CloudIQ ebook how to convert more christmas customers

How To Convert More
Customers This Christmas
3 Essentials to Online Sales Conversion

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Introduction

Introduction

The leaves are still on the trees outside, but in the retail world,
it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
Retail experts are predicting big things for UK merchants in the
2016 holiday shopping season. During the core 2016 Christmas
period, UK eCommerce sales are expected to total £16.9 billion
- up from £14.65 billion in 2015*, with one fifth of these UK retail
sales being digital.**
From Black Friday to Boxing Day, Cyber Monday to Panic
Sunday, more shoppers are moving online to browse, create gift
lists, compare prices, bargain-hunt and, ultimately, to buy.
As rosy as this outlook is, there is no escaping basket
abandonment as shoppers browse the multitude of online
retailers for the best deal. An average 75% of UK shoppers

abandon their purchase process before payment and as many as
98% of site visits leave a site without buying, from various stages
of the purchase journey.
Does your Christmas 2016 marketing programme include
strategies to address these issues and make the most of your
holiday browsers and buyers?

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Cloud.IQ’s 2016 Holiday Guide will take you through three
strategies that are key to your online marketing programme
for customers who are at the top, middle or bottom of your
purchase funnel:

1 - Remarketing to customers throughout the
entire customer journey from first browse
through to purchase.
This includes programmes for browse
abandonment, basket reminders and cart recovery,
all of which can bring back customers and reduce
purchase abandonment.

2 - Converting as many new visitors to email
subscribers as possible.
The email address is still your No. 1 entry to your
customers. This guide will show you how to collect

more email addresses to enrich your email database and stay in touch with your shoppers, new
and old, long after the last verse of “Auld Lang
Syne” dies away.

3 - Maximising your contact with customers
at all touch points of the customer lifecycle,
through Christmas 2016 and beyond.
Email is not a one-size-fits all proposition. Sending
the right email to the right customer at the right
time will drive more site traffic, browsing and
sales. Keep reading to find out how welcome
programmes, back-in-stock notifications,
replenishment reminders and more automated
programmes can help you convert first-time visitors
to long-term, high-value customers.

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Right about now, you may be wondering, “Isn’t it a little late in
the year to try something new?
Not at all. The right technology makes it easier than you think to
implement these three strategies and have them up and running
long before the shopping season hits its full stride in this makeit-or-break-it fourth quarter.

Tip 1 - Remarket to those
who abandon during the
customer journey

Abandonment happens at two key points on the journey from
first look to “Buy Now”:
• Browse abandonment occurs when customers view specific
product pages on your website but either exit without acting
or place items in a cart but leave before starting the checkout
process. They might move on to your competitor’s website or
to an unrelated site or simply stop shopping altogether.
• Cart abandonment happens when customers start checking
out but exit before clicking the final “Place Order” button.
Customers break off the browse or purchase process for many
reasons- some are on their mobiles; others are just getting ideas
or bargain hunting. Sometimes, something goes wrong.
Some browsers never come back – about 11% (according to
Connexity) of shoppers are true lost causes – but others just
need a gentle email nudge to come back and look again.

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Consider these statistics from a recent study by Connexity:
• 50% of your true abandoners never put items in the cart.
• 18% put items in the cart but leave before checking out.
• 32% leave after they start the checkout process.
Three remarketing programmes can help you bring back these
shoppers, whether to take another look at your products or to
redeem the cart and complete the purchase process: browse
abandonment, basket recovery and cart abandonment.

1 - Browse abandonment programme
This top-of-the-funnel program aims to bring back your casual
browsers to reconsider the products they’ve looked at before.
They are your least-engaged shoppers, because they didn’t even
put anything in a cart before leaving, but a gentle email nudge
might be all they need to find you again.
How it works: Set up rules for post-abandonment timing and
the number of email reminders sent. Create a service-oriented
message that thanks your customer for checking out your
products, links directly back to that product page and includes
links to other resources you might have that could help seal the
deal, such as a user forum, a frequently-asked-questions page,
your customer-service team, etc. Test whether a come-back
incentive (discount, free shipping, etc.) effectively brings back
more shoppers, increases order size, etc.

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Taking men’s fashion retailer Woodhouse as an example, your
subject line should be as specific as possible (“Can we help?” or
“Thanks for visiting Woodhouse”). Never use a generic subject
line (“A message from Woodhouse”).

TOP TIP
You must be able to identify these customers and have their
permission to email them. These recovery emails don’t qualify

as transactional emails under most countries’ email regulations
because browsing isn’t a transaction. Avoid the hard sell; focus
instead on providing helpful information.

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What if you can’t identify them? Then serve them an
overlay, allowing them to self-identify and provide
permission to you as Woodhouse did here.

