Continuing conversion optimization is central to the ongoing success of any website that is intended to generate leads or sales. Increasing the conversion rate of a conversion funnel marginally can deliver big results for an online business. However, even after testing with advanced A/B and multivariate testing tools, there will always be a large percentage of consumers that abandon your shopping cart or conversion funnel. It can be very frustrating to see a noteworthy portion of consumers come so close but ultimately abandon a purchase or form submission.
Luckily, there are tools that can be used to re-engage the consumers who almost elicited that next sale or conversion.
One of the most effective methods for bringing abandons back to your site is email remarketing.
Email remarketing is the process of sending automated emails to consumers who leave your website without converting and bringing them back to complete what they had started, take some other action, or simply keep them engaged with your business. According to a recent report from SeeWhy’s Conversion Academy, 71 percent of e-commerce shoppers abandon their carts. The report continues to state that roughly 8 percent of those abandons will return to the website to complete the sale. However, by employing automated email remarketing, the conversion rate among abandons can be increased to a percentage as high as 26 percent.
But why do consumers abandon their shopping carts in the first place?
Usually, the majority of consumers abandon their carts for reasons related to price or because they simply were not ready to buy yet.
By utilizing email remarketing, you can bring consumers back to their shopping carts when they are ready to buy and offer them incentives or discounts, like free shipping, to address their price concerns.
What are the advantages of email remarketing?
Trigger-based delivery – A key advantage of email remarketing is its ability to send emails when consumers are more likely to open and become engaged with them. When a consumer abandons their shopping cart or a form submission, this triggers an automated email campaign to be delivered. The email can be set to be delivered hours or days from the point of time in which the consumer abandoned.
By automatically sending each email at times that are about each unique consumer’s point of abandonment, marketers can significantly increase open, click, and conversion rates.
This approach is far more effective than a typical email blast, which is sent to all of your subscribers at once.
Email remarketing can be used in a series – With most email remarketing services like SeeWhy or Listrak, marketers have the ability to automate a series of a few emails that are sent to consumers after they abandon a form submission or shopping cart. This gives marketers several opportunities to address a range of concerns that prevent consumers from completing a purchase or lead generation form.
Automatic email address capture – to remarket to consumers that abandon shopping carts of lead generation forms, email remarketing services can use JavaScript to instantly capture a consumer’s email address upon typing it into an entry field. The consumer does not need to submit the form or complete the purchase transaction for the address to be captured. This technique can greatly increase your volume of email marketing recipients and potential sales.
Email content is more relevant – Email remarketing allows you to set different triggers for different actions that consumers take on your site. This allows you to send highly relevant content to consumers based upon the service or product that they previously expressed interest in. Email remarketing can also be synchronized with your product database so that you can dynamically display the particular products that consumers had in their cart into the email campaign that is sent to them.
Not just for e-commerce websites
While email remarketing is commonly referred to when discussing shopping cart abandonment for an e-commerce website, it can also be an effective tool for businesses that define their primary conversion rate as a form submission or something along those lines.
A few things to remember
Before you get started with email remarketing, there are some important things you should keep in mind:
- Do your ROI research – Email remarketing is not for every online business as initial setup can be expensive. For businesses that do not attract high traffic volume or have a low average order value, email marketing may not yield a positive ROI. However, if your site generates a large volume of abandons to prospectively bring back to your site with email remarketing, then it can prove to be extremely profitable.
- Update your privacy policy – It is important to inform your consumers of automated email campaigns that may be sent to them based upon actions they take on your site.
- Always track your clicks – It is very important to amend links from your automated email campaigns with unique UTM tracking parameters. This will allow you to carefully monitor the conversion performance of each email and will help you determine an email sequence that is most effective at speaking to your consumers.
Email remarketing is one of the most effective methods for bringing abandons back to your site, but a bit of due diligence should be performed before you undertake a potentially costly campaign.
Written by Thom Prewett
Originally posted on bluefountainmedia.com
