Cart abandonment is one of the most common problems the e-commerce industry faces. All the money spent in acquiring a customer goes down the drain when the customer abandons their cart.
According to SaleCyle, the average cart abandonment ranges from 69% to 81%, which is a huge loss for e-commerce companies. With cart abandonment push notifications, you can retarget customers who failed to make a purchase.
When it comes to engaging users who've already shown interest in your products, web push notifications are extremely effective. As they direct the user to the checkout page, they act as a direct conversion channel. Additionally, with the right offers, visuals and copy, you can convert a passive lead into an active shopper, thus acting as a conversion catalyst in the overall sales funnel.
Here are the six ways you could utilize web push notifications to increase your e-commerce conversions by as much as 10%.
1. Re-engage with cart abandoners and browse abandoners.
Cart abandonment push notifications
For numerous reasons, users add products to their cart but do not complete the purchase. You can use push notifications to re-engage with these cart abandoners and encourage them to complete the purchase.
This is when you should send cart abandonment push notifications:
- The user adds the product to the cart and leaves.
- The user proceeds to check out but does not complete the purchase.
- Fifteen minutes elapse after the product has been added to the cart.
Your cart recovery push notification should include images of the product, a personalized message, a CTA linking to the checkout page and an offer compelling the user to purchase. BollywoodKart observed a 15% rise in revenue after using cart abandonment push notifications.
Browse abandonment push notifications
Often, customers search for products but never buy them. Tap into this customer behavior by sending browse abandonment push notifications.
This is when you should send browse abandonment push notifications:
- The user has gone through the product page.
- They did not add the product to the cart.
- No purchase was recorded, and the user left the page.
Your browse abandonment push notification should include an image of the recently searched product with a link to that page. Chances are, if the customers see the same product again after some time, they may be tempted to buy the product. Many customers do not make the purchase on the first visit and need multiple reminders to complete the action.
2. Keep the user engaged with auto notifications.
You can send push notifications at regular intervals to keep the user engaged. Automate your push notification strategy to let the user know about the new products from your e-commerce store.
You could collect details such as birthdates and anniversaries and leverage them to send occasion-based push notifications. Wish the user well on their special day and during the holiday season with specialized discounts. Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day, Easter, St. Patrick's Day and local holidays can be reasons to send special discounts, giving the customer an excuse to shop.
3. Send triggered notifications based on user action.
Behavioral push notifications triggered by a specific action work wonders to increase conversions. The message is more relevant to the recipients, making them more inclined to make the purchase.
For example, if a customer has purchased a blue gown from your e-commerce store, you can send a push notification promoting matching stilettos or stud earrings to go with it. It would surely entice the customer to buy those products too and help you cross-sell.
4. Use the right copy for the user to click on your offer.
These are the character limits for push notifications for multiple browsers:
- Title text limit: 50 for Chrome desktop, 40 for Safari, 30 for Firefox
- Body text limit: 120 for Chrome desktop, 100 for Safari, 30 for Firefox
The copy is important because your message has to be precise and effective despite being short. People will only click on the notification if the copy provides value to them.
Here are three tips to help you improve you advertising copy:
- Clear messages have a higher click-through rate, as they are action-based. For example: "Have you read John Grisham’s latest novel?" vs. "John Grisham's latest novel is available for purchase." The latter has a clearer message.
- Your copy should be concise, because push notifications are limited to 40-120 characters. Identify and highlight the most important value proposition in your copy.
- Humans tend to be more motivated by the idea of potential loss than potential gain. Creating a sense of urgency and arousing the FOMO (fear of missing out) is a great strategy for drafting push notifications. Highlight a limited-time offer to inspire the user to make the purchase immediately.
Remember, with information being accessible at users' fingertips, write credible copy without going overboard with your claims.
5. Segment your subscribers.
A study by PushEngage found the click-through rate to increase up to 218% using segmentation in web push notifications.
Different users subscribe to your website for multiple reasons. Instead of putting them all in the same bucket of a marketing campaign, you can segment them based on parameters such as geo-location, online behavior and preferences, past purchases, and products they've searched for. A secondary level of segmentation can happen based on these factors:
- Website design – Different people will subscribe to your push notifications from different pages. Segmenting them according to the page they subscribed from gives you a better understanding of the category your user is interested in. For instance, if a user subscribes to the push notification from the "jewelry" category of your e-commerce store, you can send them exclusive notifications about jewelry.
- Customer action – You can create multiple segments for users who've abandoned the cart while shopping or browsed products without purchasing them. From there, you could run drip campaigns for them using urgency and special offers.
- Customer status – If you have different pricing plans, you will know which plan has each user opted for. Using segmented campaigns, you could create different features of the higher plan for the user to upgrade.
Send tailor-made offers to every user so that it gives them a feeling of exclusivity and increases the conversion rate.
6. Increase the open rate with timely push notifications.
Push notifications should not intrude on the privacy of your customer. Users are most active from 8 a.m. to noon, 3 to 5 p.m. and 8 to 11 p.m. As a general practice, the best time to send the push notifications is from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Schedule the messages considering your industry and business type. For instance, if you have an e-commerce store in the food industry, consider sending the notifications at the time of breakfast, lunch, supper or dinner.
The bottom line
Timely and relevant push notifications on your e-commerce website will increase the conversion rates. These six strategies will ensure your web push notifications are valuable, concise and visually appealing to your subscribers, compelling them to take the intended action.