The accompanying browse abandonment email hits all the right
notes: It takes a breezy, shopper-friendly tone, includes payment
options and a phone number to call for service as well as a link
that takes the browser right back to a page he browsed.
It also includes an incentive tied to a specific basket value,
which encourages a larger purchase and reduces the hit to your
margin.

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2 - Basket-reminder programme
Further down the funnel are your customers who spot
something they want on your site and put it into a basket but
exit the site before starting the checkout process. Woodhouse

use cloud.IQ’s exitCapture solution - a flexible, dynamic overlay
tool that both reminds customers about their basket items and
can help build your email list.
How it works: When exitCapture detects a customer is about
to leave the site with items still in her basket, it will display a
message reminding her about her items. Some retailers offer to
send the basket details to their customers in an email message.
Others include a come-back incentive in exchange for the email
address.
This is an excellent tool to recover shopping trips that begin on
a mobile and end on a desktop as it works on both desktop and
mobile operating systems.

TOP TIP
Continue to use service-oriented copy that stresses convenience
over purchase commitment. Test to see whether an incentive
or an emailed reminder will drive more return visits and
conversions without cutting into profit margins. Also, test to
see if a series of two or three follow-up emails generates more
conversions than a single email reminder.

Basket-reminders are an excellent way to build your email
database, provided you notify your customers that filling in the
blank on the overlay means they’re giving you permission to
send promotional email.

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The email request example below uses the reminder
approach. Note the permission notification under the
basket in smaller but still easily visible type.

This basket reminder drove impressive results for cloud.IQ’s
client:
• 4.2% of those presented with the overlay asking for their
email address provided it.
• 53% of those who provided their email address clicked
through on the follow-up email to their baskets.
• 47% of those who clicked through to the cart purchased their
items.
• AOV at final sale was 71.5% higher than the original basket
value.
• 3.13% uplift from this campaign against the total sales for this
period.
• The ROI was 11,387%. (No, that’s not a decimal mistake).

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3 - Cart recovery programme
This bottom-of-the-funnel approach uses a triggered email to
remind customers to come back and complete the checkout
process. Cart recovery programmes have become more popular
in recent years among online merchants who know they can
drive incremental revenue, especially during peak shopping

periods such as Christmas and Valentine’s Day.
Cloud.IQ tracks millions of customer interactions across
thousands of websites. We looked at the volume of cart
recovery emails sent throughout 2015 to monitor abandonment
peaks. The chart below shows the Christmas shopping season,
with cart recovery emails surging shortly after peak shopping
days, especially Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Panic Saturday
(Dec. 19, the last Saturday before Christmas).
Cart recovery emails sent Christmas 2015
Cyber Monday
Black Friday

Panic Saturday

Source: cloud.IQ siteAnalyser

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Cart recovery emails drive the greatest measurable return for
retailers, because they can compare the amount of recovered
emails against the potential loss of unredeemed merchandise.
You are also remarketing to your most engaged customers, so
going after the lowest hanging fruit is usually the most profitable
place to focus on first.
People break off the checkout process for many reasons: The
site doesn’t accept their credit card or payment service (PayPal,
Bitcoin, Apple Pay, etc.). Or, they discover at the last minute that

shipping is too expensive, or the coupon code they wanted to
use doesn’t work. Or perhaps the doorbell rang and their basket
timed out.
These are your most motivated customers and their intention to
purchase is clear, so it pays to follow up, find out what happened
and help them check out successfully.
Woodhouse recovered 9.45% of potential lost revenue
and converted 12.9% of the customers who received cart
remarketing messages. Also, the AOV of sales resulting
from cart recovery was 10.23% higher than sales completed
successfully the first time.
Stevie Wonder said it best; “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.”
How it works: cloud.IQ’s cartRecovery solution triggers an email
reminder shortly after it detects a customer has broken off the
checkout process. The email reminds the shopper about the
transaction and links back to the checkout page.

TOP TIP
As with the browse-abandonment email, you’ll need to be able
to identify your lost customer. The easiest way is with an email
address. Try to collect email addresses early in the checkout
process to avoid losing your customers if they abandon.

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How to drive more success with cart recovery
emails:

1 - Send more than a single reminder.
Use two or three emails, and vary the copy in each. Move from
a service-oriented message that tries to clear up problems or
questions to one that stresses urgency in responding, such as a
reminder that items in the cart aren’t guaranteed to be available
until your shopper completes checkout.
2 - Don’t wait too long.
Several studies have shown that cart recovering emails become
less effective if you wait more than a couple of hours before
sending the first reminder.
3 - Test different cadences and copy approaches to determine
which drives the best results.
Include details (product name, image, cost, quantity, basket
total), a link back to the checkout page and links to customer
support to resolve any problems.
4 - Should you add an incentive?
Many marketers worry that savvy shoppers will wait for a
juicy offer to save money or eliminate shipping costs before
redeeming their carts. If you’re keen to offer this, try waiting
until your last email to include an incentive, and tie it to basket
value. The higher the order value, the better the offer.

