If you run an ecommerce business, you’re probably aware of cart abandonment and the problem it presents.
On average, only 1 in 4 customers who add an item to their cart end up purchasing.
This means that you’re losing $3 for every $1 you make. For most stores, this could mean thousands in lost revenue every single month.
All because your potential customers liked your product enough to add it to their cart, just not enough to purchase it right now.
There are plenty of reasons why people abandon.
But the reason isn’t as important as you might think. What’s more important is what you’re going to do about it. And you’ve two options.
- Let them leave and kiss that revenue goodbye.
- Attempt to increase your cart recovery rates.
Naturally, you’d want people to come back and complete their purchase.
Which means you need an effective cart abandonment solution to reengage users and bring them back to your store.
Thing is, a lot of marketers aren’t doing this well.
What Marketers Have Been Doing for Years Isn’t Working Anymore
Until recently, email marketing has been the go-to solution for cart recovery.
But there’s a recent shift in the platform of choice.
Email, whilst still a good way to reengage users, isn’t the best solution for cart abandonment anymore.
Email servers are filtering spammy emails, and categorizing promotional emails into separate inboxes where emails go unnoticed. People are also using tools like Unroll.me to stop their inbox from overcrowding.
20% of marketing emails don’t even make it to a subscriber’s inbox (that’s 1 in 4 emails!).
Email fatigue has also set in and people are looking for ways to avoid emails that aren’t productive.
Clearly, the increasing challenges with email marketing aren’t one-dimensional.
Which is why cart recovery needs to be approached in a new way.
As a marketer, you need to be constantly evolving. You need to deliver messages via a platform that generates the best response.
You need a new solution that actually brings better engagement, and thus, conversions.
This is where Messenger comes in.
The New Cart Abandonment Solution That’s Proving More Effective
Cart recovery campaigns via Messenger are achieving higher visibility thanks to the platform’s ability to automate conversations.
Ecommerce businesses are experiencing at least 4X higher open and response rates with Messenger versus emails (open rates are reaching 80%!).
Chatbots have CTRs that are well surpassing that of email marketing. It hovers around 15% in comparison to the email marketing average of 4% click-through-rate.
All these numbers are promising, but how easy is it to achieve this?
Easier than you think.
Thanks to the introduction of chatbot apps and social commerce solutions (like Jumper!), the move from email to Messenger is easy.
Chatbot apps help you program and personalize your message copy, frequencies, timings etc.
Plus, as Messenger marketing is still new, people aren’t expecting hard-sell messages. With email is something that they read and ignore, marketing on Messenger seems more conversational.
Say a customer abandons your cart. After a set time, he or she receives a message to remind them to complete their purchase with a coupon code.
Below the message, you have two options (buttons):
- Great, take me back to my cart
- But wait, I have more questions
A customer who is already engaged with your business might prefer option 1 to complete the purchase, enticed by the coupon code. A new customer, however, might still have questions. With the Messenger chatbot, you can automate responses that can be delivered almost immediately.
Isn’t this much better than waiting a few hours, or days, to get an email reply?
Wouldn’t this conversational commerce streamline the purchasing process? Wouldn’t it fill the gap between abandoning and purchase?
This is a simple example of the potential that cart recovery via Messenger can have for your ecommerce business.
We’ve seen this approach work for brands. We’ve seen it generate a 68% overall conversion rate for Marvel and have watched Ben and Jerry’s move 5000 samples in 72 hours.
Messenger marketing and conversational commerce is more engaging, easier for users to navigate, and leads to higher sales.
Imagine the wonders you can do with a well-planned cart abandonment campaign.
How to Run Effective Messenger Cart Abandonment Campaigns
With more than a billion users on Messenger, and with people engaging more on Messenger over email, it’s the place for you to market your goods.
Messenger might be fun and conversational, but Messenger campaigns for cart recovery require planning and strategizing as with any other channel.
Here are a few tips to get your next Messenger cart abandonment campaign off to a great start.
Keep It Short and Sweet
We live in an “instant” world today. The most effective campaigns deliver their messages quickly.
That fits with the idea of Messenger, but a lot of brands fall foul of the shorter character limits.
You should know what you’ve got to play with in terms of message length so your key persuasion point isn’t hidden behind an ellipsis or “read more” link.
Even if a customer is accessing Messenger on a web browser via desktop, long messages will require scrolling down.
Limit your copy to below 100 characters so users can see it in one go.
