Cart and Browse Abandonment with Kerrits

06/16/21 • 66 min

It’s a common struggle for ecommerce merchants. Will I annoy subscribers with emails about their shopping cart abandonments?

Worse, will subscribers outright leave my brand if I remind them of the things they merely viewed?

Equestrian apparel company Kerrits has discovered the answer is “no” to both. They found the right balance, and it’s paying off. Cart and product abandonment messages account for 10% of the company’s email marketing revenue.

These automation types perform. Conversion rates for cart abandonment messages stack up to 34%, while the browse variety hits the 17% mark.

Senior Director of Branding and Marketing Sara Florin divulges how she implemented both kinds at Kerrits, taking us behind the scenes of the abandonment portion of the company’s “minimal but effective automated email strategy.” She explains the elements that go into Kerrits messages, how she inserts splashes of equine speak, and what triggers email deployment.

Also weighing in with insights are the Omnisend customer success manager who has guided Florin from the start, along with ecommerce veteran Lucas Walker.

We dig into the following questions around abandonment emails and more:

How can cart abandonment emails be useful in revealing the reasons the checkout process stalls?
Is success dependent on offering a discount?
Which is best when designing browse abandonment emails: the intrusive approach of, “Hey, we noticed you checking this out,” or the covert, promotion-veiled route?
If you implement an abandonment series, what should each message communicate? And what’s the ideal timing?
How do you decide what products are worthy of a browse abandonment email?
Why is it a good idea to split messaging based on different cart attributes?
What are some resources for inspiration?
Listen to the full story on the Cart Insiders podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

About the Guests

Sara Florin, Senior Director of Branding & Marketing, Kerrits

Florin, whose marketing career began in graphic design, flexes her creative muscles by overseeing projects spanning wholesale and direct-to-consumer touchpoints across all channels. She approaches every project with fresh eyes, focused on understanding its purpose, determining how to measure its success, and frequently asking, “What if?” Outside of work, Florin flexes her actual muscles in the gym, riding Fjord horses and walking her rescue pup.

Sadie Arnold, Customer Success Manager, Omnisend

Arnold helps Omnisend merchants elevate their email marketing strategies. With prior experience in customer behavior analytics at a grocery chain, she helps clients identify their customers’ unique journeys with Omnisend reporting tools and personalize automations for sending the right messages. Arnold loves seeing her clients become more successful email marketers.

Lucas Walker, Founder, Rolled Up

Walker is a serial entrepreneur. He has started three successful businesses in the software, ecommerce, and media spaces. Lucas’ experience also includes marketing for an internationally-recognized sales trainer, where he launched the Make It Happen Mondays podcast, oversaw partners around the world, and reviewed over 10,000 ecommerce websites.

It’s a common struggle for ecommerce merchants. Will I annoy subscribers with emails about their shopping cart abandonments?

Worse, will subscribers outright leave my brand if I remind them of the things they merely viewed?

These automation types perform. Conversion rates for cart abandonment messages stack up to 34%, while the browse variety hits the 17% mark.

Also weighing in with insights are the Omnisend customer success manager who has guided Florin from the start, along with ecommerce veteran Lucas Walker.

We dig into the following questions around abandonment emails and more:

How can cart abandonment emails be useful in revealing the reasons the checkout process stalls?
Is success dependent on offering a discount?
Which is best when designing browse abandonment emails: the intrusive approach of, “Hey, we noticed you checking this out,” or the covert, promotion-veiled route?
If you implement an abandonment series, what should each message communicate? And what’s the ideal timing?
How do you decide what products are worthy of a browse abandonment email?
Why is it a good idea to split messaging based on different cart attributes?
What are some resources for inspiration?
Listen to the full story on the Cart Insiders podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

About the Guests

Sara Florin, Senior Director of Branding & Marketing, Kerrits

Sadie Arnold, Customer Success Manager, Omnisend

Lucas Walker, Founder, Rolled Up

Previous Episode

List Growth & Welcome Messaging with FiGPiN

People respond to welcome emails, pure and simple.