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This email from Floris is an excellent example of a cart
recovery email, especially the first kind to send in a
reminder series. Note the product details, the service

approach (as opposed to an urgency tone) and the many
ways the shopper can return to complete the purchase. Its
subject line (“Can we help?”) emphasises the helpful tone.

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Tip 2 - Increase your email
opt-in efforts to convert
once-a-year and first-time
visitors into email subscribers

Your company’s bottom line isn’t the only metric that should
look much cheerier when the holiday rush is over. Christmas is
also prime time to capitalise on your increased traffic and build
up your email database with fresh addresses collected from all
of your first-time visitors and once-a-year returning customers.
If you don’t persuade non-subscribers to establish a relationship
through email, you might never see them again after they leave
your site. If they buy something, you’ll have post-purchase
opportunities to sell them on your email programme. But, if they
don’t, you’ll just have to wait until they come back on their own.
Connecting with web visitors now through email ratchets up
your chances of driving sales down the road.
But, this means you’re likely going to have to work harder
to gain your visitors’ permission. Many might visit 10 to 20
competing sites from October through December So, step
up your promotion game now, before the trickle of holiday

shoppers now turns into a crush.
Most marketers passively promote their email programmes,
stashing the opt-in invitation and sign-up field at the bottom of
the homepage. They’re saying, “Yeah, well, sign up for our emails
if you want. If not, no biggie. Whatever.”
Granted, you don’t want to grab your visitors by the collar and
shout, “Oi! Get our emails!” everywhere they go on your site.
(Really, you don’t.)

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What you need, and what your customers will respond to, is
a reasonable middle ground – a subscription invitation that
catches their attention, gives them reasons to want to opt in,
makes it easy to submit their email addresses and then lets them
get on with their business.
In Tip 1 above, we talked about collecting email addresses for
site abandoners by using an overlay, such as a pop-over or
lightbox. These boxes resemble a pop-up box in that it appears
over the website copy, but they launch from your own website,
not from a third-party site, and as such aren’t susceptible to
blocking. Think of them as an extension of your web page and
part of your overall brand experience.
Here, we’ll cover using overlays to encourage opt-ins from
visitors who land on your pages from a PPC ad, a search result, a
link from another third-party source or by typing your URL into
their browsers.

Cloud.IQ’s exitCapture and visitCapture technology allows you
to customise your pop-over (appears on top of the website copy
without altering the page appearance) or lightbox (greys out the
background making the box copy more prominent) to appear
at different times during your customer’s visit with your offer to
sign up for email.

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1 - Capture marketing permission upon arrival to
your site
A lightbox like the one below displays when your visitor lands
on the page. You can set rules to identify only nonsubscribers
and first-time visitors, to appear after browsing certain pages,
a specific number of pages, time on site or time on a specific
page, or whatever you choose.

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2 - Capture marketing permission upon intent to
exit
Again, you can customise this overlay which appears when the
consumer shows intent to leave your site, to follow specific
rules such as dynamically featuring products or pages they

browsed and using language that recognises they’re leaving
your site, therefore serving them up a very personalised and
effective request to sign up. The message features the benefits
of subscribing over a simple “sign up for our emails” language.

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2 - Add an incentive to encourage opting in
This tactic also uses cloud.IQ’s customisation features. As with
incentives for browse or cart abandonment, your rules can
specify who qualifies for an incentive and when you should offer
it.
You could opt to use the incentive in an exit overlay for firsttime visitors who browsed a specific number of pages but did
not opt in using an on-page field. Or, show it when your visitor
is about to leave your site from a product page. (See the second
example below.)
You could offer the code on an arrival overlay for visitors whose
cookie information indicates they’ve visited before but have no
email addresses associated with their data.

The two overlay examples below demonstrate how to
frame incentives within the message copy on both arrival
and exit overlays:
Arrival overlay (on the home page or any interior page
except product pages)

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Exit overlay (on a product page)

Best practice for collecting email addresses:
No matter whether you use overlays or on-page field, popovers
or lightboxes, the following tips will help you collect more email
addresses, during the busy holiday season and the quieter
months that follow it.
1 - Put your opt-in invitations where people will see them.
Be visible. Overlays have an advantage over on-page fields
because you just can’t ignore them. But they’ll work better when
you combine them with on-page promos. Your subscriber can
make the overlay disappear easily; not so with the promos in
fixed places on your website.
Be sure those promotions are prominent, though. Put them
where people will see them, such as the upper right or left
corners of your page or near locations that draw the most
attention and clicks. A heatmap or click analysis will reveal your
hotspots.

