When a customer adds items to their cart or starts checkout but doesn't complete the purchase, it's the perfect opportunity to remind them and recover lost revenue.
Omnisend offers Abandoned Cart and Abandoned Checkout automation presets that automatically detect when customers leave items behind and send them personalized recovery emails or SMS. These workflows help you bring customers back to complete their purchase without additional manual work.
Abandoned Cart targets customers who add items to their cart but don't start checkout.
Abandoned Checkout targets customers who begin checkout but don't complete the purchase.
If a customer proceeds to checkout, they will exit the Abandoned Cart workflow and only receive Abandoned Checkout emails. We recommend enabling both to cover different stages of purchase intent.
This article will outline the main settings in these automations and explain the features that can help you recover your contacts.
Before You Begin
⚠️ Important: Abandoned Cart and Abandoned Checkout automations only work for identified customers – those Omnisend can recognize.
Omnisend identifies customers when they:
Click a link in an Omnisend email
Sign up via an Omnisend form (popup, flyout, landing page)
Enter their email at checkout
Place their first order (WooCommerce only)
Anonymous visitors who add items to the cart without any of these actions cannot receive abandoned cart emails. To maximize tracking, use signup forms and send newsletters regularly.
💬 Learn more: How Omnisend Tracks Abandoned Carts
Additional requirements and limitations:
Frequency setting blocks re-triggering. By default, each contact can trigger an Abandoned Cart or Checkout automation only once every 24 hours. This prevents multiple emails during the same browsing session. When testing, use different email addresses or temporarily disable the frequency setting in Workflow Settings → Frequency. If customers abandon carts multiple times in one day, only the first abandonment will trigger the automation unless you adjust this setting.
Phone numbers sync after first order. For new customers, Omnisend syncs phone numbers only after their first order is placed. This means first-time abandoned carts can only send Email, not SMS. After the first order, phone numbers become available, and SMS will be sent on future abandoned carts.
Avoid segment-based audience filters. If you use a segment as an audience filter (e.g., "Started checkout but didn't place order"), contacts must already be in that segment when the trigger fires. Segments update with a 1–2 minute delay after an event occurs. To avoid trigger failures, use trigger filters instead of audience filters, or add a split block with a short delay after the trigger.
Retrospective triggering not supported. These automations cannot be triggered retrospectively. This means:
Customers who abandoned carts before you enabled the automation will not receive emails.
The automation only captures abandonments that occur after it is activated.
Removed items still appear in emails. Omnisend doesn't track the "product removed from cart" event. Abandoned cart emails will display the products that were in the cart when the customer last added items or started checkout, even if they later removed some items.
Exit conditions apply only after a contact enters. If a customer changes email addresses mid-session (e.g., starts checkout with email #1, completes order with email #2) or has multiple tabs/sessions open, the original workflow may still send emails after order completion. This is a known limitation.
Shopify & BigCommerce users:
You must manually disable your platform's default abandoned cart emails to avoid sending duplicates.
Shopify: Go to Settings → Checkout → Uncheck "Automatically send abandoned checkout emails"
BigCommerce: Go to Marketing → Abandoned Cart Emails → Disable
Omnisend does not automatically disable these emails.
💡 New to Omnisend automations? Read our Automation Workflow Settings guide.
Quick Setup
If you're familiar with Omnisend automations, follow these 3 steps:
Go to Automations → Create Workflow
Select Cart Abandonment → Choose Abandoned Cart or Abandoned Checkout preset
Customize email content → Test → Activate
For detailed step-by-step instructions, continue to the next section.
Set Up Abandoned Cart Automation
Step 1: Create the Workflow
Go to Automations → Create Workflow → see a list of pre-built workflows.
2. Select Cart Abandonment → Choose Abandoned Checkout preset. Click Customize Workflow.
Step 2: Review Trigger Settings & Exit Conditions
Trigger: The automation triggers when a customer adds products to cart and leaves your store without placing an order or starting checkout.
Exit Conditions: Contacts exit the workflow when they:
Place an order (purchase complete)
Proceed to checkout (they'll enter the Abandoned Checkout automation instead)
This prevents customers from receiving both Abandoned Cart and Abandoned Checkout emails.
When to modify: If you want to send Abandoned Cart emails even after customers start checkout, remove "Started Checkout" from exit conditions in Workflow Settings → Exit Conditions.
⚠️ Note: Exit conditions apply only after a contact enters the workflow. If a customer has multiple browser tabs open or changes their email address mid-session, the automation may still send emails after order completion. This is a known limitation.
Please note that another requirement is to recognize your customer or track the email address or phone number, so your client has to be identified.
All recognized contacts will enter your workflow as soon as they leave an unattended cart in your store but will exit if the exit condition is satisfied (if they place an order or proceed to checkout). Therefore, the customer who completes the order will exit the sequence on whichever step they have landed in automation.
