Shopping cart abandonment makes reference to the action of initiating a checkout process on an online store by adding a product to a virtual shopping cart and leaving the site without completing the purchase.

There are many reasons why customers abandon their shopping carts. Maybe they were just looking around, perhaps they weren’t ready to buy, they just wanted to see the final cost of the transaction before making a decision or didn’t have enough time. Unexpected shipping costs, complicated site navigation or confusing checkouts can also be the cause. 

However, all of these reasons don’t mean they aren’t willing to complete the purchase and this is where cart abandonment strategies come into play. Cart abandonment emails have been the number one strategy for e-commerce sites to bring customers back to finish a transaction they left halfway.

But, what happened with cart abandonment emails when GDPR came into the picture? 

GDPR makes reference to the General Data Protection Regulation. Is the legislation enforced in May 2018 that aims to protect users’ data privacy. It applies to any business that provides services to EU residents, even if it’s located anywhere else in the world. 

This legislation states that no business can disclose users’ personal information or send any type of communication to users without their previous consent. It’s pretty clear that this raised many eyebrows of concern for marketers wondering what would happen with their customer’s email database.

Cart abandonment email retargeting is the main practice marketers rely on to tackle the issue of only 2% of users converting. If the appearance of GDPR meant they would lose the user’s database they have built with so much effort and time and wouldn’t be able to retarget customers that initiated a transaction on their site, it would be a disaster. 

So, are cart abandonment emails GDPR compliant?

In order to answer this question as accurately as possible, it’s important to clarify that there are three different types of emails. Each one of them fulfills a purpose and depending on its objective.

1. Marketing Emails

Marketing emails are the ones that contain a commercial message and it’s sent to groups of customers or to prospects. The objective of marketing emails is to push leads down the marketing funnel.

These types of emails are not sent programmatically, they are timed and sent strategically like newsletters, announcements or welcome emails. 

2. Promotional Emails

A promotional email is an email sent to inform email subscribers about offers and time limited sales, like Black Friday or Mother’s Day. They have a specific time frame and could be recurring given the nature of the offer.

Its objective is to get the word out about and inform email subscribers about something special. Promotional emails usually also include some sort of promotional code or coupon with the goal of encouraging customers to move down the funnel and complete a purchase. 

3. Transactional Emails

Transactional emails are direct one-to-one emails with personalised information regarding a transaction a customer did or started on a site. They are not sent to a large group of subscribers or to the entire list because transactional emails are triggered by an action a user took when browsing the site.

They include:

• Order confirmations
• Delivery updates
• After purchase receipts
• Post-purchase review requests
• Cart abandonment reminders

Cart abandonment emails are considered transactional emails because a user that added a product to the shopping cart showed an intention to buy, thus initiating a transaction. 

Unlike marketing and promotional emails, transactional emails are programmed to be triggered by specific user behaviour on site. With platforms like Frizbit, you can set up an event that sends an automated email to users that add a product to their carts but leave without finishing a purchase.

One of the main attractions of transactional cart abandonment emails is that they only need to be configured one first time. Since they’re automated and triggered by the scenario you define, you just have to take time to create templates and content once to set up the campaigns and then everything runs smoothly by itself. 

You can schedule a sequence of emails to be sent:

• 1 hour after adding a product to the cart and leaving the site without completing a purchase
• 1 day later
• 3 days later

These automated cart abandonment recovery emails, include hyper-personalised information such as user name, product name, price and image. These features increase the value of the communication between sender and recipient by making the information much more relevant. 

Is sending cart abandonment emails still allowed under GDPR? 

Now that you know what types of email exist and what their objectives are, you’ll understand the answer is yes. According to the European Commission’s definition of legal grounds for processing data, cart abandonment emails are compliant as long as you have explicit consent from users to receive those emails. (Source Nosto.com)

Abandoned cart emails are categorized as direct marketing and can work under the legal grounds of legitimate interest which basically states that if the recipient is really going to be interested in what you have to say and find value from it, it’s ok to send it:

“Processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party except where such interests are overridden by the interests…” icoo.org.uk

Processing personal data for direct marketing purposes may be considered done for legitimate interest. (BOE.es)

This means that you might not need specific consent from users to send this type of communication because when customers share their email addresses with you in the intent of making a purchase and don’t complete it, both parties have legitimate interest on the transaction being finished.

That being said, we strongly recommend you to not take any chances on this and be very explicit and straightforward in order to receive consent from users before sending any type of automated cart abandonment campaign. 

