Top 10 examples of abandoned cart email templates
You have been working hard to carefully pick and represent products to sell on your website, design eye-catching layouts and elements to attract users, unveil customer journey and website funnels, personalize contents and communication, and it worked! Now you have the traffic you’ve been waiting for and users surf your website, select their product(s), put them in the cart and head to check out. But then they suddenly vanish. That hurts! It’s like being a soccer player who thinks he scored but the referee rejects the goal because the shot was offside.
You may say, “That’s ok, I can wait for other users.” But statistics say 88.05 percent of online shopping orders were abandoned worldwide! And when you look at the cart abandonment rate from 2006 to 2019 you realize it has been slowly increasing. Unfortunately, it seems like abandoning the cart has become more popular these days!
Those are high numbers! Your heart may be racing and you’re wondering if there is any way to prevent this. I can say there are some methods that can reduce abandonment rate. In one article we explained strategies and tactics to recover abandoned carts, and in this one, we want to go into more detail and show you some examples of abandoned carts email templates.
- Why do people abandon their carts?
- What are abandoned cart emails?
- How to prepare cart abandonment email
- Example of abandoned cart email templates
- Final thoughts on creating your own abandoned cart email template
Why do people abandon their carts?
There are many reasons that can lead to cart abandonment for an e-commerce website. Some customers leave as a natural shopping behavior, just like when you are hanging out in the shopping mall and check out different stores and compare prices or explore different options for a specific item before making the purchase. These “window shopping” habits are somewhat the same for online shopping as well. But some customers leave because of the difficulties they face when interacting with your website. It’s hard to understand exactly what the main issue(s) are, but you should work on them and try to resolve them. The most common difficulties include:
Extra costs
Shipping, fees, or even taxes are some of the charges that you have to hand down to customers. According to Statista, shipping price is the first reason that people leave their cart. But in many cases, you cannot easily afford free shipping. So what should you do? Be transparent about these kinds of charges and show them somewhere before the final checkout page, before asking for their credit card information or even somewhere on the product page.
I had the bad experience of finding a product at the best price on one website, but once I reached the checkout page I realized the product was even more expensive than it was on other websites. It ruined my trust and I didn’t go back to that website ever again.
No one likes to pay for something that wasn’t part of the deal from the beginning.
That’s why Amazon displays shipping costs near the product cost
Lack of payment options
It’s not possible to complete the purchase if you don’t see your preferred payment option in the checkout page. Work with different credit card companies or other online payment systems and let your customers choose the one they prefer. So even a giant like Netflix puts four options in front of you to choose from for payment.
Mandatory account
Creating an account is a time-consuming action, especially if you just want to make a quick and small purchase. In our rapid world, users tend to purchase from websites that appreciate their time and can save them as little as one minute! So you should prepare guest checkout options to let users make a fast and easy purchase.
With this idea in mind, Walmart lets users purchase without an account.
Security doubts
Build a trustworthy website and implement a secure payment method. Here are some things that you can do to make your website trustworthy.
- Implement a secure payment method such as 3D secure authentication
- Select a host with a good reputation
- Add a password strength meter to encourage users to select stronger passwords
- Provide a super-secure login with two-factor authentication
- Limit brute force login attempts
- If you’re using WordPress and WooCommerce make sure to keep them updated at all times
- Use safety trust badges on your website
This way your customers feel that they are secure and that their data is in the right hands.
Other issues
As I mentioned before, there are many factors that have an impact on the cart abandonment rate; problems such as website load speed, bugs and crashes, bad customer service, or even delivery time are all important factors. We’re not going to cover them all in this article, but we will show you effective ways to use email campaigns and examples of abandoned cart email templates to recover customers after they leave their cart.
So let’s figure out what an abandoned cart email is.
What are abandoned cart emails?
Abandoned cart emails are an email or series of emails that you send out to users and customers who didn’t complete their checkout process and encourage them to return and finish their purchase. Since all users might not have a registered account, it’s recommended to have a two-step checkout process and ask users to at least enter their name and email address in the first step before asking for their credit card information. This way it’s possible to try to recover users who abandoned their carts.