For one, they click on them. Just under 31% of welcome messages were opened in 2020. Our ecommerce statistics report discovered that, of those, an astounding 52% resulted in a purchase.

FiGPiN is one ecommerce merchant taking advantage of this technique to drive sales of its collectible pins. While the company advertises new releases every week, its automated workflows are “gravy on the top,” in the words of Senior Marketing Manager Allison Caufield.

Caufield, a one-woman marketing show, shares how she’s managing it.

We explore how a pop-up form on the website increased the contact list by 16 times, before slicing into the strategy behind the “hello” series and the content within. The three-part approach generates a 22% conversion rate.

There’s the matter of SMS, too—a perfect match for capitalizing on the FOMO (fear of missing out) nature of the FiGPiN fan base.

Plus, we ask some experts (the Omnisend customer success manager who has steered Caufield toward success, and an email marketing industry guru) to discuss their tips for a bang-up welcome series.

We answer the following welcome-related questions and more:

Do you concentrate on list growth first, then worry about the welcome series? Or is it best to work on them concurrently?
What’s the purpose of a welcome series?
The welcome email is nothing new. Why does it have so much staying power?
How have best practices for a welcome series shifted over the last decade?
What should you avoid when devising your welcome messages?
How soon should a welcome email be sent after signup? What’s the right timing if you have more than one message?
To offer a discount or not?

About the Guests

Allison Caufield, Senior Marketing Manager, FiGPiN

Caufield is an experienced marketer with over 10 years spent in the industry. Her previous roles have provided her with extensive knowledge in the affiliate marketing space, as well as business growth strategies. She resides in Everett, WA with her two young kids and loves to get outside to explore the PNW (when it's not raining)."

Heather Wiand, Customer Success Manager, Omnisend

Wiand works with numerous ecommerce brands, helping them build upon their marketing approach and increase email and SMS marketing sales. She guides them with best practices, automation optimization opportunities, and product support. Wiand also serves as a lead for Omnisend’s new customer onboarding process, aiding them in quickly driving high ROI and setting the stage for long-term success.

Lucas Walker, Founder, Rolled Up

Walker is a serial entrepreneur. He has started three successful businesses in the software, ecommerce and media spaces. Lucas’ experience also includes marketing for an internationally-recognized sales trainer, where he launched the Make It Happen Mondays podcast, oversaw partners around the world, and reviewed over 10,000 ecommerce websites.

Next Episode

iOS 15 and Its Impact on Email Marketing

Apple has shaken the email marketing world with the announcement of its iOS 15 update, anticipated to roll out this fall.

The topic is taking over all marketing industry channels, with lots of discussion about the new privacy feature’s impact, including our new hub, www.OpensAreDead.com. It’s so important that it has interrupted our regularly scheduled podcast series on marketing automation.

The primary question up for debate: What are the repercussions when Apple Mail app users can block brands from seeing whether they opened their email?

The general consensus is that opens are dead. Even though not everyone uses iOS or their email app, it’s a large enough segment for which open rate data will disappear. Losing even partial data makes the rest unreliable for making informed marketing decisions.

Open rates have long stood as one barometer of an email marketing program’s success. While we don’t know all the implications of this change, we do know that marketers need to shift focus to what is most important in connecting with and engaging their customers.

Here are some questions we cover in this special podcast episode:

What do we know about the iOS 15 changes?
What is still uncertain?
What should email marketers start doing today to prepare for this change?
What are the must-have metrics for analyzing performance?
How can you boost the likelihood that subscribers will open your email?
What are the best means for ensuring marketing is relevant to the subscriber, and therefore turns a profit?

About The Guest:

Lucas Walker, Founder, Rolled Up Podcast Network

Walker is a serial entrepreneur. He has started three successful businesses in the software, ecommerce and media spaces. Walker’s experience also includes marketing for an internationally-recognized sales trainer, where he launched the Make It Happen Mondays podcast, oversaw partners around the world, and reviewed over 10,000 ecommerce websites.