In quarter three this year the global cart abandonment rate was 74%, according to SaleCycle.
The UK and US-based business, which helps its clients recover lost sales online, said this means three in every four online shoppers put something in their shopping cart and then leave the site.
SaleCycle founder Dominic Edmunds said it is of course a massive buying signal for marketers to take advantage of, and yet on average, 85% of these would-be/could-be purchasers walk away from websites anonymously.
That means no email address, no personal details and no way of getting back in touch with that online ‘potential’ customer.
On the back of launching a new product which claims to overcome this problem, we caught up with Edmunds to find out more about what On-Site Remarketing (OSR) really means.
Q: Let’s start with the basics – where did the idea from OSR come from?
DE: It’s quite simple really, we’ve specialised in email remarketing for almost four years now and have been overwhelmed by the results, however one thing always stood out. The fact that 15% of abandoners leave an email address behind.
Your mind starts to boggle at the ROI you could return if you could communicate with 100% of abandoners.
It was then a case of looking for a simple and impactful way of creating influence. The use of bespoke screen real estate that overlays the client website at the point of abandonment seemed so logical.
Q: What does it look like in practice? Do you foresee most brands taking a similar style in the approach they take?
DE: That’s the beauty of the team we’ve built. We have an in-house design team which already understands abandonment in intricate detail in order to design optimal email remarketing designs.
This creates another opportunity to build on brand messaging that generates revenue.
It’s essential that no two designs are the same, just as no two brands are the same. Of course there are items that can be common across brands (such as the ability to recommend complementary products), however the application is fully bespoke.
Q: There is plenty of advice out there for ‘reducing abandonment’ and many agencies and services – where does OSR fit in?
DE: There are a huge number of tools at the modern marketers disposal. From display retargeting and chat to email remarketing. However, On Site Remarketing is complimentary and doesn’t interfere with technologies designed to add value before or after the abandonment and OSR focuses on the point of abandonment itself.
Q: With Christmas just around the corner, can you give us your three predictions for performance marketing trends in the 2014?
DE: The biggest shift I see in the PM space is that we will see the benefits of ‘big data’ merging with new and existing technology.
The PM space is crammed with opportunities to drive sales, however this will be taken to the next level by harnessing browse, purchasing and behavioral data. We already understand the concept of dynamic messaging, but this will also become the norm with providers who are unable to tap into relevant data left licking their wounds.