You can make sure your emails are compliant by checking the following:

• Users need to actively opt-in or subscribe. Unchecking a box is not enough, this has to be a voluntary decision. 
• Include a registered address.
• Make sure your website’s privacy policy clearly states the type of information being collected. Specify you’re going to send transactional cart abandonment messages. Here are a couple of examples:
  • We will use your data to suggest products or offers based on the profile you create based on your purchase history, the products you view when you browse our platforms, or the products you leave in your cart when you do not finish the purchase process.
  • Your data may also be used for other marketing and advertising purposes. These suggestions can come to you through push notifications, banners, or even to your email using the abandoned cart feature.
• If you’re going to rely on legitimate interest, your privacy policy should say something like this:
  • Why do we process your personal data? Guarantee the correct processing of your order, in the event that you purchase any of our products.
  • The Responsible Party treats user data for the following purposes: other commercial communications by email about the Responsible and the provision of services
• Check the source of the email list you have before automating an abandoned cart recovery campaign. GDPR also affects data collected before its implementation, so it’s very important for you to verify what type of consent previous subscribers agreed to. 
• Include an easy way for users to unsubscribe from your list.

Should you be using Cart Abandonment Emails?

Cart abandonment recovery emails by Frizbit have reported a CTR of 17,1%  and conversion rates of 4,1%, making them the highest performing channel in automated cart recovery campaigns. 

When it comes to GDPR and cart abandonment emails, consensus says that there’s no problem with sending these types of emails to users that voluntarily subscribe to your mailing list thanks to the base of legitimate interest. 

If you haven’t implemented a strategy for cart abandonment recovery, getting started with automated and hyper-personalised emails is a great way to go. If you’d like to know more about how to do so, get in touch with us and we will be happy to guide you. 

This information might also interest you:

• Private Shopping Sites: Web Push Notifications Strategies
• Are Web Push Notifications GDPR Compliant?
• Cart Abandonment Recovery Strategies for E-commerce – Recover Lost Sales

Cart abandonment recovery is the biggest issue e-commerce sites face every day. According to Statista on a study including different industries, for March 2020 an average of 88.05% of online orders were left behind without completion. Specifically, the online retail sector has an average of 84.51 percent shopping cart abandonment rate.

Since it represents a huge leak of sales, it’s one of the most (if not the most) important problems to tackle if you own or run any type of online store. There are many reasons why customers abandon their shopping carts. Before we go into detail on how to mitigate this issue, let’s point out some of the:

Main reasons shoppers abandon carts:

• Confusing site
• Unexpected costs in shipping or taxes
• Confusing checkout process
• Online “window shopping”
• Security concerns
• Found a better deal on another site

If you want to implement cart abandonment recovery strategies, there are many techniques you can apply as for today and start getting results. Even though all users are different, with their own likes, dislikes and needs, there are some similarities and commonplaces to be identified within the segments and come up with a strategic approach that offers the right solutions.

Cart Abandonment Recovery Strategies

1. Use retargeting channels strategies

Marketers are very lucky. Yes, cart abandonment is a big issue for online stores, but there’s a wide variety of channels and marketing tools to use and tackle the problem from all angles with a tailor made strategy that fits your needs and fulfill customer’s expectations. One of the most important moves to make is to implement retargeting strategies. 

The following table shows an estimate of how each channel performs for cart abandonment recovery strategies. The numbers where measured for a average e-commerce site.

• Opt-in rate: The op-in rate shows how many visitors subscribe to each channel.
• % of subscribers in sequence: the % of subscribers in sequence makes reference to how many of those subscribers can be reached by the respective channel.
• Number of messages in sequence: when it comes to the number of messages in the sequence, it shows how many messages where designed to include as a series.
• CTR: is the click-trough rate for each channel, it show how many subscribers who received the messages clicked on it.
• Conversion rate: how many subscribers who received the messages and clicked on it, finished a purchase.
• Increase in sales: how much revenue said channel generated for the site.

Channel	Opt-in Rate	% Of Subscribers in Sequence	# Of Messages in Sequence	CTR	Conversion Rate	Increase in Sales
Email – Cart Abandonment	1- 3%	100%	3	17,2%	3,8x	4%
SMS – Cart Abandonment	0,5-1,5%	100%	1	35,4%	5,2x	2%
Web Push – Cart Abandonment	5-10%	10-15%	3	12,1%	2,3x	1%
Web Push – Full Funnel	5-10%	100%	3	10,7%	0,8x	2%

Users that have reached the checkout stage of the shopping funnel are easier to convert than visitors or potential customers. There’s no reason not to make the biggest effort on this step. 

