Site abandonment triggered emails allow you to automatically send an email to users who have left your site without completing a purchase. The email will include content relevant to the abandoned browsing session. The supported abandonment use cases include: Cart Abandonment, Product View Abandonment and Category View Abandonment.
This works by using Dynamic Yield’s triggering engine to send information to your ESP such as items in the cart and recommended products. You create the body of the email in your ESP to include data from Dynamic Yield.
Dynamic Yield uses the SendGrid ESP by default, and can also be sent using Oracle Bronto or Listrak. Any other ESP that has rest APIs for sending triggered emails can also be used.
How Triggered Emails Work
Every triggered email flow is composed of five main steps:
- User is identified using his or her email address.
- A trigger event is executed by the user on the site setting off the triggered email.
- The email send time is calculated using the defined delay.
- Cancel events are monitored while the email is pending.
- The email message is sent to the user.
1. User is identified with email address
In order to send an email to a user, Dynamic Yield has to retain an email address associated with this user; we do this by using omni-channel events. Dynamic Yield assigns a unique identifier to every user browsing the site. This identifier (called ‘DYID’) is used to track all user activities in the site and is stored in the browser cookie (or device local storage for apps). When an omni-channel event is fired (i.e. Login, Signup or Register to Newsletter), it includes the user’s hashed email as a parameter. We then use this information to associate the DYID with the hashed email. A special PII compliant DB table holds the link between the hashed and the plain text email which can be used for sending emails to the user.
2. Trigger events executed by user on the site
Dynamic Yield tracks all events performed by your users while browsing your site. Some events can be defined as triggers, meaning they may result in sending an email to the user that performed them. In the most common triggers, data relevant to the trigger event is saved in the Dynamic Yield server. For example, the ‘add to cart’ event is the event triggering a ‘cart abandonment’ email, the relevant data in this case is the items a user currently has in the cart.
3. The email send time is calculated considering the delay
You can set a delay that controls how much time after the trigger event is performed, should the email message be sent. Between the occurrence of the trigger event and the send time – the email is pending for the user.
4. Cancel events are monitored may cancel sending the email
You can define a set of events that will cancel the sending of a pending email message. For example, a purchase event will cancel the sending of a cart abandonment email since it’s always defined as a cancel event for cart abandonment triggered emails.
Note: Frequency capping conditions as well as other settings might also result in suppressing a message.
5. The email message is sent
When the send time arrives and providing no cancel events occurred, the email will be sent. This is done by Dynamic Yield firing an activation API to the email service provider. The API call includes the recipient email address, the email subject, the sender name and email address and most importantly – the HTML content of the email body. Composing the email content in the Dynamic Yield admin is an important step in the definition of a triggered email.
Supported Site Abandonment Use Cases
1. Abandoned Cart Views
A user added items to the shopping cart without completing a purchase will receive an email including the items in the cart and optionally a recommendation widget showing relevant items.
2. Abandoned Product Views
A user has viewed a product in the last session without completing a purchase will receive an email with the recently viewed items and optionally a recommendation widget showing relevant items.
3. Abandoned Category Views
A user has viewed a category page in the last session without completing a purchase will receive an email with a recommendation widget showing relevant items from that category.
4. Custom Event Triggers
You can set any on-site custom event as the email trigger or cancel events. For example, sending a welcome email, or a post-purchase email with personalized product recommendation.