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Here’s a super simple but effective Abandoned Cart setup that you can use without worrying about complex automation or legalities of emailing people you may or may not have permission to email!
Before we jump into the details, ‘Abandoned Cart’ typically refers to two different things:
- When people visit a sales page and don’t buy.
- When people fill in their name/email address on a checkout page, but don’t complete their order.
In this blog post I’m talking about the 2nd type of ‘Abandoned Cart’. If someone got as far as putting in their name and email address on the checkout page, they were really interested/close to buying. They may just have one more question or need one more nudge.
This tutorial is applicable to SamCart, and any other app/software that has ‘Abandoned Cart’ as a trigger in Zapier.
Update Feb 2021: Please note this does not work for ThriveCart. It goes a bit bezerk and triggers a ton of emails. ?
What you need:
- Checkout software that has an ‘Abandoned Cart’ trigger in Zapier. e.g. SamCart.
- Zapier
- Gmail (either a regular personal account, or GSuite)
How you do it:
1. Create a new Zap in Zapier.
2. The trigger is an abandoned cart in your checkout software. This is called a ‘Prospect’ in/for SamCart:
2. The action is ‘Send Email in Gmail’
3. Here are the settings for the ‘Customize Email’ section:
Why is this so effective?
- This email is coming from your regular email, not your email service provider (like ConvertKit or MailChimp), so it won’t go to the Promotions tab or anything like that.
- Because it’s a regular email sent personally to them, people are much more likely to reply as it doesn’t feel automated (even though it is! ?).
- If you sell lots of different products and services, it can be tricky to set up loads of different abandoned cart emails and sequences. This means you can just create one.
FAQs
Does it send the email straight away? Do I need to add a delay into the Zap?
No, your checkout software doesn’t considered the person to have abandoned cart until at least a few hours have passed (it varies between software). This means that at least several hours will have passed before they trigger the zap and receive the email. If you want to add in a delay to the zap, you can do!
Bonus Pro Tip ?
Install Chatra live chat on your checkout page so they can reach out with any last minute Qs (either live or leave a message), because nobody is going to open their email or go and find the contact page when they’re riiiight about to buy.