TCommerce: Abandoned Cart Emails

Recover lost sales and increase conversions with abandoned cart emails, exclusively on TCommerce! Easily re-engage potential students who leave the checkout process without completing their purchase. By automating follow-up emails, this tool helps you recover lost sales and boost conversion rates, all behind the scenes without any extra effort from you.

About This Feature

The abandoned cart feature automatically sends a follow-up email to students who abandon their cart, helping you convert missed opportunities into sales. By automating follow-up emails, this tool helps you recover lost sales and boost conversion rates, all behind the scenes without any extra effort from you.

Customize the messaging to fit your brand, enable consent collection to streamline marketing outreach, and keep track of valuable leads to ensure no sales opportunity slips through the cracks!

To access the abandoned cart feature, as well as other great TCommerce features, enable Thinkific Payments on your account: Thinkific Payments.

With the abandoned cart feature, you can

Automatically Recover Lost Sales
Easily recover lost sales by sending automated abandoned cart emails to potential students who don’t complete their purchases
Customize Key Email Details
Personalize the subject line and email heading of your abandoned cart emails, ensuring consistent and engaging communication with your customers.
Streamline Consent Collection
Enable consent collection in your settings to automatically display a disclaimer, ensuring buyers agree to receive marketing emails from you. This helps you stay compliant while maximizing the impact of your marketing efforts.
Track and Manage Potential Leads
Gain access to valuable information about students who didn’t complete their purchases, allowing you to follow up with them, and turn leads into paying customers.

How It Works

When the abandoned cart feature is enabled, a follow-up email is automatically sent to any prospective and non-logged buyer who:

Visits a checkout for a non-free product
Enters an email address at the checkout
Consents to receive marketing emails
Does not complete the purchase within one hour

The email contains the product name, description, and a direct link back to the checkout page. If the potential buyer clicks on the link, their cart with the previously selected product is restored, allowing them to seamlessly complete the purchase.

You can find all leads that did not complete the purchase in the Leads table.

Important Considerations

The abandoned cart functionality is available on paid plans to creators using TCommerce. To access the abandoned cart feature, as well as other great TCommerce features, enable Thinkific Payments on your account: Thinkific Payments.
Only one abandoned cart flow can be created. The same flow and email will be used for abandoned cart emails for all products.
An abandoned cart flow includes one email.
Abandoned cart emails are sent for paid products only.
At the moment, only users who do not have an account on your Thinkific site will see the consent box and will receive abandoned cart emails. A logged-in user will only receive abandoned cart emails if they have already consented to marketing emails before creating an account or signing up through another lead magnet.

Enable and Configure Abandoned Cart Emails

The Abandoned Card feature is disabled by default and will need to be enabled manually. To do that, follow the steps below.

Step 1: Set Up Your Privacy Policy

To ensure compliance and build buyer trust when using the consent checkbox at the checkout (i.e. the checkbox that allows you to get permission from potential buyers to contact them) you will need to set up your Privacy Policy.

To set up your Privacy Policy, follow the instructions here: Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Pages. The linked article also includes a sample Privacy Policy.

The consent collection box will not appear if the Privacy Policy is not set up. This means, that you will not be able to take a full advantage of abandoned cart functionality and abandoned cart emails can only be sent to leads collected from other sources.

Step 2: Enable Consent Collection and Create the Abandoned Cart Feature Flow

To enable the abandoned cart Feature:

From your Admin Dashboard, select Marketing
Select Email Automation
In the Abandoned Cart email section, select Set up email
Review the popup and click Enable consent collection (recommended)

From here, you will be brought to the flow editor, where you can customize your abandoned cart email, preview it, and publish it.

You can create only one Abandoned Cart Email flow. The same flow and email will be used for abandoned cart emails for all products.

If you created the flow without enabling the consent collection and would like to enable it later, you can do it by following these instructions:

From your Admin Dashboard, select Settings
Select the Orders & accounts tab
Find the Email Marketing Consent section
Check the Collect email marketing consent at the checkout box
Click Save

Step 3: Customize Your Abandoned Cart Email

Customize your Abandoned Card email to fit your brand and your voice. To customize your email:

From your Admin Dashboard, select Marketing
Select Email Automation
In the Your Email Flows section, select Abandoned Cart Email (or the name that you have given to your abandoned cart email)
Edit the subject line and the email body

Note that the same flow and email will be used for abandoned cart emails for all products. Avoid using product-specific language.

You cannot modify Product Image, Product Name, Product Description, the Checkout URL, and the Complete Purchase button, as these sections use dynamic variables to pull product-specific information.
Optionally, preview your email by selecting the Send Test Email option
Click Save to save the email draft

The abandoned cart email will use the your brand colors and logo that are set in your Site Header and these cannot be modified on an email level.

