Exploring Abandoned Cart Strategy with Topo Designs

For the marketing team at Topo Designs, there wasn’t a question of whether they’d set up an abandoned cart campaign. It was when.

“It was a given we would do abandoned cart,” says Abby Czarniecki, Topo Designs’ digital marketing coordinator. “We just needed to get our ducks in a row and our content together. Retargeting those people is low-hanging fruit. It’s silly not to do it.”

The Colorado-based retail company specializes in the outdoor lifestyle—bags, backpacks, accessories, and apparel all made in the United States. Online and at their 4 brick-and-mortar stores, they sell items that work just as well for a multi-week hike as they do for the office.

But customers get distracted online, and when they forget about their ‘70s-inspired bag before checkout, Topo Designs now has a way of encouraging interested shoppers to return.

“We looked at some other apps but the templates were terrible to work with,” Abby says. “It made more sense to go through MailChimp, and was much easier. We use Shopify, and implementation was really simple.”

They started their abandoned cart campaigns in mid-June, launching with a simple email to set baseline metrics. No incentive, just a friendly reminder with a link to the product, along with a short version of the Topo Designs story and values.

After they set their default, they chose their first variable to test: a discount.

“We don’t do a lot of sales or promotions on our website, and we’re very particular about how we use coupons,” Abby says. They decided to compare a percentage off with a dollar-off version of the same campaign, combining clever copy with their distinct brand style to stay consistent across channels.

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When it comes to discounts, they got a clear answer to what works for their customers.

“We figured out which type of offer yielded a higher average order value between percentage off versus dollars-off option," Abby explains. "Rather than just looking at the number of carts that were recovered, we knew we had to examine the full picture. Each time we tested a different offer we’d measure the change in the average cart value in MailChimp, which ultimately helped us pick which offer to go with."

Their next test is time periods to experiment with a 6-hour limit for a discount compared to 24 hours, along with iterations of email content to strike the right tone with image and copy.

"We consistently see a 20% click rate with our abandoned cart email," Abby says.

They’ve also been perfecting their segmentation strategy. For their collaboration with Woolrich, they pulled the emails of people who were interested in the last collection’s sold-out items.

“We can say, ‘Remember last year when you wanted to get your hands on that bag?'" Abby says. "‘We have a new one you’ll like.’”

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