Learn how to bring buyers back to their abandoned carts automatically so you can recapture sales and boost your bottom line.
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Home > Ontraport for payments > Creating order forms > Following up with abandoned carts
Home > Creating order forms > Following up with abandoned carts
Following up with abandoned carts
You'll learn:
- The strategy behind an abandoned cart system
- Steps to build your own abandoned cart automation
- What to say in reminder emails to nudge people back to their cart
- How to double-check your automation before going live
Matthew Bixby
Following up with abandoned carts
Learn how to bring buyers back to their abandoned carts automatically so you can recapture sales and boost your bottom line.
- The strategy behind an abandoned cart system
- Steps to build your own abandoned cart automation
- What to say in reminder emails to nudge people back to their cart
- How to double-check your automation before going live
Course Instructor
Matthew Bixby
Related resources
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Transcript
As a business owner, you’re familiar with people getting close to a sale and then suddenly dropping off.
There are lots of reasons why a lead might visit your site, make moves to buy your product but then not seal the deal. People often get distracted before they click the “Buy” button and might need an extra nudge to remember why your product is so valuable.
And that’s what abandoned cart systems are for. These automations are one of the quickest and most powerful ways to recapture lost sales and increase your bottom line. They remind your leads of products they were looking at before they left your page, and give them a gentle reminder about what’s waiting for them in their shopping cart.
In this video, I’ll show you how to build your own abandoned cart automation. You’ll:
1. Create a new automation map
2. Add your trigger
3. Set up your goal
4. Set up your reminder emails, and
5. Publish your automation.
Let’s begin! The first thing you’ll do is create a new automation map.
The easiest way to set up an abandoned cart automation is to use one of our wizards that’ll do most of the leg work for you!
But in this video, I’m going to teach you how to set this up from scratch. Once you’re familiar with the elements that make up an abandoned cart automation, you can customize your own.
Open up your “Automations” collection and click “Add New Automation.”
Name your automation map in the top left corner. Let’s call it “Abandoned Cart Automation.”Now you’ll add your trigger.
The trigger will add contacts who visit your order page to this automation. The idea is that once contacts visit your order page, they’ll do one of two things: buy your product or choose not to buy your product. Pretty simple.
This automation will automatically segment your contacts into those two groups. To do that, you’ll need to add them to your automation as soon as they visit your order page.
Click the plus sign next to your default “Added to Automation” trigger and click “Add a Trigger.”
Click the “Add Trigger” button on the trigger pop-up.
Select “Visits a landing page” from the dropdown if your sales page is built with Ontraport. If your sales page is built with a third-party, select “Contact visits URL.”
Keep in mind that you’ll need to set up Ontraport tracking on your third-party page, or else you have no way to know who abandons your cart. Check out our Ontraport setup video “Add tracking script to your site” for more info on this.
Your automation will actually tell you if it’s able to find your tracking script on your site. If your account can’t find your tracking script, you’ll get a pop-up with links to help you get set up.
Go ahead and click “Visits a landing page” for this example. Then select your order page from the dropdown.
Let’s take a look at the settings on the left. Your trigger should have these settings:
You’re going to set up your automation so that the only people who stay on your map are the people who abandoned your cart.
Now it’s time to set up your goal. Your goal is what’s going to separate the people who visit your order page and buy from the people who visit your order page and bounce.
You’ll set up a goal that moves contacts if they purchase the product you’re selling. This will automatically segment your contacts into the two groups I just described.
Then you’ll edit the wait step that’s attached to your goal. This will set up automation just for contacts who don’t buy your product after a specific amount of time.
To do that, click the “What happens next?” element below your “Visits a landing page” trigger. Choose a “Goal” element and click on it to edit your goal’s settings.
From your goal pop-up, click the Add Goal button. From your goal dropdown, select “Purchases Product.” Then pick the product you’re selling from your product dropdown.
Take a look at your settings on the left. The default trigger settings say that we should MOVE the contact here if they’re already on this map, and that’s exactly what we want to do for this use case, so no changes here.
Click “Done” to save your goal settings.
Throw an exit step after your “Product is Purchased” goal so that the only people who stay on this map are the people who’ve abandoned your order form.
Click on your end element to edit it. Check the “Remove Contacts from this Automation when they reach here” box.
You’ll see that your “End” element turns into an “Exit” step. Now your automation looks like a trigger, followed by a wait, followed by a goal.
You can tweak it by adding a line of automation for visitors who don’t purchase your product.
Click on the “Wait until goal is reached” element to edit it.
In the “Wait here until” dropdown, select “Some time passes” and add 1 in the “hours” section.
You’ll see in your settings that it says “OR Continue immediately when the attached goal is achieved.” This is the magic that segments your buyers from your cart abandoners.
Look at your wait element on your automation map. You’ll see an alternate line of automation. It'll send an email that will go only to people who visited your order page but did not buy your product within an hour.