You have three main channels available for cart abandonment recovery and recover lost sales while retaining users: automated web push notifications, emails and SMS.

• Cart abandonment recovery automated Web Push Notifications

Web push notifications are messages sent through browsers to, either mobile or desktop, to subscribers that opt-in to receive them. They’re delivered the moment users open the browser and start navigating online, indistinctly of the site or page they’re on at the moment.

Automated web push notifications allow to send users automatic messages related to the step of the shopping journey they were on the moment they left the site. For example, when users put an item in the basket, but abandon the web without completing the order, they will receive an automated web push notification reminding them about the product they left behind. 

You can recover lost sales from abandoned carts by sending automated notifications to users who left products in their basket but didn’t complete the purchase. You can schedule a sequence of messages to be delivered after certain amounts of time, like 1 hour, 1 day and 3 days after the user abandoned its shopping cart. 

The most engaging feature about using this channel to recapture lost customers, is that you don’t need any type of personal data from them. Unlike email or SMS, you can retarget visitors and anonymous users with web push notifications and bring them back to your site so they can finish their purchase. 

• Cart abandonment recovery emails

Cart abandonment email might be the strategy online stores use the most to tackle this issue. When using automated emails, they’re automatically sent to users that left the site on some step of the checkout process without completing a purchase after they added products to their cart.

Frizbit allows you to set up automated behavioural emails to recover abandoned carts.  The configuration process only needs to be done once, so implementing this strategy won’t represent a continuous effort or add to your normal workload.

Recovering abandoned carts emails should be as highly customised as possible. When users identify and relate to the content of the message, click-through and conversion rates increase significantly which translates to a recovery of lost sales and an increase in your revenue. 

This strategy has always been so popular, because it has presented a direct communication with users by contacting them through their email accounts. The downside is that, in order to do so, you need people to share with you their personal information and they don’t always do that. So, basically, if a user leaves the site before reaching the part of the checkout process where they’re supposed to submit their email address, you lose that user for good. 

Even though cart abandonment emails have always presented encouraging results for online stores, combining them in a strategy that also includes automated web push notifications will help you optimize your strategy and take it to the next level. Keep in mind that with emails, you can only reach those people that registered, while losing visitors and anonymous users. Adding an additional channel, that allows you to communicate with all visitors might be what your strategy is missing. 

You can check out our Success Story with Bidcom, an online retailer in consumer electronics that uses a combination of Frizbit’s automated behavioural emails and web push notifications campaign to recover abandoned carts. 

• Cart abandonment recovery SMS

SMS cart abandonment are messages sent to users that left a site during some step of the checkout process after adding a product to their basket. They work with the same principle of cart abandonment emails, but instead of receiving the message in the inboxes, users receive them on their mobile devices.

The format of SMS presents a great opportunity for online stores, since the information is delivered directly to the hands of the user through their phones, which makes it a very direct form of communication. Everyone has their mobiles nearby and constantly checks them during the day. Unlike emails, with SMS you don’t have to wait for users to go and check their inboxes to get the message. 

They are also highly customisable as well, and can include user name, product name, category name, brand or pretty much anything you wish to highlight about the article. This helps by making the message more relevant and harder to ignore by the user. 

However, the way it happens with emails, you need users to provide information: their phone number. If people are already reluctant to share their email address, this unwillingness increases a lot when it comes to sharing much more personal information like their personal number. If they don’t, you’ll lose them as well. 

Create a multichannel cart abandonment recovery strategy

There are multiple roads you can take to deal with cart abandonment: optimizing the web experience, using retargeting emails, sms or web push notifications. The way we see it, the real solution for this issue is to combine all of them in a well-planned retargeting strategy. 

FYI, we’re not saying that you should harass your users with messages while you follow and stalk them through every possible channel. What we’re saying is that you need design and execute a multichannel cart abandonment strategy in a way each channel complements the other.

Create a strategy thought out like a service you’re providing your customers. You want to bring them back to finish their purchases and recover lost carts in a way they feel they’re also gaining something. You can use each channel available in a different way, with different types of messages, different frequencies and segmenting by users by creating a flow of messages. 

Remember to always make the message as relevant as possible by using the dynamic fields available such as user name, product name, image, price or any information you see fit. The most important thing you need to keep in mind when designing your multichannel cart abandonment strategy is to use the frequency cap parameter so you can regulate the time periods your messages are delivered.

