Cart abandonment in an online store: how to bring buyers back by email, SMS and WhatsApp

Cart abandonment is the moment when a buyer in your online store has already chosen a product, started to pay, and left. It happens to most carts, not to a minority of them. The good news: some of the people who left an email address or a phone number at checkout can be brought back. In this article we build a recovery sequence of three messages by email, SMS and WhatsApp, with the timing and the content for each one. We explain what the anti-spam law requires before you send, and how to measure in GA4 whether the sequence really brings money back.

Cart abandonment in numbers: why buyers leave at checkout

According to Baymard Institute, which collects 50 separate studies, the average cart abandonment rate stands at 70.22%. It is important to read that number correctly: a large share of abandonments is simply normal online shopping behaviour. In Baymard's survey of online shoppers in the US, 42% said they had abandoned a cart because they were only looking and were not ready to buy.

Once you take that group out, these are the leading reasons in Baymard's data:

• Extra costs too high, such as shipping, taxes and fees: 40%
• Delivery too slow: 20%
• Not trusting the site with credit card details: 19%
• The site required creating an account: 18%
• A long or complicated checkout process: 17%

Why does this matter for your messages? Because a good recovery message answers the reason. If the buyer took fright at the shipping price, "Did you forget something?" will not help. A message that says what shipping costs and when it arrives, will. The reasons themselves are fixed first at checkout, as we set out in our guide to building an online store. Here we deal with what happens after the buyer has already left.

Who you can win back: what has to be in your checkout

A recovery message goes only to someone who left their details. So two things at checkout determine how many carts you can even try to win back:

1. An email address or a phone number in the first field. If the email is only asked for at the last step, someone who leaves halfway through has left you nothing.
2. A consent checkbox for marketing messages, not ticked in advance, next to that same field. Without consent, a message encouraging a purchase may breach the anti-spam law. More on that below.

In Shopify the feature is built in. According to Shopify's help centre, a checkout counts as abandoned if it has not been completed more than ten minutes after the customer entered an email address. You can send a recovery email manually, or set up an automatic email and choose how long after the abandonment it goes out.

In WooCommerce you do it with a plugin. For example AutomateWoo, a paid plugin from Woo, sends abandoned cart reminders by email, and knows how to save the email address of a guest buyer entered at checkout. It can send SMS through a paid Twilio account. The differences between the two platforms, costs and plugins included, are in our Shopify versus WooCommerce comparison.

The recovery sequence: three messages, and when to send each one

This is the sequence we recommend starting from. The timings are a starting point from our experience, not a law, so test them against your own audience.

Three rules you do not compromise on:

• Stop the moment there is a purchase. A buyer who completed an order and then received "Did you forget something?" feels that nobody is listening.
• The link goes back to the full cart. Not to the home page, and not to an empty cart.
• A discount is not the default. Buyers who get a coupon every time they abandon may learn to abandon. In our experience, free shipping in the third message is usually better than a percentage off, because it answers the most common reason head-on.

And what should you not write? An accusing tone, or a subject line such as "You abandoned your cart!". Write like a good salesperson in a shop: the product is waiting, here are the answers, and we are here if you have a question.

SMS and WhatsApp: when they are worth it

Email is cheap and suits the first message. SMS and WhatsApp, by contrast, cost money for every message, and they are also more intrusive. So keep them for the second message, for high-value carts, and only for people who consented.

WhatsApp. A business-initiated message is sent through the WhatsApp Business Platform, in a template approved in advance. According to Meta's documentation, since 1 July 2025 billing has been per message: you pay for each template message delivered, at a rate that depends on the template's category and the recipient's country. On top of that, WhatsApp's business messaging policy only permits you to approach someone who gave you their number and consented to receive messages from you. How templates work and how they are approved we set out in our guide to WhatsApp marketing.

SMS. You send these through an SMS provider or a plugin in your store. The message is short: the shop name, one sentence and a link back to the cart. Add UTMs to the link, so you can see separately how much each channel brought in. How to build a link like that we explained in our guide to UTMs.

What the anti-spam law requires of an abandoned cart message

In Israel, advertising in email and text messages is governed by Section 30A of the Communications Law (Telecommunications and Broadcasts), Israel's anti-spam law. We are not lawyers. So we will quote the wording of the law, and explain what we do in practice.

