How To Create The Perfect Abandoned Checkout Flow

Here’s what we'll cover:

1. Collect the right data: Track cart events, checkout events, user behavior, and collect visitor data.
2. Understand objections: Shipping, returns, payment methods, trust, etc.
3. Write your emails in sequences:
   • Email #1: Offer help, start a conversation.
   • Email #2: Show how cool you are, remind them they left items.
   • Email #3: Introduce an offer if needed—free shipping or a discount.
   • Extra emails: Use your best-selling day as an extra push and consider adding SMS reminders.
4. Keep iterating: Track performance, test new approaches, and learn from competitor intelligence.
5. Use automation tools like Panoramata to see exactly how others run their flows, so you’re not guessing.

Why a Great Abandoned Cart Sequence Matters

When someone leaves your site without completing a purchase—even though they’ve added something to their cart—they do so for a specific reason. You want to figure out why they left and address those concerns. Plus, abandoned cart messages are a low-hanging fruit for driving more revenue. They’re aimed at people who came this close to buying.

There’s a clear process that works for setting up the perfect flow. You don’t have to copy a competitor blindly—especially because you don’t always know what they’re testing or why. Instead, use competitor insights as inspiration, then improve your own sequence with the right data, good processes, and ongoing tweaks.

This is not a one-time project. Hundreds or even thousands of people might receive your abandoned cart flow over time. By tracking performance, you can steadily improve it, lift your conversion rate from, say, 1% to 2%, 3%, or even 10%. But you don’t just snap your fingers and jump straight to 10%. You experiment, measure, and iterate.

Where Competitive Intelligence Fits In

Competitive intelligence helps you analyze your competitors’ sequences and see how they change over time. It also shows you many different angles—discount-based offers, free shipping offers, special value propositions, and so on. This sparks ideas for your own flow.

But always remember: analyzing the competition isn’t the final step. It should be ongoing. Keep watching what they do, apply what makes sense, and measure everything so that you consistently improve your own results.

Your First Priority: Make Sure You Collect The Right Data

One word explains half your success: data. You need to track all the right events:

1. When someone starts a cart.
2. When they initiate checkout.
3. When they drop off.
4. What product they added to the cart, which pages they visited, etc.

If you do this well, you’re halfway done. The other half is acting on that data in a timely manner. For instance, the first email in your abandoned cart sequence generally performs the best—so it must go out quickly.

Using these data points helps you personalize your messages. That’s key to jumping from a 1% to a 10% conversion rate. It’s all about responding to why they abandoned their cart, with the right arguments, at the right moment.

Common Reasons People Abandon Carts

It’s incredibly frustrating to see people add items to their cart, then vanish. But in most cases, it happens because of one (or more) of these factors:

1. Unexpected costs – For example, they saw higher shipping costs at checkout.
2. Complicated checkout – Maybe it’s not mobile-optimized, or you force account creation.
3. Security concerns – They might not trust your site yet.
4. Limited payment options – Some people insist on PayPal or certain credit cards.
5. Comparison shopping – They’re visiting several websites.
6. Unclear return policy – They worry about returns if they don’t like the product.
7. Unclear delivery timeframe – They’re not sure how long shipping will take.

Almost 40% of abandoned checkouts reportedly relate to shipping: costs, unclear timelines, or unappealing return policies. These are the barriers you need to remove with your abandoned cart messages.

The First Email (Offer Help Right Away)

Your first abandoned cart email should go out within minutes—ideally, within two hours. The point is to offer help:

• Ask them if they ran into issues.
• Encourage them to reply if they have any questions.
• Provide a direct support channel or link.

This email is extremely valuable for two reasons:

1. It can re-engage potential buyers who just needed one extra nudge or clarification (like, “Do you have PayPal?”).
2. Their replies tell you what to improve on your website—maybe you need more shipping details on your product pages or a more obvious return policy.

