buying something. They also observed that “marketers that use a series of 3 cart abandonment emails […] are seeing 69% more orders on average than marketers sending only one cart abandonment email.”

Email subject lines

They analyzed 95,000 email campaigns and figured out the 5 top converting email subject lines:

15% Off purchase (48% open rate )
Cart left (45% open rate )
$20 Off cart (44.5% open rate)
Items left (40% open rate)
Still shopping? (39% open rate)

Annoying or helpful?

Cart abandonment emails do annoy a certain % of your shoppers, but the vast majority find them helpful, according to this study.

Reminder email

Some customers need only a reminder, not a discount.

If you send a reminder email without an offer as your first cart abandonment email, you save your discounts for customers who need the incentive. (Source)

While only 48% of brands send their first offer in the second or third email, these emails are often the best time to introduce your offer. Typically, your second and third abandoned cart emails generate most of your abandoned cart revenue’ … ‘The low-hanging fruit—cart abandoners who don’t need any offer—can be the focus of your first email; let the second or third introduce an incentive.

Email sequence

You can try a sequence like this with a repeating offer:

No offer
First offer
Second offer + scarcity (e.g., limited stock)
Final offer + scarcity (e.g., limited stock) + urgency (e.g., offer expires)

The bottom line is, wait until later in your sequence before offering a discount.

Other advice

Mention your offer in the subject line
A 10% discount looks bigger than a 5$ discount. And a 5$ discount looks bigger than a 3% discount, even of the amounts are the same. Figure out whether to offer a % off or a $ amount based on which discount number is bigger.
Apply the (dynamic) discount directly to the cart if you can, it is more convenient for the user.

SMS

SMS remarketing is a viable alternative to email. About 98% of SMS messages are opened, and 90% are read within 3 minutes, a clickthrough rate of about 36% (according to SalesCycle), and 28.7% conversion (about a third of clicks on SMS links result in recovered sales).