Sometimes potential buyers do not complete the checkout, leaving halfway through. Thinkific offers several ways to reach out and follow up with them!
In This Article:
Use the Abandoned Cart Functionality
Use the Abandoned Cart Functionality
The easiest way to follow up with potential buyers who did not complete the checkout is to use the abandoned cart functionality! 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 in the Leads Table 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.
Learn more about the feature here: TCommerce: Abandoned Cart Emails.
Use User Filters
When you have students who have signed up on your site but have not enrolled in any products, this is likely because they created an account through a Sign-Up page. This is true for most creators, as Thinkific's Performance Checkout, which is available by default for all creators, prioritizes a frictionless experience for students, increasing conversions and reducing drop-off. If you are using Thinkific's Performance Checkout, use the abandoned cart functionality to convert missed sales opportunities into sales.
If you are using our legacy two-step checkout, you might see students with no enrollments due to checkout abandonment. The two-step checkout involves the following steps:
- Account creation: this is where the student will fill out their name, email, address information and password
- Payment details: this is where the student will enter their billing information
If a customer completes the first step in this process, this will register as a sign-up and there will be a user profile created in your Thinkific account. If they do not complete the second step in the checkout to pay for your course, they will not have any enrollments, but will still exist in your Users page. You can filter for these users and send a follow-up email!
Learn more about sign ups and enrollments here: Understanding User Sign Ups Versus Enrollments.
To find the users who created an account without purchasing anything:
- From your Admin Dashboard, select Users
- Select All Users
- Click Filters
- Select Enrollment status
- Select Never enrolled
- Now you have a list of users who have abandoned the cart on your site, registered and didn't make a purchase, or only purchased Digital Downloads or Coaching & Webinars.
Note that this filter will include users who have only purchased a digital download or a coaching or webinar product.
If you are using our Free Preview feature, you might also have students who signed up for your course but haven't purchased the full version just yet. It can also be helpful to reach out to these students as well! To filter for Free Preview enrollments:
- From your Admin Dashboard, select Users
- Select All Users
- Click Filters
- Select Enrolled in
- Select Free Preview
- Select your desired course
Now you have a list of users who signed up for the free version of your course. These students did not abandon your checkout, but they did sign up for free content and haven't committed to the full course just yet!
Send a Follow-Up Email
In some cases, you can select all of the users and email them with the Mass User Email tool. You can also select all and export the list to .csv, which can be added to an email marketing tool like ConvertKit for a more advanced email notification for your students.
Make sure your messaging has the following:
- A personalized message (use the variables like {{first_name}} to populate an email with the user's data)
- A clear call to action, inviting them to buy a course on your site (link them to the landing page).
- An incentive (a coupon for the course you're linking them to, or a coupon for any course on your site).
Use Other Automation Options
CartStack
This great Thinkific App Store option allows you to automate the process of customer recovery. You can set up targeted recovery campaigns like cart abandonment emails, browse abandonment emails, SMS text reminders, and browser push notifications that are perfectly timed and personalized to bring lost visitors back to your website — helping you recover ~20% of lost sales. Check out their App Store listing.
The CartStack app is currently only available for the two-step Thinkific checkout.
Zapier
If you are looking to automate reaching out to visitors who abandon checkout, we recommend looking into our Zapier integration. This is often set up with an email marketing solution and you will want to create an automation that uses the New User and New Full Enrollment triggers.
You can set up two lists in your email marketing solution:
- The first list can use the New User trigger to add all new accounts to one list. New User triggers for all new signups regardless if they enroll or not.
- The second list can use the New Full Enrollment trigger to add all students who sign up for a course or bundle.
Note that Zapier does not currently support new enrollments for communities.
Essentially, you will want to reach out to users who signed up (are in your first list), but do not have a full enrollment (are not in your second list). Since this is set up outside of Thinkific, we aren't able to provide specific instructions, however, Zapier has excellent support if you have questions and you can learn more about how what is possible with Zapier here: Integrate with Zapier.