A simple plain-text style or a short, friendly branded email works well. For example, some companies say, “If you have questions about anything, we’ve got answers—just reply here.” Another brand might say, “Let us know if you need help. We’re here for you.”

The Second Email (Show How Cool You Are)

About 18–24 hours after that first help-oriented message, send your more “classic” abandoned cart email:

• Remind them they left items behind.
• Show product images.
• Use urgency or scarcity (“We’re holding these items for now, but they might sell out.”).
• Address top concerns (free shipping? easy returns?).
• Emphasize what makes your brand special.

In most cases, you don’t want to offer a discount just yet. You can often recover the sale without cutting your price if you address their lingering doubts.

The Third Email (Introduce an Offer or Incentive)

Next, 24–48 hours after the second email, you can consider a promotional offer:

• If you normally charge shipping, maybe now’s the time to offer free shipping instead of discounting the product.
• If shipping is already free, 10–15% off can be effective.
• Use conditional offers. For instance, if your free shipping threshold is $70, carts under that get a free shipping code. For bigger carts, you might give a small percentage discount.
• If the customer is new, you might give a higher discount. If they’re a repeat buyer, maybe a smaller discount.

A useful tip: make the coupon code look “auto-generated” rather than “ABANDON10.” A random series of letters and numbers feels more personal and unique.

Adding More Emails (and a Special “Perfect Day” Trick)

You can add a fourth (and sometimes a fifth) email to round out your sequence. One creative approach is to send a final reminder on the day of the week when your store usually sees the most orders. Check your Shopify dashboard or Google Analytics to see which day is strongest.

• Let’s say Sunday is your top-selling day. Anyone who received your sequence earlier that week but still hasn’t purchased could get a last reminder on Sunday.
• Personalize it to that day: “Happy Sunday from [Brand]! Place your order today, and you’ll get it by [Date].”
• If your best day is Wednesday, do something similar: “Order now to have your items before the weekend!”

This “perfect day” email can boost results because it lines up with when your audience already loves to shop.

Don’t Forget SMS

More and more brands send SMS reminders too, interspersed with the emails:

1. Quick “You forgot something” texts.
2. Social proof texts with a short testimonial.
3. Clear calls to action.

Email plus SMS can be a powerful combination. Just be sure your SMS timing and content match your brand voice and the concerns people have. For example, one day after an abandoned cart, you might send a short text: “Still thinking about it? Let us know if you have questions!” Then, if they still haven’t purchased, you could send another SMS later highlighting a review or a special offer.

A Real-Life Example: AG1’s Flow

Let’s talk about a real example: a supplement brand called AG1. We see how they’ve evolved their flow over time:

• April version: They sent emails only at certain intervals. Each focused on different benefits of their product.
• August version: They added SMS into the mix, so now it alternates between emails and texts.
• They address top objections (price breakdown per day, money-back guarantees, shipping info).
• They use social proof at certain points, reminding subscribers that others love the product.
• They end on a final email highlighting everything in their bundle and the cost per day, which speaks directly to any final doubts.

Seeing how a major brand keeps iterating and testing is a great example of how you can do the same.

Competitive Intelligence Made Easier with Panoramata

Manually tracking competitors’ emails can be overwhelming. You’d have to subscribe to every newsletter, set up tons of email accounts, screenshot every new campaign, and figure out which messages are part of which flows.

Panoramata is a platform that automates competitor tracking for you. You can see their new email campaigns, changes to abandoned cart flows, new ads, and more—all in one place. That means you have:

1. Real-time alerts when competitors change something.
2. Organized flows that show you exactly which emails (and SMS messages) are in a competitor’s sequence.
3. A massive library for inspiration—search by category, discount, or industry to find abandoned cart examples that match your goals.

For instance, you might filter by “Abandoned cart flows” AND “10% discount” AND “Personal Care industry” and see tons of real examples you can learn from.

If you have any questions or want to see how Panoramata works in detail, feel free to book a call with me. Thanks again for joining, and wherever you are in the world, have a wonderful day!