Click “Done” to save your settings.
Let’s also take a second to wrap up the “What happens next?” element below your “Added to Automation trigger.”
You can add an exit or end step here if you’d like, and it’s a good idea to add a “Go To” element so you can easily add a test contact to test your abandoned cart emails.
Click your “What happens next?” element below the “Added to automation” trigger.
Select a “Go To” element from your “Filters” tab.
Click the “move” icon on the dotted line below your “Go To” element and drag it over to your goal’s attached wait step.
Ok! Let’s move on and set up your reminder emails.
Abandoned cart systems usually include three emails, each with its own specific strategy.
I’ll show you the three key emails, but be sure to check out “The 5 message editors” video to learn more about creating your emails.
I’ll start with email #1: The Helpful Reminder.
You’ll send this first email right after your hour long wait step.
In it you remind your visitors about the products they left behind. It should list or display the items left behind, include a link back to your order form, and offer support and answers to questions your visitors might have.
Next, email #2: The Friendly Nudge.
Send this email one day later. Check the “Then wait until the time of day is…” setting on your wait. Then pick a time in the morning in your contact’s time zone — the morning is when most people are checking their email for the day.
This second email should create a small sense of urgency, but don’t go for a hard sell. Let your customers know that the product they were looking at is popular and may sell out — if that’s the truth. And include a link back to your order form.
Finally, set up email #3: The Hail Mary.
This email is sent three days after your visitor abandoned their cart and can be more persuasive than the others since it’s your last attempt to hook them.
In this email, you might consider adding free shipping or a discount on the order. Check out our “Types of offers” video for more info on using coupon codes.
Let’s wrap up this line of automation by adding another exit step to the empty “What happens next?” element below your third email.
Finally, you’ll publish your automation.
Take one final look at your automation before publishing it. You have a trigger that adds your contacts when they visit your order page.
If your visitors buy your product, they’ll be moved by your goal and exit your automation.
If your visitors don’t buy your product within an hour, they’ll get your first email — the helpful reminder.
If this email gets your visitors to buy, they’ll be moved to your goal and then exit your automation.
If your first email doesn’t get your visitors to buy, your automation will wait another day and then send out your second email — the friendly nudge. If this gets your abandoners to buy, they’ll leave the automation.
If the second email still doesn’t get them to buy, you’ll send your final hail mary email a day later. This email offers your contacts a discount or free shipping along with a hard sell for your product.
If your third email doesn’t get them to make a purchase, there really isn’t anything else you can do. At this point, you’ll stop sending them emails about your product.
Once you’re happy with your automation, click “Publish” and then “Save & Publish” to make your automation go live.
Sweet! You just learned how to create your own abandoned cart automation. Now you have the tools you need to set up an automation that can recapture sales that might’ve disappeared otherwise.
Watch more of our videos to learn all about “Fulfilling digital orders” and more.
There are lots of reasons why a lead might visit your site, make moves to buy your product but then not seal the deal. People often get distracted before they click the “Buy” button and might need an extra nudge to remember why your product is so valuable.
And that’s what abandoned cart systems are for. These automations are one of the quickest and most powerful ways to recapture lost sales and increase your bottom line. They remind your leads of products they were looking at before they left your page, and give them a gentle reminder about what’s waiting for them in their shopping cart.
In this video, I’ll show you how to build your own abandoned cart automation. You’ll:
1. Create a new automation map
2. Add your trigger
3. Set up your goal
4. Set up your reminder emails, and
5. Publish your automation.
Let’s begin! The first thing you’ll do is create a new automation map.
The easiest way to set up an abandoned cart automation is to use one of our wizards that’ll do most of the leg work for you!
But in this video, I’m going to teach you how to set this up from scratch. Once you’re familiar with the elements that make up an abandoned cart automation, you can customize your own.
Open up your “Automations” collection and click “Add New Automation.”
Name your automation map in the top left corner. Let’s call it “Abandoned Cart Automation.”Now you’ll add your trigger.
The trigger will add contacts who visit your order page to this automation. The idea is that once contacts visit your order page, they’ll do one of two things: buy your product or choose not to buy your product. Pretty simple.
This automation will automatically segment your contacts into those two groups. To do that, you’ll need to add them to your automation as soon as they visit your order page.
Click the plus sign next to your default “Added to Automation” trigger and click “Add a Trigger.”
Click the “Add Trigger” button on the trigger pop-up.
Select “Visits a landing page” from the dropdown if your sales page is built with Ontraport. If your sales page is built with a third-party, select “Contact visits URL.”
Keep in mind that you’ll need to set up Ontraport tracking on your third-party page, or else you have no way to know who abandons your cart. Check out our Ontraport setup video “Add tracking script to your site” for more info on this.
Your automation will actually tell you if it’s able to find your tracking script on your site. If your account can’t find your tracking script, you’ll get a pop-up with links to help you get set up.
