This article provides information about abandoned cart workflows and the Emma for Shopify integration, which was sunset in 2023.

End of Support Notice for the Emma for Shopify Integration
The Emma for Shopify integration that this article was initially created for is no longer updated or supported by Emma or Shopify. As an alternative, you can use Emma's Zapier integration, Emma’s SFTP sync tool, or Campaign Monitor by Marigold's Shopify integration.

Abandoned Cart Workflows

With our powerful automation tool, you have the ability to set up a workflow that will target people who have shopped at your online store and have left items in their cart, but have not completed a purchase, commonly referred to as an abandoned cart campaign. The workflow can then be customized so that you can effectively target all customers who abandon their cart or you can filter to only send abandoned cart campaigns to those who garner a certain cart total.

You'll be able to track the data on your Response page or dive deeper into the ROI and conversion metrics based on your Shopify activity.

Creating an Automated Workflow for Abandoned Shopify Carts

Prior to setting up the automated workflow, you'll need to create the email campaign(s) that will be sent to the customers who abandon their carts in your Shopify store. But before we get started, there are two important aspects to remember.

Before Creating an Abandoned Cart Campaign

• Make sure you turn off any abandoned cart emails that are being sent directly from Shopify, so that your customers do not receive two abandoned cart emails.

• Due to our Anti-Spam Policy, any abandoned cart campaigns that you create with Emma will only be sent to contacts that have accepted to receive your marketing communications because we cannot send to anyone who has not officially opted in to receive your mailings.

Create Your Campaign

1. Navigate to your Campaigns tab.
2. Click on the Create new campaign button.
3. Give the campaign a name and click on the Continue button.
4. While building your campaign, there are several Shopify-specific tags that you may want to include. These tags will pull in the product image, titles, and prices of items in your shop and allow you to create a View Cart button, which will take the customer back to their cart.
5. When you are finished, click on the Save & close button.

Build Your Workflow

Now that you've created and customized an abandoned cart campaign, it's time to build the workflow.

1. Navigate to your Automation tab.
2. Click on the Create new workflow button.
3. Give the workflow a name, like "Abandoned cart workflow".
4. Select the groups and / or segments that the campaign will be sent to.

5. Click on the Trigger event field to bring up the list of available trigger types. If your Shopify account is connected to Emma, you'll see an option labeled Abandoned cart event that you should select.

   

6. Select whether you want to send to everyone who abandoned their cart or set a cart total criteria to only send to those who intended to spend a certain amount. For example, those with a cart total greater than $100. This logic is perfect for targeting those with larger carts, determining if they'll be using a discount code, or other enticements.

   

7. One caveat to creating an abandoned cart workflow is that you must have a WAIT step or delay (minimum 1 hour) as your starting point. This is required because we don’t want customers to be sent abandoned cart emails the second they begin a checkout.

   Our system will automatically check to make sure that they haven’t made a purchase during the delay period. If they do make a purchase during the delay period, we won’t send them the abandoned cart email. If the customer goes back and adds more items or has another interaction with their cart during the delay period, the delay time will start over for them from the time of that last interaction.

   

8. Click on the Add action button and select Send mailing from the list.
9. Use the dropdown menu to choose the campaign that you customized for this workflow.
10. Click on the Save button.
11. When you're ready, click on the toggle to switch the workflow to Active.

Test the Workflow

It's always a good idea to test your workflow for confirmation that it's working just as you want it to. After you've switched the workflow to Active, you will need to go to your Shopify site and create a cart in your store, as if you were a customer shopping. However, the workflow will ONLY be triggered once the customer puts an item in their cart AND THEN goes through the first step of putting in contact information OR they must have already been logged into the store or site, then the event will be triggered when they click checkout.

Be sure to wait an hour or the amount of time you gave to the trigger, without going back and editing your cart because if you do that, the wait time will start over again. After the wait time is up, check your email for the abandoned cart campaign.