Memorial Day’s coming. Are you ready? Are your automations? We will fix!
Picture a potential customer.
She visits your site 1 night before bed, browses, and bounces.
Good thing you’ve got your abandonment flows all set up!
Except…
😶: The email reads like a brand intro, but she already knows you. Her eyes glaze. She has stopped reading.
🤦♀️: There’s no link back to the product she was interested in. Her eyes glaze. She has stopped shopping.
💤: She gets the email in the middle of the night, so it’s buried next time she’s online. Her eyes close. She is asleep.
Bad abandonment flows happen to good brands all the time.
In fact, they’re kinda the norm. Even for great brands. The bar is in hell!
When everything looks great on the surface, the gap – the 1 between current revenue and the revenue you COULD be making – gets camouflaged. 🥸
The best time to fix your flows was 6 months ago.
The 2nd best time is now, before Memorial Day sales kick off. We’re 2 weeks out!
Now, I’m absolutely not telling you to rip everything out from the ground up. I AM saying you should get a fresh test in place that can capture all the traffic about to head your way. It’s heading your way because you paid for it, so let’s get the infra in place to make the most out of that ad spend, yes?
For example: Instant AI can go live and start improving your abandonment flows in 2 minutes.
If you’re wondering if yours need fixing, the answer is YES, and also HURRY!
Because…
ABANDONMENT FLOWS ARE USUALLY ABANDONED FLOWS
When’s the last time you rejiggered your abandonment flows? Or looked at your segments? Be honest.
You probably can’t remember. (And, you’re not alone! But you are in bad company!)
They’re often built and never touched again.
The problem: abandoned abandonment flows don’t compound over time, like an investment.
They DEPRECIATE.
Especially during critical sales periods, when you’ve got exponentially more shoppers looking for deals. Like Memorial Day weekend. 🎆
Many abandonment flows have serious structural issues that defeat the purpose of following up. Instead of bringing shoppers back, they’re bouncing them OUT of the funnel. If you don’t catch me when I’m in the mood to shop, someone else will, and I’ll be out of $ before you come back. Ask me how I know.
Here are the 3 places they go wrong:
THE 3 FATAL FLAWS OF ABANDONMENT FLOWS
1️⃣. Telling the whole brand story, instead of selling the specific product.
You might lose this potential customer forever.
This is NOT the time for a brand manifesto.
Yet many abandonment flows are designed like brand campaigns.
They look beautiful, have pretty lifestyle imagery, thoughtful copy, a heartfelt founder note – all of which are great in other contexts. But here? They’re missing the point.
The customer doesn’t need any of that right now!
At this point, they already know your brand. Most shoppers are way deeper in the consideration phase than you realize.
What they need is a clear, appropriately-urgent reminder of A) the product they browsed and B) a clear path back to purchase.
It’s time to LAND THE PLANE, not introduce the crew and serve snacks.
2️⃣. Operating 1 static flow.
So many brands send the 1st (overly brand campaign-y) abandonment email within an hour.
Then the 2nd one within 24 hours, etc.
The same emails, in the same order, to EVERY shopper.
With the same subject line, body template, discount rule, and product block logic.
Nothing dynamic happens, depending on who the shopper is, what they browsed or when.
It’s IMPERSONALIZED.
Pretty ironic that something this rigid is called a flow…
3️⃣. Treating every shopper the same way.
On any given day, a variety of people browse and bounce from your site.
🎾: Loyal customers.
🎾: Price-sensitive 1st-time shoppers.
🎾: Randos who looked at 1 thing and left.
🎾: Probably me.
A note defending the emoji choice BTW:
These shoppers SHOULDN’T all receive the same abandonment email.
Yet they often do. No matter their behavioral differences.
The missed opportunities for personalization add up, especially during big sale periods.
Let’s talk about how to start scooping them up.
THE INSTANT FIX
You need better, more optimized, more personalized, and just plain MORE abandonment flows.
This may sound like a lot of work – but it DOESN’T have to be.
Just 1 quick review of your segments, timing, and SMS tie-ins can lift conversions overnight. Especially if they’ve been untouched for a few months.
2 steps to start dusting off your flows:
- Pull flow analytics and look for open rate, click rate, & recovery rate at each step. Eyeball where people are dropping off inside that sequence.
- Once you find the problem – check timing, subject lines, and discount logic.
Of course, then, you’ll want to audit your SMS touchpoints/coordination, your flow segments (high-AOV dropoffs should get different sequences, for example), and refresh your creative.
OR, you could be up and running on Instant AI in a few minutes, which will do everything I just described for you, automatically.
The way Instant works is the same way every great abandonment flow works, but without the micromanaging on your part: the copy, subject line, products shown, send time, and number of steps are PERSONALIZED to make each shopper segment more likely to convert.
So abandonment emails feel like a continuation of the shopping experience, NOT an interruption.
Some shoppers will buy without a discount. Others won’t. Did you know a lot of shoppers are now trained to wait for the discount code in your abandonment flow? Of course you knew that. We have unfortunately created monsters by all pulling the same tricks LOL.
Instead of automatically giving 10% off to everyone, Instant AI uses the smallest possible incentive, when it’s ACTUALLY needed.
So you protect your margin as you bring shoppers back.
Finally, abandonment flows that actually flow!
Plus, they get BETTER over time, as Instant AI learns and builds on what works.
No more leaving your flows unchanged & gathering dust all quarter.
It only takes 2-3 steps to set up Instant AI:
🔌: Connect your Shopify.
🔌: Connect your DNS.
And…nope, that’s it. You’re live.
🔎: If you want, review your flows. (Optional, because Instant will do this for you, regardless!)
There’s no need to reinvent your tech stack.
It’s an effortless optimization, as easy to turn off as it is on.
But, when you see the results, you’ll probably wanna keep Instant AI on.
Most brands report at least a 3x email revenue lift within 15 days.
David Protein, Naturium, and JENNY BIRD all have.
LET’S GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING…
Now, picture that same potential customer we started with:
The 1 who visits your site before bed, browses, and bounces.
With Instant AI, her abandonment email is now:
👣: Personalized, with a structure & a subject line tied to what’s working that week.
🎯: Showing the specific SKU, in the specific color, flavor, or style SHE looked at.
👛: Offering a small discount, IF necessary (e.g. if the 1st doesn’t convert).
⌚: Sent at the time she’s more likely to convert.
Instantly better, no?
WHAT TO DO FOR THE NEXT 2 MINUTES
This is not a drill.
Memorial Day’s 2 weeks away, and you know what that means.
More traffic.
More intent.
More pressure to convert.
More success with abandonment flows personalized to different customer segments.
Instant AI makes it easy and integrates seamlessly with Klaviyo and the rest of your tech stack.
Go live by Memorial Day to get 50% off the first 2 months.
Plus, who knows how much extra $$$ in sales.
Sell away, sell away, sell away!
