How do I create an abandoned cart automation?

When a customer abandons their cart in your ecommerce store, you can encourage them to complete their purchase with an abandoned cart automation. Once added to this automation, they will receive a customized automated campaign that contains information about the product(s) they left behind with a button that takes them back to their cart.

Read more about ActiveCampaign's Abandoned Cart feature.

Take note

• This feature works with the following ecommerce integrations:
  • Shopify
  • WooCommerce
  • Magento
  • Any custom deep data integration that supports abandoned cart
• To use this feature, your automation must contain an "Abandons cart" trigger and an automated campaign that uses the "Abandons Cart" content block. It is not possible to use this content block with direct campaigns
• You can only use one (1) "Abandons Cart" content block per automated campaign

Create a new automation with the "Abandons Cart" trigger

The "Abandons Cart" trigger consists of four (4) abandoned cart options. Contacts must match all trigger options to be added to your automation. To get started:

1. Click "Automations" on the left menu. 
2. Click "Create an automation."
3. A modal window will appear. Click the "Start from Scratch" option, then click "Continue."
4. The "Select a trigger" modal will open. From here, click "Ecommerce" and then click the "Abandons cart" option. 
5. Next, you'll need to configure the trigger:
   • "Integration" dropdown. Select the ecommerce store you want to use with this trigger. You can also choose "Any" with this option
   • "Select product" dropdown. Choose from "Any product," "Product name contains," or "Product name matches." If you choose "Product name contains" or "Product name matches," you need to type the product name into the field provided
   • "Select category" dropdown. Choose "Any category," "Category name contains," or "Category name matches." If you are using "Category name contains" or "Category name matches," you will need to type the product name into the field provided
   • "Cart value" dropdown. Choose from "Any value," "Value equals," "Value is more than," or "Value is less than." If you are using "Value equals," "Value is more than," or "Value is less than," you will need to type a numerical value into the field provided. You do not need to add a currency sign in this field.
   • Choose if the trigger should run once or multiple times
6. If you wish to limit which contacts enter this automation even further, you can create a segment under "Advanced." To do so, click the "Segment the contacts entering this automation" checkbox, then use the segment builder to add your conditions.
7. When finished, click the "Add start" button. 

Add the "Send an email" action to your automation

Once you configure the "Abandons cart" trigger, we'll present you with a "Add a new action" modal. From here, you can choose which action your contact should encounter first when they enter your automation.

To continue with our example, we're going to add the "Send an email" action to the workflow so we can send an automated campaign containing the "Abandoned cart" content block. To configure this action:

1. Click the "Send an email" option from the "Add a new action" modal.
2. On the next screen:
   • Provide a name for the campaign
   • Choose between "Start with a new template" or "Start with a past campaign"
     • "Start from a new template" lets you create a new email using a predesigned template. You can also create an email from scratch with this option
     • "Start with a past campaign" lets you create a new email based on a campaign (direct or automated) you already created
3. Once you make your selection, we'll redirect you to the campaign templates page. Click the template type you wish to use, then click "Continue."
4. Hover your mouse over the template you want to use, then click the "Select" option that appears. 
5. A modal window will appear containing your "Sender Details":
   • Confirm that the information contained in these fields is correct
   • Provide a subject line for your email. You can change this later if needed
   • Click "Continue"

Customize your abandoned cart email

The information in this section refers to the Classic Email Designer. To use the Abandoned Cart block with the new Email Designer, visit "New email designer: Use the Abandoned Cart content block."

After you configure the sender details for your automated campaign, the email designer will open. Now you can customize your email by adjusting the layout and adding images and messaging. 

Once a contact receives your email, the abandoned cart product(s) values (product image, name, price, description) will automatically be inserted into the email.

Information contained in the Abandoned Cart content block will only appear for contacts who have abandoned cart data when they encounter this "Send email action in your automation.

To add customized abandoned cart information to your automated campaign:

1. Drag the "Abandoned cart" content block to your layout. 
2. An "Abandoned Cart Builder" modal window will appear. Use the "Customize," "Preview," and "Settings" tabs to configure the content block. Read more about these tabs below. 
3. Click "Okay" in the modal to return to the email designer.

4. Click "Next" on the top right of your screen and view the Campaign Summary page.

5. Click "Save and exit."

6. Choose to send the email immediately when a contact encounters this step or send it with the "Predictive Sending" feature. 
7. Add more actions to your automation as needed. When you're ready to turn on your automation, click "Active."

About the "Customize" tab in the "Abandoned Cart Builder" modal

The first tab in the "Abandoned Cart Builder" is the Customize tab. On this tab, you can choose to:

• Show or hide an image of the abandoned item
• Show or hide the item name, price, description, or quantity. You can also use the dropdowns to change the order in which these items appear
• Show or hide the "Return to Checkout" button

About the "Preview" tab in the "Abandoned Cart Builder" modal

The Preview tab displays the layout you configured in the "Customize" tab. This preview gives you a general idea of how the abandoned items will appear in your email.

About the "Settings" tab in the "Abandoned Cart Builder" modal

The settings tab in the Abandoned Cart Builder lets you customize the following in your abandoned cart email:

• Sort products
• Display all products in the contact's abandoned cart
• Display a certain number of products in the contact's abandoned cart. This number cannot exceed 99

Adjust the amount of time the trigger should wait before pulling contacts into your automation

You can adjust the amount of time the "Abandons Cart" trigger will wait before it pulls contacts into your automation. 

Shopify instructions

1. Click "Settings" (gear icon) on the lower left of your ActiveCampaign account.
2. Click "Integrations."
3. Click "Connected" next to the integration you're using.
4. Click "Manage."
5. The amount of time the trigger waits for defaults to 1 hour (recommended). To change this, click the dropdown and select a different option.
6. Click "Save."

Magento instructions

Abandoned Cart settings are managed within Magento.

To get to your settings in Magento:

1. Log into your Magento account.
2. Navigate to Menu > Store > Configuration > ActiveCampaign.
3. Choose your Abandoned Cart settings. 
4. Save Settings.
5. Click "Sync Abandoned Cart Data" to run a historical sync of abandoned carts. This will not trigger automations.

WooCommerce instructions

1. Log into your WordPress account.
2. Go to the ActiveCampaign for WooCommerce plugin. 
3. Click the "Store Settings" tab and select how long ActiveCampaign should wait before triggering automations that use the "Abandons cart" trigger.