How to Regain Lost Sales with Abandoned Cart Emails

“It is estimated that on average almost 70% of shopping carts are abandoned, making the Abandoned Cart Flow one of the most essential features to have active when running an eCommerce store.” – Klaviyo

What is an abandoned cart email?

Abandoned cart emails are strategic follow-up emails, sent out to shoppers who have added an item to their shopping cart, but failed to complete the transaction. The goal of this type of email is to regain the potential revenue opportunity that dropped off when the shopper didn’t complete their purchase. Abandoned cart emails are transactional emails, and they offer a great opportunity to strengthen and grow the existing relationship between a seller and their subscribers.

Ready-made automated flow templates are just one example of Klaviyo’s smart features that showcase the intelligence of its platform. Flows have seamless integration with Shopify, which makes them very easy to set up. Every eCommerce company should send abandoned cart emails. These flows are automatically set up within your Klaviyo account, paving the way for an increase of ROI, revenue and engagement.

Customers may abandon their shopping carts for a variety of reasons, such as having to stop to create an account or comparing prices with another vendor. Whatever their reason for abandoning the items in their cart, it is evident they were considering making a purchase before they were interrupted, making the likelihood of conversion from an abandoned cart email very high.

When should I send an abandoned cart email?

Businesses should engage with these customers quickly and strategically, before they lose interest. The best time to send an abandoned cart email is a debated topic, however many marketers believe that you should send your first email within the hour, a follow up email at least 24 hours later, and – if you do send a third email – 48 hours after that. The third email could be incentivised, for example offering a discount, but don’t use this too often, as savvy shoppers will catch on.

Klaviyo Abandoned Cart Stats

• 75% of businesses on Klaviyo have an abandoned cart flow activated
• On average, 4% of revenue is attributable to abandoned cart emails in a 30 day period
• The top 25% of abandoned cart users are generating nearly 10% of their overall income through abandoned cart flows

How can your business maximise the abandoned cart flow?

Utilise your branding to make great templates

This is an opportunity to emphasise your brand’s identity in your templates to create visually pleasing aesthetic flows that reinforce your brand to the customer. Klaviyo recommends taking a product-focused approach, having a large image ‘front and centre’ of the email. Klaviyo’s ready-made abandoned cart template will gather the images relevant to the user, saving you the hassle of setting up difficult and strenuous automations. Handy!

Personalise your flows for added effect

Personalisation is vital when the goal is to optimise the return from abandoned cart flows. You can personalise emails most efficiently by including a syntax in the subject, preview text or title of the body copy. Simply put, a syntax will enforce that the customer will see their name displayed on the email, this is unique to them. For example, ‘Hey Paul, your items are waiting for you’.

With the idea of customisation being the driving force of this concept, in Klaviyo you can reference a specific item that a customer has viewed in the subject line. For example, ‘Did you forget about your scarf’?

You can further personalise your abandoned cart flows by including product recommendations based on past purchases. For first-time customers, you can include trending product suggestions instead.

Segment to increase email relevancy

Utilising the same thought process previously discussed (customising & personalising), segmenting is another key asset of Klaviyo. You’re able to segment based on purchase activity profile information and other historical data that will only further reinforce that your customers are only receiving relevant and specific messages.

The sophistication of Klaviyo’s platform makes it easy to create impactful automated emails that will add value to your customers and your brand.

Key takeaways from this blog

• Klaviyo has ready made templates that make automations seamless
• Revenue will be generated from abandoned cart emails, that’s a guarantee, but how much is up to you
• There are easy-to-use and accessible features within Klaviyo that make the process of optimising your flows quick and simple

Want to find out more about email marketing with Klaviyo? Drop us a line using or visit our email marketing service page.