So you should track users and segment those who abandoned something in their cart, remind them about it in different ways and analyze and optimize your methods. This is one of those places where all-in-one solutions such as Growmatik can save you time and money.
How to prepare cart abandonment email
There is no single right way to do this, but by following some key criteria you can make sure you’re on the right track and optimize your design over time according to your business and the products you’re working on.
Target and regain abandoned users
The first thing is to segment abandoned cart users to send them customized messages. You can go one step further in segmentation and separate your loyal customers from your leads and have a different scenario for targeting each of them. You can do this in Growmatik by going to People, selecting All leads and adding the filter
shopping activity>Has abandoned cart as yes
By selecting All customers, Growmatik gives you many options to diversify your segment
Prepare personalized and straightforward pitch
When you realize someone is addressing you in person, you’re more likely to take any action, same goes with abandoned cart emails. Personalize your pitch by addressing customers by their first name with dynamic keywords, displaying their abandoned cart product(s) or including an exclusive discount coupon in the email.
Try to avoid long email content and make sure to add a CTA to make it easy for them to return to where they left off. Also, cross-selling or upselling is not recommended since they haven’t even paid for the current product yet, so avoid it unless you have a solid strategy to increase the chance of conversion by showing them different options.
To personalize and design the email in Growmatik, go to Workshop and Emails, and click on the Create Email button. You can choose from different email templates and start customizing and adding personalized elements to the email.
Work on trust
In addition to the safety trust badges we mentioned before, you can display your contact information such as phone number or social media address in the email to let them contact you whenever they want. You can also add your name and a portrait to the footer of the email to assure customers that you are an acceptable and trustworthy business.
Adding social proof can be a good idea to empower trust as well.
Timing is more important than you think
When you need something and have been browsing between two or more websites, and if for any reason left or forgot one of them, most likely you’ll make your purchase on another website at the first chance you get. According to some studies, the best timing for sending the first abandoned cart recovery email is one hour after the customer leaves your website. For the second one, it’s recommended you wait at least one day.
You can use FOMO bias for your second (or even third) email to increase the chance of conversion by using something like a stock count showing that the product is going to be out of stock soon.
In Growmatik, go to the Automation page and click on 
from Leads or Customers column and choose Custom rule and set the following condition:
User behavior > Abandoned cart
Then, select Send Email as an action. This way Growmatik will send the recovery email one hour after leads or customers abandon their cart.
If you want to send the second email after one day (or any other day based on your scenario) you should go to the People page and segment those who didn’t return with the first email.
Set the following filters:
Shopping activity > Has abandoned cart as yes
Site activity > Visit date > more than X days ago
Then you can save this segment and send the targeted segment an email or remind them of their abandoned items by displaying them on the homepage or any other page on your website.
Make use of cross-channel approach
It’s important to target cart abandoners across multiple channels. At the very least, send them a follow up email and display the abandoned items for them on their personalized home page or products page. However, you might also consider showing them personalized popups encouraging them to make the purchase, using exclusive discounts on those items to increase incentive. You might also further target your audience with remarketing ads that display the abandoned products on Google or social media.
Growmatik can connect your cart abandoned segments across multiple touchpoints and deliver customized material on not only email but also web page and popup channels.
Just go to the Automation page and click on from the Leads or Customers column, choose Custom rule and set the following condition:
User behavior > Abandoned cart
And you can then choose Show popup to display a discount popup or Personalize page to show and remind them of abandoned items in the desired page.
In order to display abandoned items in a webpage, choose Personalize page as the actionand select your page. By clicking on on any place on your page you can add a product element; just select abandoned cart products for content.
Write a powerful subject line
An enticing subject line is the first step to writing eye-catching emails. It’s your first chance to pique your customer’s interest, and a successful subject line should be tempting enough to get them to open and interact with the email.
Here are some tips for writing a good subject line:
- Being straightforward and honest
- Keeping the subject line short
- Using sense of humor
- Asking questions
- Personalizing it
- Using emojis
Here are some examples of a good subject line:
- Subscribe now and save 25%! 💰
- Learn a new skill in less that 45 days 💪
- “Yes, I can” is your phrase of the day!
- 50% off + free shipping
- Wondering if you lost your connection….
