Every month, we review dozens of websites for conversion problems, and one of the biggest problems we see is abandoned carts. I spoke at a mastermind event a couple of months ago, and we got into an hour-long tangent discussing this specific topic.
Some of my marketing friends and I have a running joke that if you want to get a discount, just leave the page — and BAM! — you get an instant 10%-15% savings. The problem with this is that it screams of desperation and is actually hurting your long-term growth and bringing in bad customers.
What should you do? First, stop racing to the discount. Sure, the initial bump looks good for your metrics, but what is it really doing to your business? Everyone and their brother is trying to save the sale with abandon cart emails or “Wait, don’t go! Get 10% off” type offers.
Instead of offering an immediate discount in hopes of saving the sale, offer something of value instead. Things like gift cards, deluxe sample-size bonuses, a T-shirt, mug, “double your order” offer, etc., can all work extremely well.
For example, we had a client that was selling artisan chocolates and candy on a subscription basis. Their CPA (cost per acquisition) was roughly $25 on an $18 initial subscription purchase. Instead of doing a free trial or discount, which was bringing in crappy customers who would cancel after the first month, we incentivized customers by giving them “double” in their first order. The result was that the CPA came down to $13 and customers stuck for an average of three months longer.
Another example was a cosmetics company. Their subscriptions at one point were costing them $80 CPA into a trial. Again, customers were canceling after the first order. By adding a deluxe sample size to the first order at full price, the CPA came down to $11 and customers again stuck for about four months longer on the subscription — without us even touching the ads.
Depending on what you are selling, your visitor may not be ready to buy today, even if they abandon cart. They may just need a little more info. So instead of worrying about Day One average order value, look at your 30-day attribution window. You race to save the abandoned cart, thinking they are lost and gone forever and hit them with an email: “We saved your cart, did you forget something? Here is 10% off.” And in some cases, that email shows up before they have even left the site. Ouch!
So instead of sending that email, send them an FAQ about the product and the company explaining why you created the company and product. Tell your story — people love a good story. Send them a training guide, give them some value and handle any objections they may have in that campaign before asking for the sale. Give them reviews of the product to show the benefits from other customers. Reviews are a great way to build credibility.
You have to get your visitors to know, like and trust you, and it may take some time to do that. They may be ready to buy, but may have a few more questions and are not ready to buy the minute they are introduced to your brand and products. They may be ready to buy, just not right now. Stop assuming you have them on Day One and open things up with a nurture campaign. Invite them to your Facebook group to get more value and see the community, etc.
The second way to improve your abandon cart rate is to not worry about the abandoned cart at all. Wait, what? Yeah. Don’t think of it as an abandoned problem and think of it as a conversion problem. The better your cart converts, the fewer people abandon it. The better experience you can create in building trust and value to help visitors make a buying decision leading up to the cart, the better off you are going to be in the long run. Seems simple, but there are many things that lead up to that.
Make sure your user experience is packed with value, benefits and answers every step of the way. Remove friction elements, such as too many form fields, the need to create an account, or unnecessary or confusing elements. Keep it simple for visitors to do business with you. Don’t use tricks and gimmicks to get the sale. Be genuine and your metrics will improve.
The name of the game is to not do whatever you can to get the sale on Day One. It is to create a good customer relationship. And you do that by giving your visitors a great shopping experience.
Case in point: We just wrapped up a mobile cart test for a client that improved their cart-to-checkout rate by more than 20% and increased their revenue per visitor by 12% — all by just removing a couple of unnecessary elements on the page, making the page easier to navigate and consume on a mobile device. Make it easy and watch your metrics improve. Now we are following it up with some simple value-add icons (e.g., free shipping, money back guarantee, secure checkout) to see if that moves the needle.
We are, overall, creating a better user experience across the site, which will naturally improve all metrics. If more visitors find what they are looking for quickly, it will improve other metrics. If more visitors who find what they are looking for add that product to their cart, the metrics will improve. If the checkout process is smooth and easy and they trust you along the way, you guessed it: the metrics will improve.
Stop racing to save the sale when you simply can help more of your visitors find what they are looking for. Get the answers they need and make the process simple and easy. Your conversions and lifetime value will thank you in the long run.