Go ahead and click “Visits a landing page” for this example. Then select your order page from the dropdown.
Let’s take a look at the settings on the left. Your trigger should have these settings:
You’re going to set up your automation so that the only people who stay on your map are the people who abandoned your cart.
Now it’s time to set up your goal. Your goal is what’s going to separate the people who visit your order page and buy from the people who visit your order page and bounce.
You’ll set up a goal that moves contacts if they purchase the product you’re selling. This will automatically segment your contacts into the two groups I just described.
Then you’ll edit the wait step that’s attached to your goal. This will set up automation just for contacts who don’t buy your product after a specific amount of time.
To do that, click the “What happens next?” element below your “Visits a landing page” trigger. Choose a “Goal” element and click on it to edit your goal’s settings.
From your goal pop-up, click the Add Goal button. From your goal dropdown, select “Purchases Product.” Then pick the product you’re selling from your product dropdown.
Take a look at your settings on the left. The default trigger settings say that we should MOVE the contact here if they’re already on this map, and that’s exactly what we want to do for this use case, so no changes here.
Click “Done” to save your goal settings.
Throw an exit step after your “Product is Purchased” goal so that the only people who stay on this map are the people who’ve abandoned your order form.
Click on your end element to edit it. Check the “Remove Contacts from this Automation when they reach here” box.
You’ll see that your “End” element turns into an “Exit” step. Now your automation looks like a trigger, followed by a wait, followed by a goal.
You can tweak it by adding a line of automation for visitors who don’t purchase your product.
Click on the “Wait until goal is reached” element to edit it.
In the “Wait here until” dropdown, select “Some time passes” and add 1 in the “hours” section.
You’ll see in your settings that it says “OR Continue immediately when the attached goal is achieved.” This is the magic that segments your buyers from your cart abandoners.
Look at your wait element on your automation map. You’ll see an alternate line of automation. It'll send an email that will go only to people who visited your order page but did not buy your product within an hour.
Click “Done” to save your settings.
Let’s also take a second to wrap up the “What happens next?” element below your “Added to Automation trigger.”
You can add an exit or end step here if you’d like, and it’s a good idea to add a “Go To” element so you can easily add a test contact to test your abandoned cart emails.
Click your “What happens next?” element below the “Added to automation” trigger.
Select a “Go To” element from your “Filters” tab.
Click the “move” icon on the dotted line below your “Go To” element and drag it over to your goal’s attached wait step.
Ok! Let’s move on and set up your reminder emails.
Abandoned cart systems usually include three emails, each with its own specific strategy.
I’ll show you the three key emails, but be sure to check out “The 5 message editors” video to learn more about creating your emails.
I’ll start with email #1: The Helpful Reminder.
You’ll send this first email right after your hour long wait step.
In it you remind your visitors about the products they left behind. It should list or display the items left behind, include a link back to your order form, and offer support and answers to questions your visitors might have.
Next, email #2: The Friendly Nudge.
Send this email one day later. Check the “Then wait until the time of day is…” setting on your wait. Then pick a time in the morning in your contact’s time zone — the morning is when most people are checking their email for the day.
This second email should create a small sense of urgency, but don’t go for a hard sell. Let your customers know that the product they were looking at is popular and may sell out — if that’s the truth. And include a link back to your order form.
Finally, set up email #3: The Hail Mary.
This email is sent three days after your visitor abandoned their cart and can be more persuasive than the others since it’s your last attempt to hook them.
In this email, you might consider adding free shipping or a discount on the order. Check out our “Types of offers” video for more info on using coupon codes.
Let’s wrap up this line of automation by adding another exit step to the empty “What happens next?” element below your third email.
Finally, you’ll publish your automation.
Take one final look at your automation before publishing it. You have a trigger that adds your contacts when they visit your order page.
If your visitors buy your product, they’ll be moved by your goal and exit your automation.
If your visitors don’t buy your product within an hour, they’ll get your first email — the helpful reminder.
If this email gets your visitors to buy, they’ll be moved to your goal and then exit your automation.
If your first email doesn’t get your visitors to buy, your automation will wait another day and then send out your second email — the friendly nudge. If this gets your abandoners to buy, they’ll leave the automation.
If the second email still doesn’t get them to buy, you’ll send your final hail mary email a day later. This email offers your contacts a discount or free shipping along with a hard sell for your product.
If your third email doesn’t get them to make a purchase, there really isn’t anything else you can do. At this point, you’ll stop sending them emails about your product.
Once you’re happy with your automation, click “Publish” and then “Save & Publish” to make your automation go live.
Sweet! You just learned how to create your own abandoned cart automation. Now you have the tools you need to set up an automation that can recapture sales that might’ve disappeared otherwise.
Watch more of our videos to learn all about “Fulfilling digital orders” and more.
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