What is a Browse Abandon flow?
If you work in marketing, you’re likely familiar with cart abandonment flows. But what about browse abandonment?
Browse abandonment is a key marketing flow that's triggered when someone views an item on your website but doesn't add it to their cart. This is different from a cart abandonment flow, which is triggered when a visitor adds an item to their cart but doesn't complete their purchase.
Setting up your flow
Email sequence
- Email 1: Send the first email shortly after your visitor leaves your website, while their shopping experience is still fresh in their mind. We recommend sending 30-120 min after their session ends.
- Email 2: end a reminder to anyone who hasn’t purchased (suggested time delay: 24 hours after Email 1).
- Email 3: If your customer still hasn’t converted, try incentivizing them with a discount code or free shipping. Send this email 2-3 days after Email 2.
Remember to include all relevant information in your communication:
- An attention-grabbing subject line (Examples: “We miss you”, “Come back and finish what you started 😉”, “It’s not too late”, “Still interested in ________?”)
- Your brand name and logo
- A list of items your user was browsing
- A strong CTA that links the customer back item’s product detail page (Examples: Shop now, Buy now, Get access)
Technical implementation
There are 3 data points you’ll need in order to create this flow:
- The item that was viewed (Viewed Product trigger)
- The date and time the item was viewed
- The visitor's email address (this needs to be collected from an email capture on your site or during account creation)
Segmentation
Segmentation is critical to understand how different cohorts are engaging with your content. Here are a few ways to segment your browse abandon flow:
- New vs. repeat viewers
- Customers who have made at least one purchase before (if their last purchase was made less than 30 days ago, you might skip the browse abandon email)
- Shoppers who view a specific product or category
Conclusion
Carefully test your browse abandon and cart abandon flows prior to launching them, especially if you plan to run them concurrently. While we (highly!) recommend activating both flows so you can customize your messaging for visitors who add-to-cart vs. those who don’t, we caution against launching your flows without adequate QA. Given their similarities, you’ll want to be certain your shoppers don’t inadvertently receive both the browse and cart abandon flows.
