Klaviyo Abandoned Cart flow

Beginner's Handbook - A Guide to Creating an Abandoned Cart Flow

Overview

Abandoned Cart emails are one of the most valuable emails for any e-commerce shop. It is a single email or a series of emails sent to someone who has added an item to their cart but hasn’t completed the purchase. Not reaching out to these customers means leaving money on the table—on average, nearly 70% of carts are abandoned.

There are many reasons why someone might abandon their cart. Maybe the customer didn’t have their credit card handy or wanted to browse your site a bit more before making a decision. Whatever the reason for leaving midway through checkout, it’s usually not because they’re no longer interested in the product.

Depending on your e-commerce platform, you may already have a built-in Abandoned Cart flow that’s active. For instance, if you use Shopify, you likely already have a Shopify Abandoned Cart flow. Klaviyo offers far more customization and targeting options than the standard Abandoned Cart flow of your e-commerce platform. In Klaviyo, you can fully customize the email content, add multiple emails, and branch the flow based on factors like the value of the item in the cart, and much more. Make sure to turn off any standard Abandoned Cart emails from the platform to avoid sending double emails to customers.

Navigating Klaviyo’s Standard Abandoned Cart Flow

After integrating your e-commerce shop with Klaviyo, you will see several best practice flows automatically populated in your account. your account. One of these is the Abandoned Cart flow. This guide explains how to view and customize the standard Abandoned Cart flow in your account.

If you use Magento, make sure to install the Magento extension before using Klaviyo’s Abandoned Cart flow. The extension allows Klaviyo to receive data when someone starts a checkout. For most other e-commerce platforms, you will see the "Started Checkout" data appear in your account after integrating your store.

Flow Trigger and Filters
Klaviyo’s standard Abandoned Cart flow works by tracking:

• The moment someone starts a checkout process
• Who completes their purchase and places an order

If someone adds an item to their cart but doesn’t complete the purchase, it’s considered an abandoned cart. This is why the flow is triggered when someone starts the checkout process, but there is a filter on the flow that excludes anyone who completes their purchase.

It's important to note that everyone who starts a checkout process will enter the flow. Depending on whether they place an order or not, they may be skipped. For this reason, you may notice that a large number of people entering the flow get skipped due to “failing Flow Filters.” There’s no need to worry—this simply means that the flow is functioning correctly by not sending Abandoned Cart emails to customers who have already placed an order.

If you have more than one email in your flow, Klaviyo will check your Flow Filters before each individual email is sent. This means that if someone completes their purchase after the first email, they will not receive any subsequent emails in your series.

If someone leaves the checkout process and never returns to complete it, they will receive all the emails in your Abandoned Cart series.

If your customers reside in a region with data protection laws, you should consult with your legal team before making the Abandoned Cart Flow live. Check Klaviyo's best practices guide for complying with data privacy laws for more information.

Dynamic Content

One of the most appealing aspects of an Abandoned Cart email is the ability to include information about the item someone left behind directly in the email. Klaviyo's standard Abandoned Cart Flow includes a dynamic content block and a go-to-cart button unique to each e-commerce integration. This content block allows you to include an image, link, and other product information in the email. The go-to-cart button allows someone to navigate directly back to their shopping cart.

Since these blocks use tags unique to each integration, it can be challenging to rebuild them from scratch. We highly recommend saving these blocks before editing the standard email or replacing the template. This way, you can fully customize the design of the email without worrying about impacting functionality.

The Abandoned Cart block will, by default, pull in all items someone has left in their cart. To modify or limit the number of items displayed, you can edit the block.

If you accidentally delete one of these dynamic blocks, you can re-add Klaviyo's standard Abandoned Cart Flow to your account from the Flows Library in the Browse Ideas tab.

How Many Abandoned Cart Emails Should You Send?

Based on research from thousands of Klaviyo e-commerce customers, Klaviyo has found that sending 2-3 Abandoned Cart emails in the Abandoned Cart Flow leads to optimal performance. For more information on how this result was determined, check out the Abandoned Cart Benchmark Report.

This is also something you can test for your unique business using the branching technique described below.

When to Send Your Abandoned Cart Emails

It can be challenging to decide when to send your first Abandoned Cart email. As a rule of thumb, we recommend sending your first email 2-4 hours after someone starts the checkout process and then sending a second email 1-2 days later.

Keep in mind that someone enters the flow as soon as they start checkout, so if you configure your Abandoned Cart Flow to send immediately, they will receive the first email as soon as they add the item to their cart, without the chance to abandon it first. You want to give shoppers a chance to complete their purchase before sending them a cart reminder.

There is no one-size-fits-all rule for the best timing to send Abandoned Cart emails. Every business and audience is different, and what works for one store may not work for another. Timing may vary depending on what you’re selling—for example, if you sell high-ticket items like mattresses, the purchase process likely requires more consideration than for something small, like shoes. For this reason, you might find that a longer Time Delay is more effective. If you send an email too quickly after someone leaves their cart without giving them a chance to complete the purchase, you may come across as overly pushy.

