The 30-day cart abandonment recovery playbook we ship to every new client

Cart abandonment is the most consistent revenue leak we see on intake. The industry average sits around 70%, and most stores are catching maybe 2-3% of those with a single email three hours later. Here’s the full system we build for every client on Rapid Response and above.

The four-channel stack

We run four channels in parallel, sequenced so they don’t overlap and don’t annoy people who already converted.

Email — 3 touches over 48 hours

Touch 1 lands 45 minutes after abandonment. No discount. Just a reminder with the cart items, product images, and a direct link back. This alone recovers 40% of email-recoverable carts.

Touch 2 lands 24 hours later. Social proof: reviews for the specific items in cart, “X people bought this today” if true. Still no discount.

Touch 3 lands 48 hours later. This is where a time-limited offer goes — but only if the cart value justifies it. We use a margin-aware discount ladder: carts over $150 get 10%, carts over $300 get 15%, below $150 get free shipping only.

SMS — 1 touch, 90 minutes after abandonment

Short, direct, one link. Consent-compliant. Quiet-hours aware (we don’t send between 9pm and 9am local). SMS typically adds another 8-12% recovery on top of email.

Browser push — on-site exit intent

Exit-intent overlay fires when the user moves toward the browser chrome. Not aggressive — a single modal, one chance, can be dismissed with one click. Saves a further 3-5% in sessions where the user is still on the page.

Retargeting — live cart audiences

We feed Meta and Google with real-time cart event data via server-side CAPI. Abandoners go into a dedicated audience, excluded from prospecting, and shown dynamic product ads for exactly what they left behind. Budget is proportional to cart value — we spend more to win back a $400 cart than a $30 one.

What this system typically recovers

Across our current retainer clients, this four-channel stack recovers 18-28% of abandoned carts. On a store doing $50k/month with 70% abandonment, that’s a meaningful lift without touching traffic or conversion on the store itself.