Browse Abandonment and the Right Re-Engagement Messaging Stream

If the Internet was a Target, every aisle would be littered with red shopping carts filled with items that struck shoppers’ fancy… but not enough to actually buy them. At least not right now. Every marketer knows a good cart abandonment strategy is paramount. But do you have a browse abandonment email strategy?

The Internet is so rife with distractions that people don’t always even add items to their shopping carts, even if they like them. SaleCycle research found that 14.5% of sessions on retailers’ sites result in items being added to shopping carts. But what about everyone else?

That question inspired us to build Browse Abandonment, the latest enhancement to our Lifecycle Optimizer tool. It allows you to follow up with known customers, reminding them of their virtual window shopping or enticing them to convert.

What Sets Sailthru’s Browse Abandonment Apart

Browse abandonment messaging streams often call for numerous bolt-on solutions to connect each part of the customer journey. Have they purchased before? Did they click or not? What were they browsing? Whatever your answer begins a different quest to conversion.

Browse Abandonment

Full integration is one key differentiator for our Browse Abandonment. It leverages all the lists, customer profiles and templates we already have. Our customers have access to a singular profile and a singular set of data, all in one place, without the silos. That’s what makes our personalization framework so special and Browse Abandonment fits right into it.

In addition, Browse Abandonment fetches real-time updates from your content and product library. This ensures sure that all prices, descriptions and titles are up to date. It also complements our cart abandonment series and calendar events. Is a customer’s birthday coming up? Send a browse abandonment flow related to the shoes she was looking at recently; be sure to send it a few days before her actual birthday.

We’ll admit it: This strategy can potentially come off as pushy and unwelcome. However, we do offer frequency capping and our customers set the conditions of their messaging flow. What are the visits you consider worthy of a follow-up? Once you decide, you can add URL filters to zero in on the webpages you want to feature, avoiding those pages that pertain to help topics or return policies. Everything within our templates is also fully customizable, so your communications are exactly as you’d like them to be. And consistent across web, email and mobile, to boot.

Browse Abandonment

Browse Abandonment Isn’t Just for Retailers

By nature, abandonment sounds like a very retail problem. And it is, to an extent. According to Content Square, 40% of abandoned carts are filled with clothes. However, browse abandonment is also open to our media clients. They may not have products they’re hoping people will buy, but every publisher certainly wants more people to consume their content.

Compared with retail, publishers have shorter browse abandonment windows. After all, nobody is shopping around looking for the best story to read. We recommend follow-up messaging no later than the next day that highlights new content comparable to what they’ve read in the past.

While retail and media brands use browse abandonment messaging differently, there is a lot of overlap when it comes to our offering. No matter your goal, our browse abandonment flows work with the rest of our data to automatically determine which one is most appropriate for each consumer. This dramatically reduces the likelihood of trying to re-engage the same person in multiple, inconsistent ways. People hate that.

If you’re a Sailthru customer and interested in getting started, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager. If you’re not working with us, but want to see Browse Abandonment in action, please get in touch.