If there is one essential email automation every e-commerce store needs running before anything else, it is the Abandoned Cart Flow. The numbers alone make the case: studies consistently show that somewhere between 70-80% percent of online shopping carts are abandoned before checkout (Source: Baymard Institute). That is not a small leak. That is the majority of people who showed enough interest in your business to add something to their cart, but left without buying.
The good news is that a lot of those people did not leave because they decided against the purchase. Life happens. They got distracted. The kids needed their attention. They wanted to think about it. They had a question they could not find the answer to. Their phone rang. That’s not the point. The point is that a well-timed, well-written abandoned cart sequence brings a meaningful percentage of those people back and attribute for what otherwise would be potential lost revenue.
Here is how to build an Abandoned Cart Email Flow that actually works.
How Many Emails to Send
Two to three emails is the standard for most e-commerce stores, and it is the structure we recommend for the majority of our clients. One email is rarely enough to recover a cart. Two is better. Three gives you the right number of touchpoints to be persistent without being overly annoying.
Each email in the Abandoned Cart sequence has a specific job to do, and understanding what that job is shapes everything about how you write it. The three-email structure covers a reminder, a follow-up with reinforcement, and a final push with an incentive. More on each of those below.
Some stores run a two-email Abandoned Cart sequence, which can work fine if your average order value is lower or your customers tend to be more decisive. Some run four. For most stores, two to three is the sweet spot, and it is the best place to start if you are building an Abandoned Cart flow for the first time.
Email One: The Reminder
The first email in your Abandoned Cart Flow should go out quickly. Ideally we recommend sending this trigger 30 to 60 minutes after the cart is abandoned. Waiting too long in that first window is one of the most common mistakes stores make. By the time 24 hours have passed, a significant portion of your potential revenue recoveries are already gone. The purchase intent was highest right after they left, and the first email should capitalize on that.
This email is a simple, clean reminder. The copy should be short and human. You are not pitching them. You are not applying pressure. You are just popping back in to let them know their cart is still there.
The subject line should feel natural rather than automated. Something like “You left something behind” or “Still thinking it over?” works better than “Your cart is about to expire” for most brands, because it sounds like a person, not a system. The tone you want is helpful, not urgent. Urgency comes later.
The body of the first Abandoned Cart email should show the item or items they left in the cart with a clear image, the product name, and a direct link back to their cart. Keep the rest of the email minimal. One clear call to action, maybe a brief line of copy, and their product. That is it. Do not distract them with other products or promotions in email one.
Email Two: The Follow-Up
The second email should send 24 hours after the first Abandoned Cart Email. By now, the subscriber has had time to think. Some of them came back on their own after your first email. For the ones who did not, there is usually a reason. This email is where you start to address that reason.
Email two is the right place to bring in social proof. Customer reviews, star ratings, or a short testimonial about the specific product they left behind all help at this stage because they speak to hesitation. If someone is on the fence, hearing from other people who loved the product is often what tips them over.
This email can also include a gentle reminder of your return policy, your shipping timeframe, or any guarantee you offer. These are the things people quietly wonder about before making a purchase, and surfacing them here removes a potential barrier without the customer having to ask.
The subject line for email two can be slightly more direct than the first. Some examples of good subject lines are “Other people are loving this” or “Here is what customers are saying” work well when you are leading with social proof. If you are going the reassurance route, something like “A few things you might want to know” or “Questions before you order?” invites the reader in without feeling pushy.
Keep the cart contents visible in this email as well. The product image and a link back to their cart should appear in every email in the sequence. You want to make it as frictionless as possible to pick up exactly where they left off.
Email Three: The Incentive
The third and final email in your sequence should go out 48 to 72 hours after the cart was abandoned. At this point, the subscriber has seen two reminders and has not acted. If they are going to convert, they likely need an additional push. This is where an offer comes in.
A small discount (typically 10 percent or free shipping) introduced here does two things. It creates a new reason to take action, and it signals that this is the last email in the sequence, which creates a natural sense of finality. Framing the offer with a clear expiration (valid for 24 or 48 hours) adds urgency that is real and time-bound rather than manufactured.
There is an ongoing debate in e-commerce about whether to offer a discount in abandoned cart flows at all, because some customers will learn to abandon carts intentionally to wait for an offer. This is a real concern but often an overstated one. If your first two emails are not discount-based, you are already conditioning most subscribers that discounts are not automatic. The third-email offer feels earned rather than expected in that context.
If you prefer not to use a discount in this email, a free gift with purchase, a free shipping upgrade, or even a strong urgency message about limited stock can serve a similar purpose without touching your margin.
Copy Principles That Work Across the Whole Abandoned Cart Sequence
The copy in your abandoned cart emails should feel like it was written by someone who works at your brand and genuinely wants to help the customer get what they came for. Not a bot. Not AI. Not a premade template. A person.
That means using conversational language rather than formal or overly polished copy. It means keeping sentences short and direct. It means using the customer’s first name where it adds warmth without feeling forced. And it means making the email about them, not about you. “You left something behind” is about them. “Our products are waiting for you” is about your store. The difference is subtle but real in how it lands.
Subject lines deserve more attention than most brands give them. Your open rate for email one is particularly important because it determines how many people even see the rest of your sequence. Test subject lines regularly. In Klaviyo, you can run A/B tests on subject lines directly inside the flow without any workaround. Run tests for a few weeks at a time and let the data show you what resonates with your specific audience.
The call to action button in every email should be direct and product-focused. “Return to my cart,” “Complete my order,” or “Grab it before it’s gone” all outperform generic copy like “Shop now” or “Click here” because they connect the action to what the subscriber was already doing.
What Not to Do
A few common mistakes that undermine otherwise solid abandoned cart flows are worth calling out directly.
Waiting too long to send the first email is the most costly. If your first email goes out six or twelve hours after the cart is abandoned, you are giving up a significant portion of potential recoveries. Send it within the hour.
Making the emails too long is another common issue. Abandoned cart emails do not need to tell your brand story or showcase your entire catalog. They need to show the product, give the reader a reason to act, and link them back to their cart. Everything else is noise.
Sending all three emails too close together is the third mistake. Spreading them out over three to four days gives each email time to do its job before the next one arrives. Sending them back to back makes the sequence feel automated and pushy, which works against the conversational tone you are trying to achieve.
If you want to audit your current abandoned cart flow or build one from scratch in Klaviyo, we are happy to help you set it up the right way.
Continue reading: Post-purchase email sequences: Turn buyers into repeat customers and The 6 Klaviyo flows every e-commerce store needs.