Did you know? Facebook is planning to introduce even more enhancements to its Messenger app – updates that may help improve marketing strategies in the future.
Plan & Prepare The Right CTA
While we advocate short and sweet conversations, your message should focus on your call-to-action to get customers to complete their purchase.
How do you combine being friendly with trying to get someone to buy from you?
Once you’ve plugged in your tools to help you automate your responses (read more about retargeting tools here), prepare the responses and flow that will generate quick action.
One of the best ways to get people talking and taking action is to offer them something to seal the deal – instant gratification, if you may.
The easiest way to do so is to offer coupon codes.
But offering coupon codes abruptly isn’t going to cut it.
Lead into the coupon code with a kind greeting, a gentle reminder and then an enticing offer.
For example, instead of just saying “Here’s a discount to complete your purchase.” with seems a little devoid of sentiment, say something like: “Hey, did you forget something? Complete your purchase today with this promo code!” and add a button to redirect them to their checkout page.
Make your messages conversational and actionable.
Besides preparing what to say, plan when you’re going to say it.
The easiest way to promote your CTAs is to provide a time-sensitive coupon code on your first message. You can then send follow-up messages to remind them to use the coupon code before it expires.
Another way to do it is by sending a first message that’s just a reminder that they have left something in their cart. Add a “Return to checkout” button.
If they still haven’t purchased after a certain time (say, 12 hours), offer them options of similar products they can consider.
Once 24 hours from the abandonment, entice them to purchase anything from your site with a discount code.
This way you have multiple CTAs and can also test out which stage receives the most click-through-rates. Tweak your campaigns accordingly as you go along.
Pro tip: Use Jumper’s pre-populated call-to-action button types allows customers to ask for that discount instead of just providing it upfront. With this, you are invoking action from an already engaged customer.
Whatever the flow of messages you decide on, make the call-to-action very clear.
Remain Conversational
The marketing approach through email campaigns and Messenger recovery campaigns differ.
Customize your copy to fit each medium. While emails are more one-way communication streets, Messenger is an interactive channel used primarily for quick chats and friendly banter.
When scheduling messages, ensure your copy doesn’t come across like spammy promo. Build trust by offering your customers information that will help their consumer journey versus just sending “hard-sell” content all the time.
Think of the next steps a customer would take and create quick response button options accordingly. Know what the responses for each buttons should be.
Some tips to writing chatbot messages to remain conversational:
- Minimize one-word options like “Yes” or “No”. Create buttons like “Yes, I want a discount” or “No, I’m not interested” instead.
- Use contractions. Instead of “Here is your coupon code.”, say “Here’s a coupon code!” It reduces the word count and sounds more friendly
- Plain English is the way to go. Avoid jargons and prepare responses as though you were talking to a friend face-to-face. If you aren’t sure how you’re doing, use scales like Flesch-Kincaid to check how readable your sentences are!
- Give your brand a personality. Don’t shy from using emojis and GIFs, but refrain from using them excessively as it may appear spammy.
Engage with your customers. Always make it appear like they’re talking to a human being instead of a chatbot.
Set Up Easy Cart Recovery Campaigns Via Jumper
Cart recovery through Messenger is generating higher engagement and conversion rates than email.
Which is why Jumper saw the need to add this feature to our existing chatbot features.
Automate cart recovery on your Facebook Messenger. Here’s a video to show you how to do it on Jumper:
This is really all you have to do – sign-up for Jumper, set up your integrations and create your cart recovery messages.
Finding The Sweet Spot To Recover Abandoned Carts
Are we saying that you should stop sending cart recovery emails and just use Messenger?
Not at all.
Different demographics have different preferences. There will still be people who prefer receiving emails.
Find the right balance that works for your business. Instead of sending the same messages on both platforms, try out Messenger for cart recovery and keep emails for re-engaging past customers who have given you their email addresses.
You can also repurpose your high-performing messages from email in Messenger, and run campaigns on both platforms for maximum reach.
The idea isn’t to replace email messages to recover carts, but to reinforce these messages via a more interactive platform – Messenger.
Utilize Messenger for its convenience and personalization features. With automated chatbot services like Jumper, you can plug and play your cart recovery strategies and maintain almost-instant communication with your customers.
If you run an ecommerce store and want to cash in on those dollars that are left on the table, try Jumper’s cart abandonment solution today: free users get 1 cart abandonment messages, while pro users get 3.