After you’ve successfully set up an online store and started generating some sales, you’re still bound to have some shoppers leave your site before completing checkout. The average cart abandonment rate is 69.99%, making it one of the most common issues ecommerce sites face.
To capture the missed sales from visitors who left your website with items still in their cart, you’ll need to send them abandoned cart emails. Let’s take a look at some fantastic examples from real brands that you can use as templates or inspiration.
1. Prose
Prose is a hair care company that creates custom products that are tailored to their customers’ individual hair types.
Their abandoned cart email starts with copy at the top that reads, “Ready when you are.” These prominent words, standing on their own, act as a friendly reminder that the items are still waiting in their cart. The tone is familiar and friendly, like what you’d say to a friend or family member when they are taking too long to make a decision.
The familiar tone makes this email feel like a conversation with a friend, rather than a purchase reminder.
Beneath, the user scrolls past a staged photo of Prose’s products before getting to the rest of the message.
Below the image, the message continues with a subversion of the typical abandoned cart email, with self-aware copy before finishing again with “Ready when you are.”
Personalization is a concept central to Prose’s business—its products are based on individual hair types and needs. The brand’s email successfully highlights the personalized nature of its products by intertwining it with the copy
By using a lighthearted tone, Prose is able to remind the customer that their products are still waiting without sounding pushy.
The email finishes with a CTA formula that takes one final opportunity to reiterate their customized, personalized products. The use of “my” instead of “your” is intentional and effective, making the reader feel as though the product is already theirs, they just need to take the final step and complete the purchase.
When creating an email like this, the most important thing is to make sure your brand is talking directly to the customer. Opt for words like “you” over generic terms like “our customers” to leverage your email marketing platform and personalize the message even further.
2. Casper
Casper is a mattress company that has disrupted the industry with its simple, modern designs and direct-to-consumer business model.
In the case of leaving the Casper site without completing the purchase, you’ll get an email with the comfy subject line and opening line, “Come back to bed.”
This is a short, sweet, and to-the-point message that says all it needs to in four words. And it is brand-specific, making it clear that this is an abandoned cart email from Casper.
Below the heading, Casper places a reminder of the item or items that were left in the cart. For some, this is a gentle refresher of the product the recipient was originally interested in and may have forgotten about it. For others, it presents a quick and easy route to completing the purchase they had abandoned.
Instead of a clever CTA button to finish this message, the bottom of Casper’s email includes a customer testimonial. This is an excellent way to try to remove any reservations or lingering doubts that the shopper had while giving them a sense of the quality of Casper’s products.
And, since Casper is a newer brand in a space dominated by long-standing companies, this social proof is essential to reassure customers that they are making a good purchasing decision—particularly one as big as a new mattress or bedding—over some of the more recognizable and tenured names in the category.
When creating an email template like this, the main thing to focus on is the headline. Since the rest of the message is simple and not too focused on copywriting, the subject line is your one chance to make a lasting impression.
Consider your product and how your customers interact with it on a daily basis. Coming up with a play on words or a clever pun can be an effective way to get your abandoned cart message across through just the subject line.
3. Nomad
Nomad is a lifestyle brand that sells modern-looking accessories for tech products like phones and laptops.
The first thing you see in their abandoned cart emails is a beautiful photo of mountains and clouds—a serene, calming image. This is in stark contrast to other abandoned cart emails that feature the product front and center or go with simple text on a blank (usually white) background. This is consistent with Nomad’s monochromatic branding and overall aesthetic that you can see on their website.
The email asks, “What happened?” It’s a nice, simple, direct approach that isn’t too serious or pushy. The tone is casual and conversational, supported by a unique CTA button that reads, “Seal the deal.”
Like Casper, that opening text is followed by a photo of the product that was left in the cart. Nothing else is featured in this section of the email except for a no-frills checkout button below it. That’s the second element a reader can click that will take them right back to the Nomad web store and complete their purchase.
The simplicity of this email allows the brand’s tone and product to make a solid impression. It is important not to be overbearing with the CTAs or messaging. That can be overwhelming and turn customers off. Nomad strikes the perfect balance in this abandoned cart email.
4. Peel
Peel is an ecommerce brand that sells ultra-thin iPhone cases. Its products include glass screen protectors, sleek cases, and accessories.
The first thing you’ll notice about the Peel abandoned cart email is that it says “Free shipping on orders over $49” on a banner at the top of the message. This is not the largest or most central element, but it’s likely to be the first thing a reader sees after opening the email.
The primary heading asks, “Still thinking it over?” to encourage the reader to act while also being respectful of their purchasing decision. That’s followed by a line of copy that adds some urgency, finishing with the phrase, “don’t wait too long!”