This is especially important if you work with different providers for each channel. You’ll have to coordinate the time frames in which you want each message to be delivered so they don’t clash with each other. For example, if the recovery cart email is sent after one hour, you’ll have to change the web push notification timing to be sent after two hours. If the user clicks on the email and completes a purchase, that event will be fulfilled, hence cancelling the web push notification automatically. 

If you work with the same provider for web push, emails and SMS, this won’t present a problem or extra work. Frizbit allows cross-platform event triggering coordination, meaning that if a user clicks on the cart abandonment recovery notification, the email and the SMS won’t be sent and so on.

Additional Tips to Reduce Cart Abandonment Rates

1. Optimize your site

When we talk about cart abandonment issues, we’re referring to the last step of the shopping funnel. So why are we even mentioning the quality of the site as an important element here? Simple: user experience from top to bottom. 

• Simplify navigation

Simplify the journey as much as you can. A lot of users abandon carts because of a confusing, complex navigation. The more clicks you put them through, the higher the chances that they leave before completing a purchase. The ideal number here is up to three clicks. To get there, make sure you organize your products in different, identifiable categories with names that clearly describe what’s in them.

• Create engaging informative product pages

Remember that before any user even thinks about adding a product to the basket, they browse through your site. They get a feeling from what they see, from the homepage to the product page. You want to focus on creating an engaging experience for them that also presents all the information they might need to know before making a decision.

Include product visuals that portray as best as possible the characteristics of the article: photos from different angles, videos, details. When shopping online, customers don’t get to touch, smell or experience the product in any physical way, and that can be a huge barrier to the shopping process. Reduce it by adding as much visual and descriptive information as you can.

• Reduce loading times

Long loading times can greatly affect cart abandonment rates. Keep in mind that people get easily bored and distracted when browsing online. If you make them wait too long to go through checkout after finally deciding to shop for a product on your site, you can very easily lose them. 

This risk is even bigger for mobile users who already present higher cart abandonment rates as they are. Bottom line, if your site is slow, users will abandon. The checkout page is the step where you want to boost your site’s loading time as much as possible. Making the shopping journey easy and fast in this stage is crucial for customers to complete their purchase and avoid cart abandonment. 

2. Increase site trust

As we mentioned before, one of the main reasons for cart abandonment is a lack of trust in the shopping process. Even though by now most of us are extremely used to shopping online and we do it all the time, there are still a lot of barriers regarding the level of trust on online transactions. 

You’re asking people that don’t know you from anything to trust you, not just with personal information, like email or phone number, but with very private and sensitive credit card and bank account details. It’s your job to increase the level of trust. You can do it by:

• Displaying logos of security companies your work with: One study done by Actual Insights found that, on average, 61% of people did not buy because a trust logo was no were to be found on the site, and over 75% said they didn’t buy because they didn’t recognize the logos used.

 

 

• Including social proof: If you also let users know that others have purchased products from you and had a great experience doing so, you might tilt the balance in your favor. It’s all about adding valuable information that reduces hesitation by increasing trust leves of your site. 

 

 

• Avoiding to request unnecessary information: nobody likes to share their personal details on the internet. Especially if you don’t know what they’re going to be used for, so refrain yourself from asking people to fill endless forms with personal data. If possible, create a “guest checkout” option that doesn’t require users to create a profile on your site.

3. Be honest about your prices!

Unexpected and hidden additional charges in the checkout page is the biggest reason customers leave without completing a purchase. 56% of shoppers claimed to have abandoned their cart because extra rates were not mentioned before. 

To lower this stat, be as transparent as possible from the get go. Make sure to display shipping rates and tax charges as clearly as you can so people can see it and don’t be surprised when they’re about to click that final “complete purchase” button. 

You can add a shipping calculator where customers can introduce their addresses and learn how much it will cost them. Another option is to offer free shipping when a certain basket price is met. This way, not only will the costs be clear, it will be an extra incentive for customers to maybe spend a little more on your site. 

You can reduce cart abandonment rates dramatically if you plan and execute a seamless retargeting strategy. If you want to request a one month demo period to try it out on your site, let us know by clicking here, we’ll be happy to help. 

These articles might also interest you!

• Bidcom reached a 37x ROAS with automated Emails and Web Push Notifications from Frizbit
• Web Push Notifications: A Complete Guide for all Levels
• How to Conduct Successful A/B Testing: Go from Beginner to Pro