The good

I have two examples to talk about here: Quidco and Boots Kitchen Appliances

Quidco

We all know that when it comes to chasing that last penny of commission, our entrepreneurial friends in the affiliate industry never fail to innovate.

Quido recently sent me an email following up on a link to Easyjet Holidays that I’d clicked on whilst looking for a last minute ski deal. 

Subject line: You didn’t complete your purchase…

Quidco abandoned basket recovery email

With a direct subject line, simple and clean creative treatment, it simply prompts the user they haven’t completed their booking and re-explains the cash back benefit to the user to help influence the booking. 

Quidco also hedges its bets in this communication by displaying related offers of similar products and services that might be of interest.

Incidentally, Easyjet Holidays didn’t bother to follow up on the holiday I left idle in their shopping basket. 

Boots Kitchen Appliances

I need to admit that this is in fact an old one now (I received it over a year ago, so I am digging into the archives a little), but I thought it was really effective so it deserved a mention. 

Again a simple subject line and clearly displaying a telephone number in the header, this email includes a call to action to take the user back to their basket, which recreated my shopping bag within the 7-days.

It also includes a whole host of reasons to complete the purchase including price, delivery methods, and Advantage Card points.

Subject line: Your Saved Basket

Boots Kitchen Appliances abandoned basket email 

I think the only additional elements that could be added to this are prices and quantity in stock, particularly if they are discounted or end of range items, and perhaps positive customer testimonials or product reviews.  

The bad

At this point, it’s worth saying that by ‘bad’, what I really mean is ‘could do better’

Paul Smith

These were intentional abandonments to test the approach of Paul Smith. 

I abandoned two separate products (on different browsers and with different email addresses) and found that this high-end luxury brand treats a shopper wanting to spend £45 on an keyring the same as one of high value worth looking to buy a handbag at £849.

Subject line: A Reminder from Paul Smith

Repeatedly in email marketing strategy we are talking about segmentation and profiling to offer more personalised messaging. So why Paul Smith, who in store would adjust their service to reflect the choice of items a customer was interested in, treats every online user as the same is beyond me. 

This I believe is a missed trick. 

In fact, I don’t even think the design of this email works for me. 

Vistaprint 

I’m sure that anyone who has considered printing business cards, post cards, and even photo products will have agree that Vistaprint offers a competitive price to personalise virtually any product you can imagine.

What’s more, its deperation to cross sell throughout the checkout process is like nothing I have ever seen before. (Try Go Daddy – Ed)

Unfortunately, its email retargeting is also like nothing I’ve ever seen before (or quite frankly ever want to see again).

Since abandoning a product, I have received no less than six emails reminding me to complete my purchase.

Vistaprint

I’d suggest this was a little excessive, never mind whether it’s actually legal. 

The ugly

Again, I don’t like to pick on people (or companies), so this is me saying ‘ugly’ in a constructive manner.

My contender for this category comes from bicycle retailer, Cycle Surgery

I recently bought a bike and in order to choose it I wanted to try it out, check how the size measured up, feel the quality, and more importantly get it as soon as possible. For me, it’s not the type of product I would choose to buy online, unless I’d already been showrooming beforehand, but clearly there are consumers that are happy to order bikes online.

When testing out Cycle Surgery’s email retargeting, I purposely chose a folding bike of significant value, albeit less than the Paul Smith handbag, due to its even more complex specification and price tag. 

I received the abandonment email within half an hour of exiting, which I feel is actually too soon given that users tend to exit because they need more consideration time. 30 minutes doesn’t seem long enough. 

The email itself is largely image-based and therefore doesn’t visually appeal on initial open, contains a brief generic message, and simply displays the product by model name, colour and price. 

Subject line: Your Cycle Surgery Shopping Basket…

Cycle Surgery 

Would that make you want to complete your order for a ‘F20 Limited Edition’ at £699.99 in a hurry?

My recommendation to improve this email would firstly be to rebalance the image:text ratio so that the user sees at least the brand name, image descriptions, and main navigation when images are disabled, and then to look at incorporating more trust into the creative – particularly for those like me that may need more encouragement to buy a more complex product online.

Including a footer of reasons to encourage the user to complete their purchase, such as returns policy, free, express or delivery to store options if available, suggested alternatives, or related items such as bike accessories might persuade the buyer that buying online is easier than buying in a physical store. 

I would also increase the time between abandonment and send too. 

So, in summary there are some good inroads being made when it comes to email retargeting, but there are still some key points to pay attention to.

Here’s my top five:

  1. Test the abandonment time. Make sure it is applicable to the type of product, value of abandoned basket, and customer.
  2. Filter the abandoned purchasesSend segmented creative messaging applicable to the abandoned item / customer value.
  3. Create trust in the brand and service. Use messages to reinforce, provide a telephone number and demonstrate USPs.
  4. Remind the customer of the product. Say more than just the product name and price.
  5. Deploy a considered folow-up strategy. Test and learn but don’t send too many emails.

Most importantly, once live don’t forget to continue to optimise the campaign for best results.