Create a Classic Abandoned Cart Series

When a customer puts an item in their shopping cart but doesn’t buy it, you may want to follow up to remind them what they left behind. After you set up an abandoned cart series, we'll automatically send a sequence of emails to encourage your customers to come back and complete their purchase.

In this article, you'll learn how to create an abandoned cart series.

Before you start

Here are some things to know before you begin this process.

• The abandoned cart series is a Classic Automations feature. Classic Automations are only available to accounts that have previously created a classic automation.
• Depending on your plan, you may not have access to automated email series. To find out what features are included in each plan, check out our pricing page.
• The abandoned cart series is available to users who connect a supported e-commerce store or custom API 3.0 integration. To find out if your store supports this automation, visit the Integrations page, click the name of your integration, and check the Features list.
• This article shows you how to send a series of abandoned cart reminders using the classic automation builder. To learn how to create a single abandoned cart email, check out Create a Classic Abandoned Cart Email. To learn how to create this type of automation using the Customer Journey Builder, check out Create an Abandoned Cart Customer Journey Map.
• You can have one abandoned cart series per connected store.
• To make sure your customers don't receive redundant emails, we recommend you disable abandoned cart automations created outside Mailchimp.
• Customers who provide their email address in your connected store, but don't opt-in to receive marketing emails from you, are added to your Mailchimp audience as non-subscribed contacts. For compliance reasons, these recipients will only receive the first email in the abandoned cart series.

Create an abandoned cart series

To create the abandoned cart series, follow these steps.

1. On your account dashboard, click the Automations icon.
2. Click Classic Automations.
   
3. Click the Turn on an abandoned cart email option.
   
4. Click Email series.
   
5. Enter a campaign name, select a store, and click Begin.
   

Now you're ready to personalize and design your email content.

Edit emails

In the Emails step of the classic automation builder, you'll add or remove emails in your automation and design each email's content. You can also edit each individual email's settings.

The abandoned cart series includes three emails, but you can add or remove emails, or change the settings for each. The default automation features emails with the following triggers.

• One hour after a contact abandons a cart from your store
• One day after a contact abandons a cart, and the previous email was sent
• Three days after a contact abandons a cart, and the previous email was sent

Design an email

To design an email in your abandoned cart series, follow these steps.

1. Click Design Email.
   
2. On the Setup step, input the field names for Name your email, Email subject, Preview Text, From name, and From email address for the specific email you're working with.
   
3. Click Next.
4. On the Template step, select your template. Our abandoned cart email templates include a default logo placeholder and a Cart content block, which inserts the abandoned item into the follow-up emails. If you choose another template, be sure to drag a Cart content block into the email layout.
5. On the Design step, design your campaign.
6. Click Save and Continue to return to the Emails step of the automation builder.

Edit workflow settings

Your overall automation workflow settings include your Workflow name, From name, From email address, and tracking options. To access your workflow settings, navigate to the Emails step of the classic automation builder and click Edit Settings.

Confirm and start

The Confirm step is where you'll review your automation.

1. Review the checklist and test each of your emails if you haven't already.
2. Click Resolve or Edit to make changes to any section of the automation.
3. When you're ready, click Start Sending.
   

Success! Now, if a customer leaves an item in their shopping cart, we'll automatically send them your abandoned cart series.