The Cart Abandonment Journey allows you to craft a multi-channel messaging campaign to target contacts who added items to their cart but do not complete a purchase. Using journey hub, you can tailor a contact's experience based on the product attributes of their abandoned products, conduct split test to see the impact of different variables, and incentivize contacts with a coupon, if desired.
The guide below outlines some of the basic setup and strategy considerations for your cart abandonment journey.
Need some inspiration? Check out an example journey or speed up creation with a template that uses Listrak's best practices.
Initial Setup
The initial setup allows you to determine how contacts enter and exit a journey based on your specific goals.
How a Contact Enters a Journey
The entry criteria control who is entered into a journey after they have added an item to their cart. A contact must have put their contact information (either email address or phone number) into your site or opted into another messaging channel (web push).
Empty Carts
Journey Hub has three features to ensure your customers don't receive cart abandonment messages that are empty. Consequently, there's no reason to create Journey Hub paths to account for empty carts.
Empty shopping carts (carts of abandoners that for whatever reason have no items in them) do not enter contacts into cart abandonment journey.
Before sending an email or SMS message in cart abandonment journeys, the system checks the quantity on hand for each item in the cart. If there is zero quantity on hand for all items in a cart, the message step is skipped for that contact, and the contact continues through the journey to subsequent steps.
Cart Abandonment Journeys have a Cart Cleared exit event that can be configured. If while in a cart abandonment journey a contact clears the items from their cart, configuring the Cart Cleared exit event will remove contacts from this journey if they clear the contents of their cart.
Accessing Journey Hub
Navigate to Automation > Journey Hub Journey.
Click the New Journey button.
Select a template or Start from Scratch.
If starting from scratch, select Cart Abandonment.
💡 If you are creating a multi-channel campaign the advanced event should be used.
Give your journey a name.
Adjusting the Entry Criteria
Select the merchant associated with the abandonment campaign.
Next, customize the re-entry rules by selecting how frequently contacts can re-enter the campaign.
💡 Use the custom re-entry frequency to limit how often a contact is eligible to receive the Cart Abandonment campaign.
Then, customize the entry prevention rules, which prevent a contact from entering the current journey if they are already a participant in another journey.
If using the advanced abandonment features, you will also set your session timeout and cart link in the panel.
Configuring Exit Events
An exit event determines what must happen in order for a customer to exit a journey. If no exit events are configured or customers do not take the specified action they will naturally exit the journey at the end of their path.
Do you need an exit event? Exit events are not commonly used in Welcome Series, but ask yourself the following questions to help determine if you should add an exit event:
Do I want new subscribers to continue receiving messages if they purchase? If no, add a purchase exit event.
Do I want to prioritize other journeys? If yes, add the journey entered or specific event trigger exit type
Customizing Your Journey
Configure the Flow
Now that you have determined how a contact becomes eligible to enter or exit the journey, you can determine the experience they will have by customizing paths based on past purchase history, messaging channel, and more.
Below are a few of the strategic considerations you may make when configuring your journey
SMS Cart Compliance
If you are creating an SMS or multi-channel message, mobile carriers require additional compliance for messages. T-Mobile requires stricter opt-in than other carriers, but all carriers require contacts to specifically be notified that their SMS opt-in includes cart reminders in order to allow a message that contains a cart link. You can use the Subscription Split to identify an abandoner's carrier and if they have opted-in and tailor a message accordingly
Learn more about SMS Cart Compliance requirements.
💡 Using Listrak's Journey Hub Abandonment templates include cart compliance splits to help you maintain compliance.
Actions
Coupons: You can include a coupon to incentivize a contact to complete the checkout process.
Exit: Use the exit action to stop contacts in a specific path from continuing through the journey.
Webhook: A webhook can be configured to send information to a third-party system such as sending information to a system that manages your catalogs. Learn more about setting up a webhook.
Wait Step
Use wait steps to pause a contact before they receive additional messages.
Messages
Add messages from the following channels:
Email
SMS
💡 Web Push channel messages are only available in the Advanced Abandonment Entry Events.
A contact must have opted-in to the specific channel to receive messages in the channel.
Message Delivery Settings
When configuring an email or SMS message you can set turn on the message delivery settings in the Properties Panel. Enabling this setting allows you to limit the time range for when a message is sent. You can also enable Time Zone Optimization to adjust the time to a customer's location based on their IP address, if sending an email message, or the area code, for an SMS message.
Decision Splits
Most decision splits can be placed anywhere in the journey to customize a customer's experience as they progress through the journey. Below are a few of the strategic ways decision splits can be used in a Product Browse Abandonment Journey. Once you have determined the strategy you would like to customize, learn more about configuring your decision splits.
💡 Use the multi-path option to create a fully customized experience for different groups of purchasers.
📦 Purchase History Split: This split can customize a contact's path based on their past order history. Message purchasers differently than prospects, for example providing a coupon earlier.
☑️ Subscription Split: This split can be used to customize a contact's path based on how, when, or if they are subscribed to a specific list. You can maintain CASL compliance by ensuring your abandoners are currently subscribed to your master list before receiving messages.
🛒 Cart Details Split: This split can be used to customize an abandoner's path based on the items in their cart. You can use an item's properties, e.g. sale status, or overall cart details, e.g. cart total, in the split. Send different coupons to higher vs lower value abandoners or stop a contact from receiving a coupon if a product is ineligible
✉️ Engagement Split: This split can change a contact's path if they have engaged with a previous email or SMS message. Use this type of split to send additional messages to those who have shown interest.
🔀 Random Split: The random split can be used to test different components of a campaign by sending a percentage of customers one experience and the rest another experience. Use the random split to test how many messages to include, which subject lines have impact on open rates, or test how long to wait between messages.
📱 Channel Affinity Split: This split can be used to prioritize the messaging channel used to communicate with a customer.
Activating the Journey
Once all messages have been created and the paths established, you are ready to activate the journey so that contacts can start receiving the new path and messages.
To activate, select the Activate button in the top right corner.
💡 If replacing an existing Conductor conversation with a Journey, be sure to terminate the existing conversation so that new abandoners only receive one product browse abandonment series.
Example Journey
📸 Click Image to Enlarge
This multi-channel campaign includes both SMS and email messages. Abandoners are able to enter the campaign every 14 days. Contacts will first receive an email after entering the campaign. Next, contacts will enter a subscription split geared to making sure contacts have opted in to their SMS cart reminders. Different requirements are required for T-Mobile vs other carriers so there are two splits based on carrier and then based on compliance opt-in. The SMS messages are only sent during specific hours.
All abandoners then wait one day before entering a cart details decision split to evaluate the value of their cart. High value cart abandoners receive one series of messages with one coupon while lower value cart abandoners receive a different coupon and message series. The message series contains two messages with a day wait between the messages.
If a contact purchase during the flow of the campaign they will be removed from the Journey.