There’s one trend in email marketing that every marketer and entrepreneur needs to pay attention to: cart abandonment emails or retargeting. While the topic is always relevant, it should be top of mind for retailers moving into holiday marketing mode. Retargeting is a follow-up marketing strategy that goes after the customers who loaded items into their shopping carts on eCommerce websites, and then left without completing the purchase. The reasons for abandonment vary, from frustration with the checkout process to real-life distractions that come up while the customer is trying to finish processing a sale.

On average, across the eCommerce industry, The Baymard Institute estimates that 67% of attempted purchases end in abandonment. Other sources suggest that numbers are rising, as high as 74%. The real costs of these abandonments to the economy’s bottom line are all over the place, but one recent Inc piece estimated it was in the region of $4 trillion dollars. But according to Forbes, a startling 80% of big retailers are doing nothing about it. Even though the numbers aren’t 100% in agreement across sources, one thing is clear: they’re high, and there is a tremendous opportunity for businesses to use retargeting technology.  (more…)