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Example of abandoned cart email templates
It’s time to see some real world examples of emails to get ideas and discover how brands are designing their emails. You can also design all of these email templates with Growmatik.
American Giant
Subject line: Did you see something you liked?
This is a straightforward and simple email that includes most essential elements – CTA and recommended product – to encourage the user to return and make their purchase. They did a good job asking users to contact their Customer Service to empower trust but didn’t mention contact information on the email body, so users must first check the website to figure out how to contact them, which will take time for a user.
If you want to add a product related to customer search history or visited page, you should select “related” as a content for product element in the email builder of Growmatik.
Everlane
Subject line: Eyeing Something?
This template has the necessary elements but with more explanation about the product. The CTA is eye-catching because of its edge-to-edge design with a gentle tone to persuade the customer to return and complete the purchase.
Growmatik allows you to design such edge-to-edge CTAs in your own email just by clicking on the Edge to edge toggle switch.
Public Rec
Subject line: You Forgot Something
Here we have another uncomplicated design with all the vital elements. In the beginning of the email they highlight free shipping, which is the main reason users abandon carts. Free returns in all orders will help improve trust.
Alex Mill
Subject line: Get Them for 15% Off!
Here we have a nice example of a win-back email that provides a discount offer immediately in the beginning of the pitch, displays the abandoned items, assures users about shipping cost and provides a link to contact the company directly from the email.
They used four different CTAs and they didn’t clutter the body of email. Also, the first one contains a discount offer and is just begging to be clicked!
Cole Haan
Subject line: Open to see the styles curated for you
Using FOMO can make your abandoned users respond faster, which Cole Haan achieved in their recovery email by saying “bag this one before it’s gone.”
Free shipping, exchanges and returns is correctly mentioned and they worked on trust very well by adding a separate section with the title “We are here for you.” They also tried to improve the chance of conversion by mentioning their available discounts for different users at the bottom of the email. Unfortunately, they added cross-selling items, which is not an advised element for abandoned cart email templates.
Thousand Fell
Subject line: Get your gift while it’s hot 🔥
Thousand Fell clearly understands how to use cross-sell in abandoned cart email templates by displaying closely related products – all look almost identical – to diversify the options for users for the same product. They also offer discounts on the top and the CTA of the email to increase the probability of conversion.
It would be better if they added direct contact information or social proof in their email to improve trust.
Adidas
Subject line: Sorry to hear about your wi-fi…
The peculiar heading and subject line, which are not related to the image, make users interested and encourage them to read the pitch. Almost half of the body in this email is social proof and is immediately followed by a CTA to boost conversion.
Even though Adidas is a well-known brand, they provide support and contact information with direct links to protect and maintain trust.
Virgin Atlantic
Subject line: You’re nearly there
Using a personalized image of the destination and the user’s full name with dynamic keywords is a nice incentive for users to book their flight. Although Virgin Atlantic is a famous company, they could display customer’s comments as social proof and put a link or number to customer support in case users have questions.
You can add many dynamic keywords in any text element in your website using Growmatik.
The Sunday Collective
Subject line: Quality Over Quantity
This email shows that The Sunday Collective has a great understanding of their customers – which mainly are parents. The main focus is on the value of the product, which they have nicely connected to the value of educating a child. After that, they displayed the abandoned item and CTA to persuade the user to return to the cart.
Homage
Subject line: Your cart awaits, good shopper!
Here we have another email that uses fear of missing out bias in a great way, as they give the customer two days to complete the purchase with a great pitch. There is a CTA right next to the abandoned item to encourage more clicking. They also made their free shipping policy clear in their email, which is good.
Final thoughts on creating your own abandoned cart email template
Marketers and business owners have been working hard to decrease cart abandonment rates since the beginning of online shopping. Although email marketing is the main channel for communicating about this issue with customers, with the advent and use of cross-channel tools like Growmatik, if you miss out using the cross-channel approach for recovering abandoned users then your competitors will easily get ahead of you.
In this article, we explored some main reasons for cart abandonment and ways to prevent it, plus must-have elements of an abandoned cart recovery email. We also reviewed some real world examples of abandoned cart email templates to get ideas and learned how to create even better ones for your business with Growmatik, a powerful cross-channel marketing tool. The rest depends on your creativity and niche!