How to Recover Abandoned Carts with Text Messages | #192 Tadej Bogataj

Master the Art of Recovering Abandoned Carts with SMS Text Messages in this episode featuring Tadej Bogataj, CO-Founder of CartBoss.io.

On the Show Today You’ll Learn:

• Customer cart abandonment: The primary reasons
• Traditional methods for recovering abandoned carts: How does it work
• SMS marketing compliance: What rules and regulations should be considered
• Optimal daily message count: How many messages should be sent
• How to send personalized text messages quickly

Links & Resources

Website: http://cartboss.io/
Shopify App Store: https://apps.shopify.com/sms-abandoned-cart-cartboss
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cart-boss/

Get access to more free resources by visiting the podcast episode page at https://bit.ly/3OOhobe


Episode Sponsor

For inquiries about becoming a guest or sponsoring the podcast, email claus@clauslauter.com.

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Transcript

Claus Lauter: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Ecommerce Coffee Break podcast. As a merchant, you know that you lose a lot of your clients on the checkout page or on the card page, and we wanna find out why that isn't what you can do to recover as many of your potential abandoned cards as possible.

Main topic is this today and I have Tadej Bogataj on the show. He is the co-founder of cartboss.io, and he also worked for e-commerce development companies. He has a lot of experience in conversion optimization and he's helping e-commerce companies to grow. So he is the right person to talk to us. I welcome him today here on the show.

Hi today, how are you today? 

Tadej Bogataj: Really good. You can't wait to see how the topic goes, to see what we have to say and how the listeners will benefit from our 

Claus Lauter: Absolutely. So cart abandonment is a huge percentage in the reports of every merchant area, and a lot of them might wonder why that is.

, so give you a bit of an overview. , what are the main reasons why do people abandon their cards? 

Tadej Bogataj: The thing is, if you check online articles, you're gonna see a lot of like, due to security and stuff like that, but the main reason why people abandon their shopping cart on the checkout page there's two main reasons.

One of them is the pricing. And usually what happens is this, that people actually put in all the information in the fields on the checkout page, and then they scroll down to the complete your order, section. And there they see all the additional costs. And due to those additional hidden fees, initial hidden fees, they leave the site.

So that's one part of it. And the second one is just like random distractions or what people usually do is they put stuff in the cart and then either something from their local environment distracts them or they decide, I'm gonna completed this order later on. Most of the times it's just like a random thing, like people abandon their shopping carts and you can see that mainly with drop shipping businesses, where there is no brand reality and the amount of abandoned cards there is substantial.

is why it's really good to try to get those visitors that were intending to complete the order actually, just to get in touch with them as soon as possible. 

Claus Lauter: Makes perfect sense. Obviously your most of the traffic that's coming in, , is being paid for in one or the other way. That might be too great ads and whatsoever, and this is getting more and more expensive.

So somebody who made it all the way through your cards or through your checkout page is a very valuable person or potential client in the best sense of the work There's different ways to fight that. We want to go a little bit deeper into that. Give me an overview on what's like the traditional way to try to recover a abundant card.

Tadej Bogataj: The most basic one is used by Facebook. It's just called retargeting, but that's not immediate. It's not that straightforward. Then there's the option of emails. Which honestly, it's the cheapest solution out there because you can't even say that they have a prize because they're so cheap and there are so many existing solutions, either on WK or so Shopify that you can just plug and play.

And that's it You do need to prepare the emails and everything, but that's it mainly. So those are the two. So far used solutions. The problem with emails, for example, is that you don't check your emails regularly. They go into the spam or the promotion folder. One really interesting thing is if you think about the demographics of people, elderly people, non-tech savvy people, they're gonna check emails, once a month or even less, the project we had was why not try to get them back with a more straightforward, immediate solution. did you know that 93% of, text messages get opened in a matter of three minutes in under three minutes after getting received? just that information alone makes you like really interested in the idea of using text messages for retargeting, recovering abandoned carts and stuff like that.

And that's the thing, that's what we developed cards is exactly that. Like you can just immediately get back in touch with the visitor who abandoned their card. And when you see the results, for example, like a 40%, rate, 99% open rate, that's the thing that gets you interested in using text messages overall as an abandoned carp recovery solution.

Now, don't get me wrong, text messages aren't a solution for everything. Like, you won't replace emails with text messages. you don't wanna use text messages for newsletters, , like mass sending because they're too expensive and the results aren't error. But for recovering abandoned carts, like, just to give you an example, you abandoned a cart.

And five minutes later you receive a text message, Hey, you left something in the card. Don't forget to complete your order. Be before the stock runs out, or just sending them like, Hey, were you not satisfied? With the delivery options, you'll screw shipping. And here you go. So those initiatives to get the people to complete their orders, especially in drop shipping or clothing and stuff like that.

I mean, overall it's really useful, but you do need to focus on what the site is selling to really use the specific text message and to send it at the appropriate time, but still, With text messages, we see that our users get a average return of investment of 2400%, which is really nice. Of course we do have other clients, for example, sides that are brand oriented.

