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Create an abandoned cart program

Automatically send your email or SMS abandoned cart campaigns.

Laura Russell avatar
Written by Laura Russell
Updated this week

You can use an abandoned cart program to automatically send reminders to your contacts after they add products to their cart but don't complete the purchase.

When an abandoned cart is triggered, the details of the cart are stored as a record in the contact's CartInsight data collection in Dotdigital. This CartInsight data includes items such as the URL of the cart, the products in the cart, and the total price of the cart.

You can send abandoned cart reminders through email or SMS/MMS. If you want to, you can configure both channels in a single program, and set a decision for which contacts receive which message type.

For example, those contacts that you hold a mobile number for are sent an SMS, while those that you only hold an email address for are sent the email campaign.

Before you start

Things you need to know:

  • You must be syncing your order and cart Insight data to Dotdigital, using one of our ecommerce connectors, the Dotdigital Tag, or using a custom integration.

  • Contacts’ mobile numbers must be stored in the system Mobile number field, and not in a custom data field.

  • We advise that you create your abandoned cart campaigns before creating your program.
    ​Learn how in Create an abandoned cart email and Create an abandoned cart SMS.

1. Create your program

You can create an abandoned cart program either from scratch, or using a program template. You can select from the SMS and Email - Abandoned cart template under the SMS program templates section, or there’s also an Abandoned Cart template for email only under the Ecommerce section.

  1. Go to Automation and select the Quick create icon (+) for Programs.

  2. On the Choose a template page, select the template you want to use.
    ​Select Blank template to build from scratch.

  3. Enter a name for your program, and choose a location.

  4. Select CONTINUE.

2. Configure the Start node

  1. Select the Start node.

  2. Select SET SCHEDULE, then select No scheduled enrollments.

    This is because the abandoned cart trigger is managed outside the program.

  3. Select APPLY.

3. The first Decision node

This first Decision node checks three things:

  • Has the contact completed their order?
    This is determined by looking at the cartPhase. If cartPhase is equal to ORDER_COMPLETE the contact has placed the order.

  • Has the contact made a different purchase recently?
    This is determined by looking at the purchase_date. If purchase_date occurs in the last one day, or whichever time frame you choose to set, the contact has purchased an item from your store very recently.

  • Has the contact removed the items from their cart?
    This is determined by looking at the subTotal. If subTotal is equal to 0 then the contents of the cart have been emptied.

You won’t want to send an abandoned cart reminder to a contact for whom any of the above conditions are true, so we use the decision node Yes path to exit such contacts from the program.

  1. Select the Decision node.
    ​If you chose to start from scratch, you must drag a Decision node onto the canvas, connected to the Start node.

  2. For Condition, select CHOOSE CONDITION, then select Present in the selected segment.

  3. Select CREATE NEW.

Create the segment

You must configure three Insight data blocks in the segment builder.

  1. Drag an Insight data block into the Include dropzone and select [click to select Insight data].

    1. Expand the drop-down menu and select cartInsight.

    2. For Contact filter, set Number of records is greater than or equal to 1.

    3. For Record filters, set modifieddate occurs in the last 1 day
      and

      cartPhase is equal to ORDER_COMPLETE

    4. Select OKAY.
      ​

  2. Drag a second Insight data block into the Include dropzone, and set the rule relationship toggle to Or, then select [click to select Insight data].

    1. Expand the drop-down menu and select cartInsight.

    2. For Contact filter, set Number of records is greater than or equal to 1.

    3. For Record filters, set subTotal is equal to 0
      and
      ​modifieddate occurs in the last 1 day

    4. Select OKAY.
      ​

  3. Drag a third Insight data block into the Include dropzone,and set the rule relationship toggle to Or, then select [click to select Insight data].

