By: Bodie Paden, CEO / Digimatic

You have an abandoned cart marketing email automation set up, right? Right?! If not, why do you hate money? Abandoned cart automations are the top performing email automations by far, with an average revenue per recipient of $3.07. How many abandoned carts do you have each month? Multiply that by three, and you have a rough idea of how much money you’re probably leaving on the table by not having this one simple automation going.

Good news; it’s easy to set up. If you’re using any modern ecommerce platform like Commerce7 and a popular email marketing tool like Klaviyo or Mailchimp, there are off-the-shelf templates that you can use right out of the box with just a few clicks.

If you’ve already got an abandoned cart email going, you may be interested to know that while the average revenue per recipient is $3.07, the top 10% are averaging $27.12 per recipient!

How do we do THAT?! Well, there are a few things the top performers are doing that most wineries aren’t.

Timing Is Everything

Don’t wait 24 hours, or even 10-12 hours as we often see, to send that first email. The buying “intent”, and your chance of converting, dwindles rapidly after they leave your site. Send your first email 1-4 hours after the cart is abandoned. The perfect timing depends a lot on your brand, price point, and the customer. Luxury brands tend to fare better with slightly longer delays. Play with different timing to see what works best for you. Try one hour for a month or two, and then try two hours. If that performs better, try three, etc. until you find your sweet spot.

Hit ‘em again!

Don’t just send one email and hope for the best. While there are diminishing returns on a second and third email, there ARE returns. Best practice is to send a second email 20-24 hours after the abandonment. There’s data to suggest slightly less than 24 hours on the second email converts better. Then a third email 48 hours after the second, skipping weekends if your tool allows it. While your first email can be a gentle nudge, your second email might be a bit more sales-y and aggressive, maybe with a personalized offer. One of the top reasons a cart is abandoned is shipping costs, so shipping discounts tend to work well here. By the time 72 hours has passed, you’ve maybe lost that particular sale, so consider a more exploratory email around similar products or compelling stories about the brand to lay a foundation for next time.

All Carts Are Not The Same

You can and should send a different message to a new customer who just visited your site for the first time ever versus a regular purchaser or a club member. A new customer may need a bit more handholding about what distinguishes your brand, some social proof, and they may respond to more aggressive offers since they don’t yet know how amazing your wine is. A club member might just need a gentle reminder of their existing club discounts, or that they can add those wines to their next club shipment, and in some cases have their next club shipment sent early.

You might also send a different message to someone who has 4 bottles of Rosé in their cart versus someone who has a case of your library reserve Cab. The first might need a reminder that if they add 2 more bottles, shipping is discounted. The latter might like a note from the winemaker talking about what makes the reserve so special for that vintage. Consider a “concierge” approach with larger carts, especially from previous buyers; offer to answer any questions and give a phone number they can call for assistance with the order.

Just Do It

The moral of the story here is, if you don’t have an abandoned cart email yet, go snag a pre-built template and get it up and running. It’s literally five minutes to make hundreds or maybe thousands of extra dollars a month. If you have a single email already, make it three emails. If you have three emails, make it three personalized versions of each of the three emails. If you have personalized emails already, you get a gold star; well done. Now let’s talk about the other 8-12 automations you should probably also have running…

Bodie Paden will be speaking at the Wine Sales Symposium session: Email Marketing Hacks: Beyond the Basics. Register here to learn real world actionable tips and tricks that you can take back and implement immediately to see a larger ROI on your email marketing investment.

Bodie Paden is the founder and CEO of Digimatic, a software and marketing consulting company for the wine industry.  At age 17, he enlisted in the Air Force and started writing software at the Pentagon.  During his four year tour, he attended university at night and got his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science before leaving to become a consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton.

After seven years of working as a private consultant, he made the leap to the wine industry as the CTO of eWinery Solutions (now VinSuite).  After two and half years, he left to work with Vin65 for a short stint before heading to Naked Wines to launch their US presence as one of the first state-side employees.

After three years with Naked Wines, he struck out on his own and co-founded Hopsy, a DTC beer company valued at over $50M before exiting.  Bodie then bootstrapped Digimatic in 2020 where he shares his 18 years of DTC technology knowledge with his clients today.