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How Personalization Supercharges Mobile Abandoned Cart Campaigns

How Personalization Supercharges Mobile Abandoned Cart Campaigns
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At some point, everyone needs a little nudge to encourage them to complete an abandoned cart purchase. The shopper was acting with intent, clearly signaling that an item piqued their interest enough to add to their shopping cart, but a barrier presented itself between that action and purchase completion. This happens often both on desktops and mobile apps, yet mobile shoppers especially are prone to the habit. That’s why it’s up to digital marketers to create personalized, dynamic abandoned cart notifications and mobile messages that compel consumers to return to the app and finally finish that purchase.

The Case for Mobile Abandoned Cart Campaigns

A whopping 85% of mobile consumers will abandon their cart at some point while shopping on their phones. Mobile commerce is making up an increasing margin of eCommerce, which is outstanding considering how essential online shopping has become to our daily lives. Mobile shopping provides an extra tool in a shopper’s arsenal while also acting as a new outlet for marketers to reach their customers. 

Unfortunately it’s not all sunshine and roses. Shopping carts abandoned on a desktop or tablet are converted roughly 13% of the time, while mobile completion rates currently stand at around 8.5%. It could be because mobile convenience makes everything easier, including abandoning a cart, but more likely it’s because abandoned cart email campaigns have a huge head start on their mobile counterparts. Digital marketers have been creating savvy, personalized email triggers for abandoned carts for more than a decade now, whereas most brands are just catching up to notification and mobile message-based campaigns. 

Luckily personalization, data, and technology have come a long way in recent years. Mobile personalization and marketing innovations now allow brands to create dynamic, 1:1 notifications and mobile messages. A personalized push notification based on a customer’s behavior such as a shopping cart abandonment can increase direct open rates nine times. One study determined that image notifications boost direct open and response rates by more than 50%.

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Creating Dynamic, Personalized Mobile Marketing

Below is an example of how an abandoned cart notification pops up on a consumer’s phone. The simple copy and image remind the customer that they abandoned a sweater that they were shopping for through the retailer’s mobile app. To create a sense of urgency and encourage completion of the purchase, the notification also includes the information that the sweater is on sale and that sale is ending soon. 

In the next example, a customer receives a mobile message as part of a trigger campaign based on abandoning their cart. The image thumbnail is prominently displayed and can be expanded on iOS devices, allowing the retailer to add enticing information to the visual display. In this case, when a customer adds an item to their cart for the first time and abandons it, they also receive two offers: a 20% off coupon code as well as free shipping. Retailers can use promotions such as these to engender loyalty and goodwill with a first-time customer or even reward repeat shoppers that may still abandon a cart every once in a while. 

Notifications and images like the ones above provide the context and urgency needed for shoppers that simply need a little motivation to convert an abandoned cart into a purchase. Marketers can use existing data from multiple silos to create mobile marketing that displays regular price vs. sales price, social proofing that displays how many times an item is viewed by others, and even how a purchase can affect loyalty points and status.

Dynamic personalized based on customer data assures brands that content is always relevant, updating automatically to reflect changes in inventory, pricing, or promotional messaging. You can set it and forget knowing that your marketing stays relevant no matter when someone views the notification.

The Power of the Visual

The old adage of “show, don’t tell” is especially appropriate for mobile marketing. Why rely solely on written copy when you can drive your point home with striking visuals? These data-driven, image-forward abandoned cart messages appeal to consumers who speak a visual language. That language is effective. According to Airship, rich images can boost open and response rates 56%. And data-based dynamic personalization ensures that consumers always have the most up-to-date information, whether that’s sale price, inventory, or even the promotional imagery. That allows marketers to take a set-it-and-forget-it approach to trigger campaigns. 


If you’re ready to activate your data to create meaningful mobile personalization, contact Movable Ink today.

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