Retargeting & Basket Abandonment for Ecommerce

The #EcomChat session on ‘Retargeting & Basket Abandonment for Ecommerce’ was very  busy, with lots of excellent info from people with first-hand knowledge.

As ever, there were 3 outline questions::

1. What techniques are there for doing retargeting?
2. Is there a right way to handle basket abandonment?
3. What are the best tools out there?

We’ve summarised a few of the excellent responses herre.

Q1) What techniques are there for doing retargeting? #EcomChat Who wants to start the chat rolling?

Answers covered email retargeting & display retargeting, with a couple of other

Jamil Kassam summed this up very nicely straight away: @jamilkassam: Email and display ads the 2 most prominent I would think #ecomchat

Most agreed that those were the main options, with a few notes & extras along the way:

@_harry_hanson_: Forrester have said that 90% of their cart abandonment leads go cold with in one hour #ecomchat Big stat.

@ACChaudre: And cookie duration is a real issue when it comes to retargeting! #EcomChat

@aattias: Live chat can be an effective tool with some providers showing data for returning visitors, basket contents etc #ecomchat

@geake: dare I say it…exit popups! #ecomchat

@macmillanstu: We used to use a third-party retargeting provider, but found that we get nearly as good results with a simple in-house solution. we send all our transactional emails ourselves, we treat it as one of them. Track it in analytics suite. #ecomchat

@acchaudre: Especially if you consider that a last interaction attribution model artificially increases the impact of retargeting

A few additional tips & warnings came out too:

@eoinkenneally: Abandon Basket email re-targeting, skirting the grey area of email opt-in. especially if you haven’t registered as a customer but your email is captured during registration

@emmabonar: Yup especially in countries with double opt-in

@eddyswindell: some companies collect email address on entry – no permission at all… eek #EcomChat

@aattias: We’ve gone with legal advice that said provided you contact them re: their order, its fine so retargeting ok. [in the uk]

@eoinkenneally: The way all of the EU countries enforce laws will be a balancing act for ecommerce

@DanielJTruman: Re-targeting; be careful of how much customer info stored and repeated to customer.Can scare off through over personalisation

@macmillanstu: Lots of people just fill speculative baskets with no intention of buying just now, it’s possible to weed them out and not bug them

@aattias: Dangerous to reward abandonment though. Don’t just send a discount first time, every time or you risk encouraging it further

@eddyswindell: Yes, lots of people recover themselves naturally. Affiliate model is bad for recovery. #EcomChat

@macmillanstu: I’ve never been convinced that all the people who convert through it wouldnt have anyway…

@emmabonar: Unfortunately you could say that about most online marketing activity! #ecomchat

@aattias: 1 of best retargeting emails Ive ever seen was a personalised video embed from a US etailer featuring a love song tailored to me. it was a love ballad with a pianist sat on the beach, my name spelt in roses on the sand & other personal touches.

(Here it was: bit.ly/14ZcRB8)

@macmillanstu: we have a link to our video chat in the footer of the retargeting email #ecomchat

@emmabonar: I’ve used a chat popup b4 a user closes the browser at basket stage with some success, it’s mostly about handholding

Question 1 flowed very nicely into question 2…

Q2) Is there a right way to handle basket abandonment?

@aattias: capture email early, ask for it in 1st step, not as part of first step.

@jamesgurd: That’s a good point and some checkouts switched to start with email capture before anything else.

@aattias: Use urgency e.g. ‘your saved basket is due to expire’ or a time limited offer in email copy #ecomchat

@emmabonar: I’ve seen good conversion rates from customer service type abandon basket mails #EcomChat

@emmabonar: Emails with a ‘we saw you were browsing the website’ had as good a conv rate as those offering free shipping #EcomChat

@eoin_kenneally: I agree from a service message perspective it’s good. But everyone is pushing the boundaries of service in to Marketing

@macmillanstu: we’ve actually had feedback in the past from customers thanking them for the reminder! crazy but true. #ecomchat

@montsecano: We send targeted e-mails to those who haven’t purchased or renewed with us prompting them to a survey.

@danieljtruman: A lot of abandoned baskets can be put under the “price research” heading.

@emmabonar: I’ve seen the ‘shopping list’ effect too, experimenting with perpetual baskets (mobile-desktop) to get the conversion

@so_on: we have seen difference in customer behavior that shows intention to buy vs “I’m just surfing”

@aattias: timing of abandonment emails (e.g. send 1st within 3 hours, 2nd within 3 days etc). One to experiment with.

@gregpower: it’s good for emails to almost plead ignorance & apologise – chance of finding out if there’s friction too

James Gurd summarised the various tips very nicely into these 5 points:

1. Time delay for abandonment emails is critical & need to test this
2. Focus emails on customer service messaging to ‘help’ people, don’t try to sell to them to push the conversion
3. Make sure you capture email upfront in the checkout to support retargeting
4. Learn what behaviours precede a completed checkout vs. abandoned basket and segment retargeting
5. Put data behind decisions – test & trial, look at attribution and try to validate genuine conversion uplift

Q3 asked which Tools & Suppliers people would recommend:

@macmillanstu: mentioned Struq for display retargeting product views.
@emmabonar: mentioned veinteractive, who provide abandoned basket tools (often on an affiliate model)
@aattias: mentioned Olark, the live chat provider, which can be used to allow retailers to see basket contents, etc.
@jamesgurd: mentioned SeeWhy and RedEye
@danbarker: chipped in later with SaleCycle for basket abandonment, Criteo for product-specific display ad retargeting, and Google AdWords for general display retargeting (which can also use Google Analytics data)
@so_on: said ‘we are the tool’!
@macmillanstu: mentioned in-house tools can often be as good as third party. He also summarised nicely: “there are some great tools, but dont let them be an excuse to not understand customer behaviour yourself”

As ever, we’ll be back on #EcomChat on Twitter on Monday, and do check the homepage for info on the next topic.

Thanks!

Dan & James.

ps. If you’re wondering “what is this all about?” there is an about page to explain everything.