Editorial Articles

Basket abandonment email is the easiest way to make more sales… but targeting emails based on website browsing behaviour doesn’t have to end there.

Up to 75% of shoppers abandon their shopping baskets before completing a purchase. These people have got close to buying and should be retailers’ hottest prospects. A follow-up email when a consumer casts their shopping basket aside typically generates extra sales of 2% to 5% and a healthy return on investment. So it is surprising that over 90% of retail websites do not follow up on abandoned shopping carts.

And it is not just basket abandonment. Using web analytics to segment customers based on online browsing behaviour enables marketers to send out relevant and targeted information to every individual user based on many different variables of behaviour.

Think about it; if a consumer spends time viewing specific product content then they have qualified themselves as being in the market for that product. Not surprisingly targeting emails in this way generates similar numbers to basket abandonment. Do both and you are looking at 10% extra sales and it does not stop there.

There’s strong evidence that using website behaviour to target emails improves ROI and relevancy. A paper by Forrester Research estimated that behavioural email can generate nearly four times more revenue and 18 times greater net profits than simple, untargeted mailings.

Behavioural email provides relevant and targeted communication based on a user’s website behaviour. Unlike basic triggers, behavioural email marketing utilises recent customer and browser behaviour to target future emails, resulting in more relevant, more engaging and more profitable communications. It’s the best way to over come the fatigue of bombarding consumers with email and probably the easiest extra sales you can make.

My advice to any marketers branching out into the behavioural side; start with the most obvious behavioural email such as basket abandonment. Once you know what extra revenues these behavioural emails generate, you can test and refine your campaign. A simple basket abandonment email can be split into a number of messages depending on what product the consumer discarded. Ultimately a behavioural email programme can build into hundreds of different emails triggered by many different online behaviours. The possibilities are endless...

Questions to ask a potential supplier:

Integration fees?
When integrating web analytics with email systems are there any integration fees? Do these fees go up for more complex segments?

Only remarketing?
Does the solution reach all basket abandoners or just those that abandon after receiving an email? Only targeting email users typically misses 80% of the potential audience.

Repeat abandoners?
Can the solution differentiate between repeat and first time abandoners? This is important when offering free delivery or a discount; you do not want to train your best customers to abandon in order to receive an offer.

Future proofing?
Can the supplier target other behavioural emails such as cross sales based on products viewed? What maximum number of behavioural email segments does the supplier already do for a client?

Guarantees?
Does the supplier have the experience to be able to offer guarantees or money back if a minimum level of financial return is not achieved.

Mark Patron
CEO, RedEye