Is a cart reminder an advertisement? The law defines an "advertising message", among other things, as a message distributed commercially whose purpose is to encourage the purchase of a product or a service. An abandoned cart message is written for exactly that purpose, so we treat it as an advertisement.

The rule. Under Section 30A(b), an advertiser may not send an advertising message by fax, automatic dialling system, electronic message or short text message without the prior express consent of the recipient, in writing. An "electronic message" is defined in the law as a message transmitted over the internet, without naming any particular application.

The exception. Section 30A(c) permits sending without consent only where three conditions are met together. First, the recipient gave their details in the course of purchasing a product or service, or in the course of negotiations for such a purchase, and the shop told them the details would be used to send advertising. Second, they were given an opportunity to refuse, and did not refuse. Third, the advertisement concerns a product of a similar kind. A buyer at checkout may meet the first part, but only if the notice and the option to refuse really did appear there.

What has to appear in the message. Under Section 30A(e): the word "advertisement" at the start of the message, and in the subject line of an email; the advertiser's name, address and contact details; and the right to ask to be removed, with a simple way of doing so. In a text message, under the same section, you state only the name and the contact details for giving notice of refusal. And under Section 30A(j), a court may award compensation of up to ₪1,000 for each message knowingly sent in breach of the section, without proof of damage.

What we do in practice: an unticked consent box at checkout, a record of when and where consent was given, messages only to those who ticked it, and an unsubscribe link in every message. On top of that, collecting the details at checkout is subject to the duty to inform that we set out in our guide to Amendment 13.

How to measure whether the sequence brings money back

Three things to measure, from the easiest to the heaviest:

1. The funnel in GA4. Google's recommended events for stores include begin_checkout, add_shipping_info, add_payment_info and purchase, according to the Google Analytics Help Centre. When all of them are being sent, you can see at which step of checkout the most buyers leave.
2. Revenue from the sequence. Links with UTMs, for example utm_campaign=cart_recovery, show you in GA4 how many purchases came from the messages.
3. Profit, not just revenue. From the revenue you recovered, subtract the cost of the messages and the discounts. To know whether the incentive in the third message is really necessary, send it to half of the abandoners without the incentive, and compare.

We do not promise a recovery rate in advance. It depends on the product, the price and the audience, and only measuring it in your own store will tell you what it is.

What Simple Web does about it

Simple Web is an AI-first marketing agency from Bnei Brak, certified Meta partners and Google advertising experts, working with 200+ businesses and holding 28 five-star Google reviews. Marketing for online stores starts with us examining the store and the product feed. From there we move to campaigns on Google Shopping and Meta, and then to retargeting and to email and SMS sequences for abandoned carts. Measurement is done with GA4 and UTMs, and in parallel we improve the conversion rate in the store itself. We work with Shopify, WooCommerce and Wix eCommerce. The media budget we recommend starting from is ₪3,000–5,000 a month, on top of the fee, because below that the algorithm does not get enough data. And we do not promise a growth figure in advance: anyone who promises one is guessing. A new store we build from ₪8,000, usually within 14 business days. It all starts with a free diagnostic call.

Summary

Cart abandonment is a normal part of shopping online, but some carts can be recovered. Ask for an email address or a phone number at the start of checkout, alongside an unticked consent box. Build a sequence of three messages that answer the reason for the abandonment, and stop it the moment there is a purchase. Keep SMS and WhatsApp for people who consented, and measure profit rather than revenue alone. Want us to look at the checkout and the recovery sequence in your store? Book a free diagnostic call.

Sources

• Baymard Institute: Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics: an average of 70.22% across 50 studies, and the reasons for abandonment among shoppers in the US
• Communications Law (Telecommunications and Broadcasts), Section 30A (Wikisource): the definition of an advertising message, the consent requirement, the exception, what must appear in the message and the compensation
• Google Analytics Help: Recommended events: the begin_checkout, add_shipping_info, add_payment_info and purchase events
• Shopify Help Center: Recovering abandoned checkouts: a checkout counts as abandoned more than ten minutes after the customer entered an email address
• WooCommerce: AutomateWoo: abandoned cart reminders by email, and SMS through Twilio, in WooCommerce