If you use an integration other than Shopify or BigCommerce, the Started Checkout data might not sync immediately. It’s useful to check how often data syncs from your e-commerce store to your Klaviyo account to ensure your first Abandoned Cart email only sends after these events have synced.

A/B Test a Time Delay

To find the optimal Time Delays for your Abandoned Cart Flow, we recommend testing. First, drag a Conditional Split to the top of the flow. Configure the split to be based on a 50% random sample. Note that if you change the weighting of the random sample to something other than 50%, that’s the percentage of people who will follow the YES path.

This allows you to A/B test the timing of your first Abandoned Cart email. Then, drag a Time Delay to the NO branch of the flow. Set this to the other timeframe you want to test.

Lastly, clone all components on the YES branch and drag the clones to the NO branch so that everything is identical except for the timing of the first email. This allows you to isolate the timing as the variable being tested.

After setting the cloned emails live, monitor the conversion rate of the first email to determine which Time Delay performs best. Then, you can test another Time Delay or remove the Conditional Split and only keep the winning Time Delay.

You can repeat this process with your second or third Abandoned Cart emails if you want to test them too, but make sure to test them one at a time so that you can isolate them as the only variable being tested.

Content to Include in Your Abandoned Cart Flow

Klaviyo's default Abandoned Cart flow will automatically pull in the styling and logo you configured during the Setup Wizard. That being said, you'll likely want to customize the look and language of these emails before setting them live to ensure they match your brand.

As mentioned earlier, dynamic content is the core element of Klaviyo's default Abandoned Cart flow that you want to retain. We recommend saving the dynamic content block and button before editing the default template so you don't overwrite them. If you have a base template that you've already designed for your other emails, you can use it as your Abandoned Cart template and simply drag in the dynamic content from the Saved Blocks library.

Below is an example of a well-designed Abandoned Cart email:

Notice that the primary focus of the email is on the item the recipient left in their cart. This dynamic content should be the core of your email template since it is the item they showed interest in in the first place.

It’s not recommended to include other products in your Abandoned Cart email, as the main goal is to drive customers back to their cart to complete their purchase. Including other products could detract from this message and lead to an overall lower conversion rate.
For more inspiration on designing your Abandoned Cart emails, visit Really Good E-mails.

The language you use in your Abandoned Cart email should encourage people to reach out if they have any questions about your products and create a sense of urgency to persuade them to complete their purchase. For example, you could lead with, "Hurry, before it's sold out!"

While it’s common to include a discount or incentive in an Abandoned Cart flow, we don’t recommend including a discount code in the first email. This can train customers to abandon carts to receive a discount and often results in unnecessarily giving away money. If you want to include an incentive in your Abandoned Cart flow, it’s best to wait until the last email or offer it only to people who have never purchased before.

Measuring Abandoned Cart Performance

Once your flow is live, you'll want to analyze how it’s performing to identify areas for improvement. Below are some benchmarks from Klaviyo’s Abandoned Cart Benchmarkrapport:

Conversion rate depends on the conversion window set in your account. Therefore, instead of focusing on the conversion rate, Klaviyo’s report uses revenue per recipient as a metric. The conversion rate for your Abandoned Cart flow defaults to Placed Order, as that is the desired action someone would take after receiving your Abandoned Cart emails. However, you can change this conversion metric if you wish.

You can view an overview of your Abandoned Cart flow’s performance on the Visual Flow Canvas by clicking Show Analytics.

If you click on a specific email and then click View All Analytics in the left panel, you'll get a more detailed view of that individual email’s performance.

Learn more about Flow Analytics. Additionally, you can export your analytics to perform custom analyses.

Analytics are directly tied to optimization. For example, if you notice that your open rate is lower than average, you can A/B test subject lines or timing to find something that might work better. If you have a low click rate, you may need to make your call-to-action clearer. If you see a lower than average revenue per recipient, consider offering a discount in the second email to encourage purchases.

Taking Your Abandoned Cart Flow to the Next Level

Once you’ve set up a basic Abandoned Cart flow, you might wonder what’s next and how you can make your existing flow even better. Because every business is different and has its own unique audience, there isn’t one formula that works for everyone.

The Browse Ideas tab is a great place to look for new ideas and inspiration when leveling up your Abandoned Cart flow and includes many of the best-practice branched flows described below.

Testing new ideas is the best way to optimize your Abandoned Cart flow. Below are a few recommendations to get started.
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To influence the open rate:

• Timing
• Subject lines:
  • Urgency
  • Emojis

To influence the click rate:

• Email content
• Plain text vs. image-rich content
• Call-to-action (CTA) placement
• General email layout

To influence the conversion rate or revenue per recipient:

• If you use Klaviyo to send SMS messages, add SMS to your Abandoned Cart flow
• Branching:
  • Buyers vs. non-buyers
  • Domestic vs. international
  • Number of emails in the flow
  • Product category/collection
  • Value of items in the cart
  • Number of items in the cart
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Subject Lines or Email Content A/B Testing

Subject lines are directly linked to your open rates. To test a new subject line, first click on the email you want to test. Then click "Add Variation" in the left panel.