To learn more about editing and customizing email flows, see: Engage Your Audience with Email Automation.

Step 4: Enable Your Abandoned Cart Email Flow

After you set up your privacy policy and set up and customize the abandoned cart email, you can publish your abandoned cart flow, which will enable the functionality!

From your Admin Dashboard, select Marketing
Select Email Automation
In the Your Email Flows section, select Abandoned Cart Email (or the name that you have given to your Abandoned Cart email)
Optionally, preview your email by selecting the Send Test Email option
Click Publish to publish the flow and activate the abandoned cart feature

Once all steps are completed, the abandoned cart feature will be active!

Buyer Experience

When the abandoned cart functionality is enabled and set up, potential buyers will see a slightly modified student checkout experience. When a buyer enters a product checkout, they will be asked to input their email first. If the buyer already has an account, they will be asked to log in and proceed to check out the product, as normal.

If the buyer does not have an account, they can check the box and consent to receive marketing emails, click on Save & continue, and proceed to check out the product as normal.

For buyers located in Canada, and the EU, the box will be unchecked and they will need to check the box to receive abandoned cart emails. For buyers located in the United States and the rest of the world, the consent checkbox will be automatically checked, which they can uncheck.

If the buyer does not complete the checkout, they will automatically enter the abandoned cart flow. After 1 hour, if the purchase has not been completed, they will receive an abandoned cart email, encouraging them to complete the purchase. The buyer can click on the link in the email and be taken directly to the product checkout.

Creator Experience

Prospective buyers who have abandoned the checkout can be found in the Leads Table.

Leads Table

The Leads Table will display all leads who have started a checkout but did not complete it. To access the Leads Table:

From your Admin Dashboard, select Marketing
Select Leads

In the table, you will see the lead's email, subscription status, date added, and the source (checkout page the lead was captured on).

The Subscribed Status field indicates whether a lead has checked the consent box at the checkout:

Subscribed: the lead has checked the consent box at the checkout, confirming they want to receive further communication
Unsubscribed: the lead has not checked the consent box at the checkout, confirming they want to receive further communication OR the lead has unsubscribed

For more information about leads and how to manage, export, and convert them, see: Manage Your Leads.

Abandoned Cart Email Analytics

To see how your abandoned cart emails are performing, use the Email Analytics feature. Learn more about it here: Engage Your Audience with Email Automation.

Disable the Consent Collection and Abandoned Cart Emails

If you want to disable the consent collection or the abandoned cart functionality, you can do so by following the instructions below.

To disable the consent collection:

From your Admin Dashboard, select Settings
Select the Orders & accounts tab
Find the Email Marketing Consent section
Uncheck the Collect email marketing consent at the checkout box
Click Save

When the consent collection is disabled but the Abandoned Cart email flow is still live, abandoned cart emails can only be sent to leads collected from other sources.

To disable the Abandoned Cart email flow:

From your Admin Dashboard, select Marketing
Select Email Automation
In the Your Email Flows section, select Abandoned Cart Email (or the name that you have given to your Abandoned Cart email)
Click on the three dots on the top right
Select Unpublish flow to unpublish the flow but keep the email you drafted
Select Delete flow to fully delete the flow

When you unpublish or delete the flow but the consent collection is still enabled, potential buyers are still asked for consent at the checkout, but the abandoned cart emails are no longer sent to them.

If you delete the flow AND disable consent collection, potential buyers will not be asked for consent at the checkout and the abandoned cart emails are not sent to them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I customize the abandoned cart email?

Yes, you can customize the email subject line, header, and add additional information to the email body. You cannot modify Product Image, Product Name, Product Description, Checkout URL, and the Complete Purchase button, as these sections use dynamic variables to pull product-specific information.

Note that the same flow and email will be used for abandoned cart emails for all products. Avoid using product-specific language.

How can I encourage buyers to complete the checkout?

You can use coupons to encourage potential buyers to complete the checkout! Create coupons by following these instructions: Create Coupons and add them to the abandoned cart email template by following the instructions here.

Can I send abandoned cart emails for free products?

No, abandoned cart emails are sent when a buyer does not complete a checkout for a paid product.

What happens if a buyer does not check the consent box?

If a potential buyer does not check the consent box during the checkout process, they will not receive abandoned cart emails. Their information will be saved in the Leads Table, but the Subscribed Status will be listed as Unsubscribed.

What happens if I do not enable consent collection, but turn on the Abandoned Cart email flow?

If you do not enable the consent collection, you will not be able to take a full advantage of abandoned cart functionality and abandoned cart emails can only be sent to leads collected from other sources.

What happens when I unpublish the abandoned cart email flow?