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Be everywhere. Put an email promo on every page of your
website, even on those that don’t draw much traffic. Make

sure the custom landing pages you build for search or social
campaigns also have email promos (both fixed and overlay).
Your visitors might not want to buy your special of the day but
be intrigued enough to sign up for email.
2 - Focus on “WIIFM?,” “FOMO” and “FUD.”
“WIIFM” means “What’s in it for me?” Why should your visitor
sign up for yet another email programme when her inbox is
crammed already? Explain why she’ll get reciprocal value for
giving up her address by focusing on clear benefits: special
offers and discounts, first crack at sales, etc.
“FOMO” is “Fear of Missing Out.” It’s another handy copy tactic.
If he doesn’t get your email, he’ll miss out on email-only deals
and news.
“FUD” refers to “Fears, Uncertainty and Doubt.” Answer privacy
concerns by linking to your privacy policy and assuring your
subscribers that you’ll use their addresses only for your own
marketing promotions.
3 - Don’t ask for too much too soon.
Yes, it’s lovely to have reams of personal data associated with
each email record, but let’s be realistic. All you really need to
get the party started is the email address. Every field you ask for
beyond that reduces your form completion rate. You can always
ask for name, location, age, etc., as part of a follow-up welcome
programme or progressive profile campaign.

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Tip 3 - Maximise all of your
customer touch points in
this busy period

In our previous tips, we’ve shown you several kinds of email
and web messages that become much more significant in the
compressed holiday shopping season. Now, we’ll show you how
they fit into a broader email programme not just for the holiday
season but also all year round.
Many email-marketing programmes assume that the customer’s
path to purchase is a simple and straight one: Your email shows
an offer; your customers click on it and buy it. Oh, if only it were
so easy!
As shoppers ourselves, we know customers travel a bumpy,
circuitous route that often doubles back on itself, veers down
other paths or even comes to a dead stop at times. Every
customer’s path is different, yet they all share similar touch
points with your brand.
Each of these touch points inspires a unique marketing message
that can keep customers in touch, engaged and on the path to
purchase, to purchase again and to become a loyal customer.
This marketing approach, which matches messages to customer
touch points, is quite different from your standard broadcast
model. These behaviour-driven emails are hugely relevant to
recipients because they reflect what the customer has actually
done – signing up for your emails, buying for the first time,
browsing items on your website, abandoning items in a cart, etc.

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Basket recovery and cart recovery programmes (see Tip 1)
keep you top of mind with customers who find what they want
but aren’t ready to buy. Other email programmes also take on
greater significance in the compressed holiday shopping season,
including these:

1 - Welcome Subscriber programme
This programme, which comprises a series of triggered and
cadenced emails, welcomes your new subscribers, manages
their expectations and aims to move them back to your website
to make that all-important first purchase. The aim of this
programme is to convert them to making their first purchase, so
this programme can also be called a 1st Purchase Programme.
During this holiday period you can expect a flood of new
subscribers, especially if you have deployed targeted addresscapture browse-abandon and email-subscription overlays (see
Tip 2).

Below, see how Boden greet new subscribers with a
four-part welcome programme. Each email has a unique
purpose; yet, all aim to hasten the newbie to the website
to purchase.

1

2

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3

4

TOP TIP
Send this email ASAP after opt-in. If you wait a week or longer,
very likely your shopper has moved on, spurred on by your
competitors welcome email no doubt!

2 - Welcome Customer programme
Unlike your Welcome Subscriber programme, these emails
encourage your first-time buyers to purchase again and again. If
you’re like most retailers, the majority of your database is made
up of one-time-only buyers. The Welcome Customer programme
ups your chances of bringing them back to purchase again and
not just at Christmas. Again, this programme can also be named
after the objective and be called a 2nd Purchase Programme.
This programme uses tactics such as cross-selling, upselling,
information-focused messaging, loyalty clubs and buyer-only
incentives. Each focuses on driving return website visits and
future purchases and features personalised content.

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TOP TIP
Give your new shoppers the option to set preferences if they
want content that reflects their own interests as well as what
they buy for others. Your snowboard buyer might actually be a
father buying a gift for his son and would be more interested in
information on golf or tennis.

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3 - Back in stock notifications
What’s more frustrating than finding the perfect gift, only to
discover that it’s not in stock? Offer your customers the option
to be notified via email when the product returns to stock.
A proactive move this like can be enough to satisfy shoppers
for the time being – especially if you can provide an estimated
restocking date – and discourage them from going to your
competitors.
Some marketers use a strong call to action to move the
customer to purchase, as in the Style email (below left). Others,
including ModCloth, adopt a softer sell (below right).

TOP TIP
If items will remain out of stock, create a cross-selling/upselling
message recommending alternatives.

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