    1. Expand the drop-down menu and select orders.

    2. For Contact filter, set Number of records is greater than or equal to 1.

    3. For Record filters, set purchase_date occurs in the last one day

    4. Select OKAY.
      ​

  4. Select APPLY. Your segment is added to the decision.

  5. Select APPLY and for Maximum wait time, select IMMEDIATELY.

  6. Select APPLY.

Your decision node is set up.

For the YES path of the node, add an Exit node, as the contacts meeting the criteria in the segment shouldn’t be sent an abandoned cart campaign, so can exit the program.

Optional: additional decision nodes

If you want to add other criteria to determine the actions taken for specific contacts, then you can add another Decision node to your program.

For example, you could use a Decision node to check whether you have a stored mobile number for a contact. If yes, then you send them an SMS campaign. If not, then you send them an email campaign.

4. Select your campaigns

  1. Drag in an SMS campaign node or Email campaign node and attach it to the preceding Decision node.
    ​If you only set up a single Decision node following the steps above, the campaign node must attach to the NO path.

  2. Select SELECT CAMPAIGN and choose the abandoned cart campaign you want to send.

  3. Select APPLY.

Additional campaigns

If you want to send more than one abandoned cart campaign in the same program, you can do so by repeating the above process, with the addition of a Delay node following the first campaign send.

The condition of the next Decision node should follow the same logic we used previously, but should look for items created after the time period specified in the Delay node.

Example

You want a second email campaign to be sent 3 days after the first.

The rules in your new Decision node should identify contacts who:

  • have a cartPhase value of ORDER_COMPLETE and ModifiedDate occurs in the last 3 days
    ​
    ​OR

  • contacts who have a subTotal equal to 0 and ModifiedDate occurs in the last last 3 days
    ​
    ​OR

  • contacts who have a purchase_date which occurs in the last 3 days

and remove them from the program.
​

Prevent multiple abandoned cart emails

To avoid sending multiple abandoned cart emails to the same contact in a short period of time, you can add an additional Decision node to check if the contact has already received the campaign recently.

To do this:

  1. Drag in a new Decision node after your first decision node.

  2. For Condition, select Present in the selected segment.

  3. Create a new segment with:

    • Campaign activity filter:

      • Has been sent campaign > select your abandoned cart campaign.

      • In the last > set your desired timeframe, for example, 1 day, 7 days, or 14 days.

  4. If the contact:

    • has been sent the campaign recently, use the Decision node Yes path to exit them from the program.

    • hasn’t been sent the campaign recently, use the Decision node No path send your abandoned cart message.

Test the abandoned cart process

Once you’re happy with the program you’ve built, you must thoroughly test the process before finalising your changes:

  1. In your abandoned cart program, attach an additional Decision node immediately after the Start node, before the Decision node which checks whether your contacts have made a purchase or emptied their cart.
    ​

  2. This new Decision node should be configured to remove contacts from the program if their Email or Mobile number Contact data field doesn't match your test contact.

    • YES path - Contacts continue through the rest of the program if they match your test contact.

    • NO path - Contacts exit the program if they don’t match the contact.
      ​

  3. Once the abandoned cart module has been configured on your store, log in as the contact you’re using for testing and add some items to your cart, then log out.
    ​

  4. Wait a few minutes, then, in Dotdigital, go to the Single customer view for your test contact, select the Insight data tab and check that the CartInsight record has been added.
    ​To access the Single customer view for a contact, go to Audience > Contacts and then use the search field to locate and select the contact.
    ​

  5. Wait a few more minutes, depending on the length of the cartDelay that you set, and check that your contact has successfully been enrolled on the program.
    ​cartDelay is the amount of time following a cart being abandoned that a contact is enrolled in the program. You might have configured this in your store settings, or in the Dotdigital Tag settings, depending on your configuration.

After testing, remember to remove the extra Decision node from the program.

Related Articles
Create an abandoned cart email
Use abandoned cart with Shopify
Create an abandoned cart SMS and MMS
Create an abandoned browse program
Set up abandoned cart with WooCommerce
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