This isn’t sponsored or affiliate linked.
I have an online store. Like most, I’m aware that there are a load of prospective customers who come to the site as a result of advertising or similar, pop something in the basket, and then leave. For me – and I can’t be alone – the majority of my customers are one-time purchasers. That means that more often then not I have no idea who these guests are.
Of course, I know that I need to find these people. I’ve trawled the web looking for plugins and systems that will do what I need. So far I don’t think I’ve got close. The biggest problem, I think, is that all the articles, posts and recommendations seem to be affiliated to the hilt. So I’m going to review the ones that I find and try to keep note of the pros and cons, as I see them. If you’re reading this, I hope you find it useful – but mostly this is for my own benefit!
Retainful
I loved this the first time around. There is the most amazing and intuitive flow for sending messages. They also – importantly – have an email capture. This could work on the basis of when someone adds a product to the basket a code was given in exchange for email addresses. There’s also exit intent pop-ups in the event that the person is unknown and going to leave.
1. Is the user known? If not we need to capture their email address to send win-back messages
The logic flow for the automation workflow was highly intuitive for sending messages and timing.
2. Send timely prompts. Is it possible to tailor the triggers and full communication easily? Could this be by product in the basket and/or value?
It included generating its own code, which helps with the time-sensitive nature of encouraging a purchase.
3. Can the system generate bespoke coupons and codes.
SHOWSTOPPER – and it is huge for me – the system didn’t check whether an email address has subsequently been used to purchase. This means that follow-up offers are sent to people who have just bought. So, if I put something into my cart, give my email address, but then purchase on a different device in a matter of days, I’ll receive a discount code. This led to customers asking to cancel their order so that they could reapply the coupon.
4. Are recovered carts properly processed across sessions/devices?
Other issues were that there was a compatibility issue with a smart coupon plugin, which affected the way that shopping carts were created, again, meaning that the reporting of a recovered cart was inconsistent.
The final issue for me is that I was originally able to see the value of unknown guest carts, too. While I couldn’t do anything about them, the data was incredibly useful.
5. Is there rich data about cart recovery?
The cost was fair too. There was a free band of up to 500 monthly emails for smaller businesses with one workflow and one sign-up form. And the next band was $19 for 100,000 emails and 25 workflows and sign-up forms.
6. Is the price reasonable for a small business, and not commission-based!
The rest of these are based on desk research for now….
I did use this one before, but I turned it off. I can’t immediately remember why, but that’s not a great sign! I think it might simply have been that I didn’t take the time to explore it properly and that the set-up didn’t seem especially intuitive. Plus, I remember not finding the interface for data to be comprehensive. To be fair, I think this is all about order bumping and the full funnel process, with cart recovery a bolt-on. This might not be fair. I will investigate properly 🙂
Price-wise the Plus version is $189 (Pro is $299)
This one looks good. The professional version is $249 and looks to have all the bells and whistles.
The website promised easy set-up with importing templates and the like. But like Cartflows, this one looks like the full funnel set up. But I do like the idea of their automation and customer views.
It looks like it has all the right WYSIWYG editing for the workflows, which I like. There are also a load of features like AB testing and form sign-ups that I should be using, but don’t at the moment.
I started off using the free version of this, way, way bac,k and I moved to Pro. The big drawback I remember at the time was the pop-ups for capturing emails of guest users. They weren’t very customisable or attractive as the default. It’s not pricey, the Starter Plan is $119 a year.
This looks promising. Again, I had a go a while back. One of the things I liked about this was the ability to capture email when a product was added to the basket. Although I would have liked it to have been in return for a free offer or coupon code. The issue with this one is integrating it to an email service for the nudges. I don’t like them! I think there’s also an issue with it affecting the website speed. Now that I’m casting my mind back, that was why I had to get rid of it. My database was absolutely choked with this plugin’s table.
This one scared me. The service itself is very probably amazing. Everything a business could need for marketing and customer care. The problem is I’m only a small business, effectively just me doing all the back office stuff, and I have no time to work all of it out!
While there are free tools, the paid-for service increases a lot, especially if you have a lot of contacts. In fact anything over 2,000 contacts will set you back nearly £850 pa for their Sales Hub Pro. At that kind of price I haven’t looked into the features!
This is a nice straightforward one – but limited in its power. The triggers are very limited. But it is cheap! The emails can be sent through a mail service API, but I don’t think they have to be.
I really like the look of this one. Shopmagic lookslike it’s a marketing automation plugin – with a series of other bolt on plugins, of which recover cart is on. It doesn’t have the sales funnel aspects, but then again I complain that they bloat everything I need!
I also like the save acrt exit intent pop-up. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything about add to cart pop-ups. This one doesn’t offer generated coupons though, so any voucher loses its time-sensitive power.
The stats and reports also look a little light.
Again, looks great. And cheap, less than $45 for a single site licence ($127 for a lifetime licence). This has exit intent pop-ups and can generate codes. It’s not bloated with anything else salesy.
The reports look to be quite high-level, whereas I would like to see more about the guests and what they were up to as well.
This one looks great. It’s UK-based (which I love) and relatively small. The focus seems to be on the simplicity of recovering carts. Because of this, there is no bloating of features at all. And at $39 a year for 1 site it is hard to grumble!
There are add-to-cart pop-ups, and the system will create coupons unique to the customer. And the email prompts are handled through the default WP email system.
But I think the triggers are fairly blunt (time only), and reporting seems to be limited too.