Capture Email Addresses from Abandoned Carts for Remarketing
Potential customers who started, but have not completed, the checkout process are close to making a purchasing decision. Studies have shown that about 67% of online users abandon their shopping cart before completing a purchase. You can significantly increase conversion rates if you follow up with these potential customers. Don't give up on these customers so easily! Instead, FastSpring can easily and automatically capture email addresses of abandoned potential customers and send them to a list in your MailChimp account. There you can design remarketing emails to turn potential customers into actual customers.
MailChimp Setup
If you have not already, go to http://www.mailchimp.com and get an account with MailChimp. Once you have an account, create a list that will be used solely for abandoned cart email addresses. If you are not doing so already, you may want to manage your mailing lists with MailChimp.
Option 1: Complete the FastSpring Setup Yourself
Step 1: Obtain Your MailChimp API Key and Remarketing List ID
You will need the API Key for your MailChimp account. You can find this by logging on to MailChimp, clicking your user icon at the top right-hand corner of the page, and then selecting Profile -> Extras -> API Keys.
To obtain your mailing list ID, log on to MailChimp and select Lists -> (your remarketing list) -> Settings -> List name and defaults. The list ID should be included in the block of text under List ID, in red, as pictured here:
Step 2: Create a Notification Rule for the Abandoned Cart List
Go to SpringBoard Store Home » Notifications. Click Add next to Custom Notifications.
Select Abandoned Orders (Bulk) as the Event Type, to notify MailChimp when a potential customer abandons the cart.
Note: If you do not see this option in the Event Type drop-down, please contact FastSpring Support and we can enable it for you.
Next, select HTTP URL as the Destination. For the Live Server URL, enter https://####.api.mailchimp.com/2.0/lists/batch-subscribe.xml, but replace #### with the string found at the end of your MailChimp API Key following the hyphen. For example, if your API Key ends in -us20, then your Live Server URL would be https://us20.api.mailchimp.com/2.0/lists/batch-subscribe.xml
. Select JSON (application/json) for the Content Type. Click Next.
Select POST as the Method. Then click the POST Content tab.
Paste the following script into the text area of the POST Content tab:
{ "apikey": "<API Key>", "id": "<List ID>", "batch": [ <repeat separator="," value="#{notification.attributes.abandoned}" var="entry"> { "email": { "email": "#{entry.email}" } } </repeat> ], "double_optin": false, "update_existing": true }
Replace the <API Key> value with your MailChimp API Key.
Replace the <List ID> value with the list ID of your MailChimp remarketing list.
Optionally, enter a Name for your notification rule. Then, switch the rule to Active and click Save.
Option 2: Open a Support Ticket with Required Information
Open a support ticket with us. In your support ticket, please provide the following information obtained from MailChimp:
- The API Key
- The List ID (with the numerical id associated with it) for your remarketing mailing list
Note: Although MailChimp strongly suggests not giving your API Key to others, this is necessary to integrate with them. If you have already completed the setup described in Manage Mailing Lists with MailChimp, we already have your API Key, so you will only need to supply the List ID associated with your remarketing campaign. We can take care of the rest for you.
Once we set it up, emails of potential customers – who entered in their email addresses, but have not completed the checkout process for your store within 12 hours – will be passed on to MailChimp periodically (usually within 30 minutes) after cart abandonment.
We're Here to Help
If you assistance integrating abandon cart email addresses with MailChimp, please open a support ticket. You can also contact MailChimp support.