Click rates, on the other hand, are mainly influenced by the content and layout of your emails. You can A/B test the content of an email by changing the body text but keeping the subject line the same. For instance, you might want to test a more prominent CTA (call-to-action) or compare plain text versus a graphic-rich email. You can measure the results in the same way as a subject line A/B test, but instead of focusing on open rates, pay close attention to the email’s click rate.

Make sure to only test one variable at a time. You can also adjust the weighting of the test to suit your needs. For example, if the current subject line already performs well, you might only want to test the new subject line on 10% of your audience. This minimizes the risk of testing. If you find the test subject line performs better, you can change it to send to 90% of your audience and test an entirely new subject line on the remaining 10%. These tests run indefinitely, so be sure to check in regularly to see how the subject lines are performing.
Learn more about A/B-testen van flows.

Branching Based on Buyers vs. Non-Buyers

It often works well to approach existing customers and non-customers differently, especially if you plan to offer an incentive in your Abandoned Cart flow. You don’t want to offer too many discounts, so you might consider offering a discount code only to those who have never purchased before to encourage them to buy for the first time.

If you choose this approach, make sure to include phrases like “Get 10% off your first purchase” so that recipients don’t expect a discount every time they abandon their cart. Also, use dynamic coupon codes to prevent them from being shared on sites like RetailMeNot, etc.

Learn more about using coupon codes in Klaviyo:

• Dynamic Coupons for Shopify
• Dynamic Coupons for Magento 1
• Dynamic Coupons for Other Integrations

If you want to split your flow based on buyers vs. non-buyers, first drag a Conditional Split to the top of your flow. Then set this split to be based on “What someone has done or not done > Has Placed Order at least once over all time.” People who have never placed an order will go down the NO path, while existing customers will follow the YES path.

Next, you can include a discount coupon in the last email of the NO path.

Branching Based on Domestic vs. International Buyers

You might be able to offer special benefits to domestic customers that you cannot offer to international customers, such as free shipping. By branching your flow into domestic vs. international customers, you can highlight these benefits in emails sent to domestic customers to encourage them to buy.

First, drag a conditional split to the top of the flow. Then set this split to be based on “Properties about someone > Country equals Netherlands.” Those who follow the YES path will be domestic customers, and those who follow the NO path will be international.

Branching Based on Number of Emails

You may want to test how the number of emails in the flow affects the conversion rate. For example, you might want to test adding a third email to the Abandoned Cart flow. When analyzing the third email, don’t just look at the conversion rate, but also the open and click rates. If an additional email has poor open and click performance, it could do more harm than good for your deliverability, even if it generates revenue. Refer to the benchmarks above to determine what below-average open and click rates look like.

To test the number of emails in the flow, drag a Conditional Split under the trigger. Base the split on a random sample and select the weighting you want to assign to the control branch. The test branch will be the NO branch or the remaining people who enter the flow.

Branching Based on Product Category or Collection

If you have a wide product range, you may want to branch the Abandoned Cart flow by category or collection to include more relevant text and images in your emails. An important example is if you sell both men’s and women’s products. In this case, it’s also essential to include a default branch in case the product in someone’s cart doesn’t fall under either the men’s or women’s collection.

First, drag a Trigger Split to the top of the flow. Set the collection (or “category,” depending on your e-commerce integration) to “Women.” Then, drag another Trigger Split directly under the first one. Set this collection to include “Men.” Those who flow down the NO path after this Trigger Split should receive a more generic, abandoned cart flow.

Branching Based on Cart Value

You may want to send a different message to customers with larger cart values compared to those at or below the average order value of your store. For example, if the value of items in someone’s cart is three times the average order value, you might want to offer them an incentive to encourage them to complete the purchase.

To do this, drag a Trigger Split to the top of the flow. In this example, the average order value is €100. Then configure the split to be based on “Checkout started value is less than 300.” Those with a cart worth less than €300 will follow the YES path, while those with three times the average order value or more will follow the NO path.

Branching Based on Cart Size

Similarly, you can branch the Abandoned Cart flow based on the number of items someone has in their cart. For example, you may want to offer someone with three or more items in their cart a “buy one, get one free” (BOGO) or another promotion to encourage them to place an order.

To do this, first drag a Trigger Split to the top of the flow and configure it based on “Item Count is less than 3.” Shoppers with fewer than 3 items will follow the YES path, while those with more than 3 items will follow the NO path.

Additional Resources

Looking for more ways to take your Abandoned Cart flow to the next level? Check out these additional resources:

• Add SMS messages to your Abandoned Cart flow
• Create an Add to Cart event to trigger an Abandoned Cart flow as soon as someone adds an item to their cart (Shopify)
• Automatically apply a coupon code to someone’s cart (Shopify)
• Personalize flows with Dynamic Event Data
• E-commerce brands that have perfected Cart Abandonment (and what you can learn from them)
• 15 Best Practices for Abandoned Cart
• 4 Ways to Segment Your Abandoned Cart Emails (Infographic)
• 3 Reasons Why People Abandon Carts and How to Solve This
• Deciding Not to Offer a Discount: 4 Ways to Make It Work

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