If even the top brands in a retail sector - in this case Lowe's and Home Depot - have conflicting or, worse, lagging email marketing practices, then it is little wonder there can be dissent in the industry on what constitutes a best practice.
Briefly, according to DM News, Home Depot’s email marketing strategies are lacking basic criteria such as sending a welcome email after someone subscribes to a feed. Not so with Lowes, it says. However neither have an email strategy in place to woo back shoppers who abandoned an online cart.
Although it represents a lost opportunity, it is, in a way, understandable: Of all the elements to an email marketing strategy, abandoned shopping carts can be the most tricky to navigate.
For instance, conventional wisdom is that the best time to send a recovery email to a prospective shopper who abandoned a cart is 48 to 72 hours. SeeWhy makes the case why it is best to respond immediately, or in real time. The company determined via A/B testing that the same email will perform significantly better when sent in real time.
"Open rates, click-throughs and conversion rates are all higher when shopping cart abandonment emails are sent in real time," it found. In short, if abandoners are going to come back and buy after remarketing, two thirds will do so in the first few hours following abandonment, SeeWhy said.