Those like dominate, like they have a. Return of investment of over 7000%, like the open rate is like 99%, but the click rate is around 60%. So the thing with text messages , is that they're really personal. You immediately see them because you check your phone over 200 times per day.

It rains. You check it out. Elderly people know how to use it younger people of course know how to use it. So yeah, it's a great solution that if you find a way how to implement it in your existing site. Is perfect. And that's what we did with Carbos. Just to make it like a streamline process, a plug and play solution that already has the text messages prepared, translated into all the languages that we offer sending.

And to make it even easier, when someone abandons their card, we actually check. What language that person is speaking. What's his model language? so we automatically send them the text message in their own language. for example, if you wanna use Carlos on your website, you just connect your to work s and that's it.

Claus Lauter: these are some very amazing numbers and I have used, SMS text messages in my own store. What you said that the return on investment is in the thousands of percent, that usually is mind boggling, but it's true. That's what you get out of it. It's just so much higher than any other communication channel that you can have in your business.

Now, one thing you need to be clear of when you talking about s m s marketing is about the legal side of things. There's a couple of things that you need to follow. Tell me about it. 

Tadej Bogataj: there's different regulations in the USA and Europe. So you've got the GDPR and ccc, p a and usa and then each country has their own specific legislations, but in essence, some countries say that you need to get consent due to the gdpr.

countries say that you don't need to get specific, consent since someone is already in the process of negotiation with you. As they are on the checkout page and they were interested in making a buy on your site, you are in negotiation with that person. Additionally they might just have a problem with, the checkout process, meaning that you are allowed to send a text message either asking if they're not satisfied with, the offer

there is different ways of how you wanna, tackle the communication, sentences. But in essence, you are allowed to send text messages additionally, which is important. For example, in the USA you are not allowed to send more than one text message for 24 hours. Then there's another aspect of it. that you need to keep in mind is the do not disturb mode.

You should not send text messages during the night hours. So of course, Cardos has all this, embedded in the system by default. And one more thing, I forgot this one. Like the unsubscribe option. Unsubscribe option also needs to be available within each text message. So that's another thing that you need to consider always.

Claus Lauter: Yeah, it should be a no-brainer that you don't send out, at 2:00 AM in the morning, to your potential clients and they will not be very happy with that is that sequences, that you're only allowed to do one message every 24 hours in the United States. Now, a abandoned card flow usually has more than one reminder message in there.

From your experience with your clients, how many messages are they sending out for abundant cards? 

Tadej Bogataj: The best way to go about it is to send you to three text messages. Of course, some of our clients, have more. But overall what we see is, for example, if the first text message has a return of investment of roughly around 3000, percent, , the next text message will drop down for around from around 20 to 40% and so on.

So within each text message, rate of the return of investment drop somewhere around there. Because of the high numbers. What I noticed with our existing users is that, a lot of clients, companies decide to stop sending text messages. like the fifth text message for example, if it's below what thousand percent, but still, a return of investment of 800% is.

A lot, but because they're used to such high numbers, they like to just keep it to two to three text messages, which is enough, in a way. For example, the first text message you usually wanna send out if after five to 10 minutes, 15 minutes, as soon as possible. The second one, what I noticed was that it performs best if you send it after three to six hours.

And then the next one, after 24 hours. And usually that's it. there are exceptions to this. If you sell something specifically oriented, you can send out more text messages because they won't mind usually, especially if you offer, first a discount and free shipping or maybe a gift with if they completed the order.

So, You always have to think like specifically to this site, but overall, two to three text messages is enough. 

Claus Lauter: Okay. Now Kapos, you have one feature which really stands out is that the internalization is built in. So people get a message in their language. How does that work? And when it comes to the text itself, do you have some templates in there or do I need to do the translation?

How 

Tadej Bogataj: does that work? I'll answer the easy part first. The templates are already built in. There's roughly around 20 to 30 text messages, script repaired, they're also translated into all the languages that we offer. Sending the translations were done, by local people and rechecked by local people so that it's really, perfect that it's not, how it is if you would put something into Google Translate or even when you put some go, send, to a professional translation service.

It's not always rigid. Those text messages that are already prepared are just like top notch. You don't have to think about But you can write your own custom text messages and then input your translations as well, so you've got everything covered. in regards to the language detection, it's from the phone number and the IP address of the We combine those two powers just to find the language of the recipient because still, you need to consider that. You might be buying something from US side, but you live in Holland, for example. What kind of text message would you have to receive? So it's better see, you put weights on different of checking the recipients language or phone number and a few other things as well.

But those are the easiest 

Claus Lauter: to explain. Okay. Now one feature you offer is of also a post-purchase offer. So that not really stops when the first order is in, you can do more. How does that work? 

Tadej Bogataj: When you complete an order you automatically, if you have this activated, you fall into the , post-purchase sequence.

Usually this is just one or three depending, , text messages. This is usually useful only for brand sites. For drop shippers, this isn't useful. Because the first thing we just did it actually a few days ago, we renamed it from post-purchase to win back because it makes more sense, post-purchase is meant to be sent.

Exactly after a purchase has been done. And you don't wanna send special offers via the phone, but you wanna do a post-purchase offer on the website itself. When you complete an order, you immediately see a post-purchase offer. That's how you tackle that thing. But with post-purchase text messages, now known as winback text messages, you usually send out the text messages.