By building urgency, Peel encourages customers to take action and not let their items go to waste. The tone here is well-balanced. You have a no-nonsense banner with an incentive (free shipping), an approachable opening line (“Still thinking it over?”), and a conversational message with just the right dash of “act now” encouragement.
Once again, we see that followed by a summary of the item or items left in the cart, with a button the reader can click to head right back to Peel’s online store.
That CTA button stands out because of Peel’s judicious use of color. That blue-green isn’t used elsewhere in the email, making the button pop out from the rest of the message.
Placing the main incentive front and center is a novel and effective aspect of this abandoned cart email. Since high shipping costs are a top reason for cart abandonment, offering a solution like free shipping in this sort of follow-up message can go a long way toward decreasing your cart abandonment rate.
5. 23andMe
23andMe is a DNA testing company that provides insights into customers’ ancestry, health, and other traits. When visitors land on their website, they typically navigate through a series of pages before ordering their home kit, which is what is sent back to 23andMe for analysis into the customer’s genetic history and makeup.
With a product like this, it makes sense that 23andMe keeps their abandoned cart email simple and professional. Below the brand’s logo, a heading shoots straight and to the point, “Don’t forget to order your kit.” There’s a brief paragraph of sales copy following that before a bright CTA button. That’s it—no embedded products, images, or scrolling.
Since there is nothing else surrounding the email, customers won’t be distracted from the main message. This email doesn’t mess around and reflects the appropriate directness and professionalism that 23andMe needs to exude to build trust with customers in light of their unique product offering. Unlike typical ecommerce brands that sell sunglasses, pet toys, or other consumer products, being overly sales-focused might come off as inauthentic and untrustworthy.
How basic you decide to make your abandoned cart email will depend on the kind of product or service you’re selling. If you want to include additional elements, like images or videos, make sure they are relevant and enhance the message of your email instead of distracting from it.
6. Ugmonk
Ugmonk produces minimalist physical and digital goods, including t-shirts, desk materials, and tech accessories. But unlike most ecommerce brands, the brand’s approach to cart abandonment is a bit different.
When you leave items behind in your Ugmonk cart, you’ll get a minimalist, text-heavy message that reads as if it came straight from the desk of the company owner.
This can be risky because it’s harder to catch a reader’s eye in an instant with text over photos or graphics. But it lends a real, authentic quality. And it lets the links (which all lead back to Ugmonk’s online store, of course) pop out from the black text on white background.
Below the main message, the postscript works like the CTA buttons you saw in previous examples would. And those three extra lines do a lot more than you might think. Our brains are pretty well trained to spot the likely end of an email or letter because of the traditional closing lines that never cross the entire width of the page.
A lot of readers are likely to skim (or even ignore) the main message body and skip down to the P.S. section to see what’s so important to add after the message has seemingly concluded.
If minimalism and text-heavy appeals fit with your brand identity, this is a good tactic to keep in mind. The way a postscript draws attention to itself can present an effective way to increase conversions.
This kind of abandoned cart email might not work for companies that have a more visually oriented aesthetic or approach. But, for Ugmonk, this personal tone and direct appeal adds integrity to the brand and helps it connect with customers on a more human level.
When writing an email like this, it’s important to keep your message as short as possible. Only include the information that is necessary to get your point across because readers are likely to give up if they have to scroll through an entire novella in the email to get to the information or link they need.
7. Target
We all know Target as the fun, affordable, one-stop shop for everything from groceries and clothes to home goods and electronics. When it comes to their abandoned cart emails, marketers should take notes.
Target goes heavy on the shoppable elements, basically mimicking their online store pages within the email and placing products front and center with images and prices.
Best of all, the copy is on point. There’s an enticing heading that implies the customer may pay less by purchasing now than when they initially added the items to their cart. And the CTA smartly employs an imperative tone with all caps, “GET IT NOW.”
And, since every element here is clickable (and the product elements direct straight to their respective product pages), it’s easy for customers to click anywhere in this message and immediately continue their shopping experience—which is exactly what Target wants.
If the customer changes their mind about the products they put into their cart entirely, Target has a backup plan: “Still not sure? Check out these top picks.” Below that, Target gives their customers a chance to see related items that could draw the reader back, even if they’ve given up on what they initially considered purchasing.
This type of abandoned cart email would work for any ecommerce company, but it’s particularly effective for ones with deep product lines that offer variations, like clothing companies. That secondary opportunity comes from having enough variety among similar types of products that you can suggest effective options that the shopper may not have seen on their first visit to your web store.
Although Target is a large company, smaller companies can still utilize the tactic of suggesting similar items to both increase opportunities converted from abandoned carts and raise average revenue per transaction.
