[A Full-funnel] Approach to Customer Recovery

Last Updated on June 29, 2024

Abandoned cart-recovery techniques are incredibly effective at regaining consumers, lowering Shopping Cart Abandonment (CPA), and boosting total profit. However, what if we informed you that your abandoned cart campaign is just one component of your customer recovery plan? Plus, by increasing your reach, you could quadruple your results.

This generally indicates where customers are in the buying journey as they navigate your website. Most simple abandoned-cart methods concentrate on a single stage of the journey: the contemplation stage.

While this is quite efficient at recovering lost revenue from consumers who put items into their baskets and proceeded to the checkout page, it ignores those who did not. Don’t get us wrong: clients who make it to the contemplation stage are your most valuable leads, ready to be retargeted. When you invest time, money, and resources into getting people to your site, your cold and warm leads are also worth a shot.

To transform as many website visitors as possible into customers, your net is broader than the contemplation stage of the buyer journey. You begin fishing in the busiest and most crucial stage: the awareness stage. The full-funnel strategy for customer recovery to avoid a total cancellation and gain an opportunity to win back customer loyalty is what we call it, and we’re here to teach you how to accomplish it.

The customer journey and cart abandonment

Let’s examine the three major phases of the customer funnel on your eCommerce website to understand why a full-funnel strategy for customer recovery is so important.

1. The educated phase

From the moment a consumer visits your website until they add a product to their shopping basket, they are in the awareness phase.

Cart abandonment is impossible because consumers haven’t added anything to their basket during the awareness phase. However, website abandonment, often known as “browse abandonment” or “discovery failure,” can occur.

2. The deliberation stage

Consumers are in the contemplation phase when they add a product to their basket until they hit the “purchase” button on the checkout page.

During this period, cart abandonment can occur at any time.

3. The conversion phase

When someone hits the purchase button on the checkout page and places an order, they are in the conversion phase. Cart abandonment is no longer an option. That isn’t to say that the client won’t return and abandon their cart in the future during the awareness or contemplation phases. Shoppers who add an item to their basket and save their email addresses during checkout are the focus of a simple cart abandonment campaign. This, however, implies that it overlooks consumers who leave:

Before adding goods to their cart, during the awareness phase.
Before making it to the checkout, at the start of the deliberation process.
During a later visit to your website’s awareness or early consideration phase.

Your standard cart abandonment campaign will miss most website visits because the customer funnel is top-heavy.

Nevertheless, this does not have to be the case.

Re-engaging and re-recovering customers during the phase of awareness

You have three fantastic techniques at your disposal to re-engage and regain consumers during the awareness phase:

Cause a potential exit to be disrupted

It’s critical to thwart a customer’s decision to leave your website by re-engaging their interest and directing it back to your store. This may be accomplished in this way:

When a customer’s mouse cursor moves towards the back or exit button, you may offer them a tempting discount coupon or product offer in return for their email address. Exit-intent offers are fantastic since they refocus a distracted customer’s attention while capturing the email address of someone going anyhow, giving you extra leads to follow up with.
When a consumer opens a new browser tab, an audio chime is played, and your website’s tab favicon changes. These are ideal for drawing attention to your website while also lengthening average session time, which is beneficial to SEO.

Provide a remedy for abandonment.

The next step is to provide consumers with an alternative to abandonment that will get them closer to your checkout page.

This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, including:

Customers are presented with relevant offers on your websites after a set amount of time, such as a discount coupon or a new customer offer, using timed offers.
Providing consumers with pertinent information that nudges them into the contemplation phase, such as information on free delivery or other payment choices, is known as conversion nudges.
Back-in-stock notifications: Consumers may sign up for “Back in Stock” notifications for goods out of stock or on backorder.

When discounts and free delivery are tied into minimum purchase restrictions, these techniques have the extra benefit of raising average basket size and order value.

Please make contact with customers who are leaving before they check out

Finally, if a client leaves your website during the awareness phase, re-engage, return, and recover them by sending notifications to remind, re-engage, and recover.

The following are some helpful resources:

A funnel strategist might want to use real-time lead capture technology that collects data entered on your website in real time (for example, on your live chat widget or contact page), obtaining the client’s email address early in the customer journey.

Browse abandonment emails/push/SMS: Similar to your cart abandonment email templates, browse abandonment emails, push notifications, and SMS messages are more relevant and tailored to consumers departing during the awareness phase.

Manual outreach (through real-time alerts): Real-time abandonment notifications allow you to receive emails with the contact information of known abandoners right away. If you have sales personnel, this may be an excellent tool for manually contacting high-value clients by phone or email.

You may also utilize these messages to upsell a range of items relevant to their browsing behavior, as these consumers haven’t yet committed to a product in their cart.

Using a full-funnel strategy

Instead of focusing on just one part of the buyer experience, a full-funnel strategy for customer recovery emphasizes the need for working on the whole funnel (that is, from a funnel strategy that focuses on the upper funnel to the lower funnel) to recover and convert as many consumers as possible. The strategies above can help you minimize total abandonment, boost average basket size, and strengthen your customer connection.

The four stages of a (content) marketing funnel are the following: 1) awareness, 2) evaluation, 3) purchase, and 4) delight.

1 Awareness

Create awareness and educate to influence new audiences who might not be acquainted with your brand. Remember, at this stage, many will be unfamiliar with your product or service, so you need to educate the consumer about it.

2 Evaluation or consideration

Get consumers to contemplate your brand in favor of your rivals. Moreover, at this stage, consumers will start thinking about whether they want to buy your product.

3 Purchase or conversion

Boost action through an online sale, landing page with a completion form, or alternative action. That is because, during this stage, the consumer has decided to buy your product.

4 Delight

This stage is vital for your content marketing strategy – to keep your customers engaged and brand loyal. Moreover, the goal would be to build a community where your customers will recommend your product or service to others.

How do you create a full-funnel marketing strategy?

To generate a full-funnel marketing strategy, you should:

Outline your target audience and consumer personas.
Categorize your target audience’s main pain points and needs at every marketing funnel stage.
Develop a content and messaging strategy for every step of the marketing funnel.
Select the channels to reach your target audience at every stage (for instance, social media, email, paid ads, etc.).
5. Track and measure your outcomes and fine-tune your strategy as needed.