Send out the text message after around 30 days. Saying, Hey, thanks for being our loyal customer of ours. Here's a coupon code and go buy something, whatever you want on our site, , for a discount of course. And I would add one thing here that's interesting, and really useful, that's even extends the conversion rates and the return of investment.

When you click on the link in the text message, for example, if it's an abandoned card, you get to a checkout page. By default and it's already prefilled with your information. Of course when you click on the link in the post purchase or now known as Winback Hat's message, you get to the main page where you get a notification that there is a special offer.

As such, put stuff into the card that you wanna buy when you get to the checkout due to card boss. Your information is also already refilled, so you only need to click complete order. I don't wanna brag too much about carbos, but the thing is simplicity in mind, just like Apple does it, you don't have to think about it.

You don't have to think about the settings, and the recipient doesn't have to think about his information, what he. Again, needs to fill out and everything, everything is so streamlined that it's like there is no hiccups in the process in between. No, 

Claus Lauter: absolutely a no-brainer. If the form field is already filled out there's nothing that basically can't stop once just to click the order button.

And, convenience obviously is key there. And to make it as flawed as possible the client, for the customer. Now when it comes to implementation card process is available as an app. How does the implementation work? Obviously you need to have your phone number or a phone number.

How are the steps to get it up and running? 

Tadej Bogataj: Well, for example, on top, I, you install the app, you register at card, add the site to your dashboard. You receive an api, key, you put it in to the Shopify app, then that's it. 

This is less than five minutes, but we just say it's a five minute pause. Okay. 

Claus Lauter: Tell me a little bit about the pricing structure. 

Tadej Bogataj: don't do any hidden fees or anything because obviously e-commerce sites do the hidden fees, don't convert it well, so we don't do hidden fees as well.

It's actually just a pay as you go business model. Each country has their own pricing for the text message because we really focus on the best gateways possible. You can always offer a price for a text message really, really cheap. But that just means that not all of the text messages really get delivered because the gateway provider uses the not the worst, possible ways, but they just use farms of phones with prepaid numbers and they just take advantage of the unlimited or how is it called?

The problem here is that your account can quickly go into a spam pool, I mean as a spam, and doesn't even send out text messages. That's why we focus on the best possible gateways in each country that we offer sending. The prices are per text message for country. And that's it. No other hidden fees, nothing.

You fill out your account with specific credits and that's it. But of course, because we're so, uh, focused on proving the, that text messages are the solution for recovering abandon cards, we actually offer free initial text messages. We offer 500 text messages. For free upon registration, and you don't need to enter anything, , you don't need to put in your credit card or something like that to test it out and just register, test it out to see with 500 text messages if your average order value is around 30 euros.

You can easily expect, to generate roughly around 700 to 1,200 euros of profit just from that, from the free text We are really satisfied with the solution. We believe in our, because as you mentioned it, it's a no-brainer solution, I would highly recommend the listeners of this PAs podcast to test it out and let us know, that they heard us here on this podcast and they tested out the solution and what results they got.

, it would really be interesting to see that. 

Claus Lauter: As I said with 500 free emails SMS messages that you can't do anything wrong. that's the best test ever. And I'm a hundred percent convinced that they will see a return on investment, not only because it's free, but from what they make on revenue, which they wouldn't have made otherwise, and will be convinced that s m s tax messaging is a awesome way to, , generate revenue for your business today.

Where can people find out more about 

Tadej Bogataj: carpus? Just on the website, card Boss io I can get if someone's specifically interested, they can either send us an email or DM me on my LinkedIn profile. Anything goes, our support team usually responds in within six to 12 hours, sometimes even sooner.

So we're really active on the support part. Just send us an email. Send us a text message, that's an option. , I would add one thing actually when you mentioned previously, like, uh, it's a no-brainer. It's the profit of revenue that they wouldn't get otherwise.

That's the thing. Abandoned carts aren't such a big deal. If you think about it, that's why Carbos is so freaking simple to use. You just click from your site and that's it. Because companies don't actually have time focus on so many different aspects of business. they've got Facebook problems, they've got shipping problems, debt stock and everything like that. They don't have time to deal with abandoned carts and like optimizing every part of it. And this is why Card Boss is like the main solution. They're just connected, done deal. 

Claus Lauter: Yeah, what I always uh, preach is the 80 20 rule, so that's 20% of whatever you do in your business gives you 80% of your business, and I think within the 20% of apps you should have in your store.

S m s marketing is definitely one of the one that you need to have because it gives you so much. For exactly what you said, for little to no work gives you a huge return on investment today. I will put the links in the show notes as always, send you just one click away. And thank you for giving us a, having given us an overview of, , what s m S marketing can do for your business.

I think it's a huge opportunity for every merchant out there. Thanks 

Tadej Bogataj: so much. It was lovely being here and I think that it's a huge opportunity right now before everybody grabs this wagon and then all of a sudden text messages will be all over the place. So right now I think it is the best time to go about it.

Excellent. Thanks so much. Talk.