Abandoned Cart Flow
Email MarketingAlso: Cart Recovery Flow · Abandoned Cart Email Sequence · Cart Abandonment Automation
Quick definition
An abandoned cart flow is an automated sequence of emails (sometimes SMS) sent to a shopper who added items to their cart but left without buying. It's triggered by inactivity, usually starting within an hour or two of the abandonment, and aims to bring the shopper back to complete the purchase.
How it varies across Australia
Abandoned cart flows are one of the highest-converting email types Australian ecommerce sends, well above standard campaign email. The gap between a well-built flow and a lazy one-email version is large and shows up directly in recovered revenue.
See email marketing performance across Australian ecommerce →What it actually means
Think of an abandoned cart flow as a shop assistant tapping a customer on the shoulder as they walk toward the door with items still in hand. The moment matters. Too soon and it feels pushy. Too late and the intent has cooled.
Most flows run two to four emails. The first goes out within an hour or two, often a simple reminder with no discount attached. The second, a day or so later, might add social proof or answer a common objection. A third, further out, sometimes introduces an incentive. The sequence is really a graduated argument for coming back, not one email repeated three times.
The flow sits inside your broader marketing automation and email marketing setup, and it depends on the same segmentation logic you'd use for any lifecycle email. Get the trigger timing wrong and you either annoy the shopper or miss the window entirely. This is one of the few automations where the conversion rate lift is large enough to notice within a single reporting cycle, which is why it's usually the first flow any ecommerce brand builds after welcome emails.
An abandoned cart flow isn't a nag. It's a reminder sent to someone who was already halfway through saying yes.
How it shows up
It shows up as a series in your email platform's automation builder, triggered off an ecommerce event like 'checkout started, purchase not completed.' You'll see it referenced in retention and revenue reporting as recovered revenue, usually broken out separately from campaign email. It also shows up in customer complaints when it's tuned badly, most often as 'why is this brand emailing me three times a day.'
The Australian context
Australian ecommerce brands running abandoned cart flows need to factor in the Spam Act 2003 and its consent requirements. A cart abandonment doesn't automatically grant consent to email someone who wasn't already subscribed. If the checkout captured the email address without an opt-in, the flow can sit in legally uncertain territory, something worth checking with whoever manages your compliance before switching a flow on.
Where people get this wrong
Related terms
Common questions
How many emails should an abandoned cart flow have?
Two to four is typical. One email captures the easy recoveries, a second and third handle shoppers who need more convincing. Beyond four, most brands see diminishing returns and rising unsubscribe rates.
When should the first email send?
Within one to two hours of abandonment for most product categories. High-consideration purchases can wait longer, sometimes a full day, since the shopper is more likely to be genuinely still deciding rather than distracted.
Should the flow include a discount?
Not in the first email. Discounts work better held back for a later email in the sequence, if used at all. Leading with a discount teaches customers that abandoning gets rewarded.
Do abandoned cart flows work for SMS as well as email?
Yes, and combining both often outperforms either alone. SMS tends to have a faster response but needs a stricter opt-in given how intrusive it can feel. Consent requirements are tighter for SMS in Australia than for email.
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About New Rebellion
New Rebellion is a marketing intelligence consultancy. We build tools, score Australian businesses on how their marketing actually performs, and publish Debrief every day. This dictionary is part of how we work in the open.
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