Important! We only sync the phone number for all the native ecommerce integrations (Shopify, Bigcommerce, and WooCommerce) after the order has been placed. So, if a new customer gives us their contact information on the checkout page but then leaves their cart, we will only be able to send them an email. If the customer places an order, the phone number will be synced, and the next time the same customer leaves their cart, we'll also be able to send an SMS.
With the default settings, your Abandoned Cart sequence will be sent to all contacts, but you may also add some trigger filters and audience filters to target your emails to specific groups. Jump to the Advanced Targeting section of the article for more information.
Step 3: Set Trigger Inactivity Time
The Trigger Inactivity Time setting defines how long a shopper must remain inactive before Omnisend considers them finished shopping and triggers the automation. This ensures emails reflect the shopper's complete cart, not just the first item added.
Example: A shopper adds one product, leaves, then returns 10 minutes later to add more items. Without inactivity tracking, the email might trigger too soon and show only the first product.
Recommended setting: 30 minutes to 1 hour (balances capturing full cart vs. sending quickly)
To adjust delays, click the Delay block between emails and enter your preferred timing.
Recommended timing:
First email: 30 minutes to 1 hour after abandonment
Second email: 12–24 hours after the first
Third email: 48–72 hours after the first (include your strongest offer)
To adjust delays, click the Delay block between emails and enter your preferred timing.
💬 Learn more: Timing Your Abandonment Flows
Step 4: Add Trigger Filters (Optional)
Under Trigger Filters, you can limit the automation to trigger only for specific customers who match the selected criteria.
Common filter use cases:
Cart value: Only send emails for carts over $50 (avoids low-value recoveries)
Product collection: Target specific categories (e.g., high-margin products)
Quantity: Send to customers with 2+ items
Location: Exclude certain countries or states
You can combine multiple trigger filters using "AND" (all conditions must match) or "OR" (any condition matches).
Step 5: Customize Email Content
Click the Email block in your workflow → Click Edit Content
Customize your email using:
Abandoned Products block (shows products left in cart)
Cart Recovery Link (button leading to checkout page)
Discount block (optional: add promo code)
Learn more: Abandoned Products content block | Discount content block
Set Up Abandoned Checkout Automation
Step 1: Create the Workflow
Go to Automations → Create Workflow
Select Cart Abandonment → Choose Abandoned Checkout preset
Click Customize Workflow
Step 2: Review Trigger Settings
Trigger: The automation triggers when a customer proceeds to checkout but leaves without completing the purchase.
Exit Condition: Contacts exit the workflow when they place an order.
Step 3: Set Trigger Inactivity Time & Filters
Follow the same instructions as Abandoned Cart (Step 3 & Step 4) to:
Set your trigger inactivity time (recommended: 30 min to 1 hour)
Add trigger filters if needed (cart value, product collection, location, etc.)
Step 4: Customize Email Content
Follow the same instructions as Abandoned Cart (Step 5) to customize your emails content.
Abandoned Checkout Value Split (Advanced Preset)
The Abandoned Checkout Value Split preset helps you send different messages based on cart value. For example, offer discounts to high-value carts while sending simple reminders to lower-value ones.
Benefits:
Increased conversion rates – Timely reminders and personalized offers incentivize purchases
Customer re-engagement – Reconnect with customers who showed strong purchase intent
Customizability – Tailor content, timing, and discounts by cart value
Setup Process
Go to Automations → New Workflow
Filter by Cart Abandonment
Select Abandoned Checkout Value Split
Click Customize Workflow
How It Works
The automation splits customers based on cart value. By default:
High-value carts (e.g., over $100) receive emails with a discount
Lower-value carts receive emails without a discount
You can customize the split value or change the rule to filter by product collection, quantity, or location.
After the split, customers follow different paths with tailored messages:
Customize Email & SMS Messages
Add Abandoned Products Block
The Abandoned Products block automatically displays the products customers left behind, including:
Product images
Product titles and descriptions
"Shop Now" buttons linking to each product
Once the email is sent, it will populate with the customer's abandoned products:
Important: If you send a test email, the Abandoned Cart products block won't be populated with the products and the links to your store, since it's a test email with no event data. The best way to test the flow is to trigger the sequence in your store.
💬 Learn more: Abandoned Products Content Block
Add Cart Recovery Link
Add a button with a cart recovery link that takes customers directly to their personalized checkout page with all abandoned products pre-loaded.
To add the link:
Select a button in your email
Click Link in the settings panel
Choose Personalization → Abandoned Checkout URL
You can also add this link to the Discount content block redeem button: 💬 Learn more: Discount Content Block for Shopify and BigCommerce
Add SMS & Push Notifications
You can add Email, SMS, and Push notifications to your automation. Drag and drop message blocks into the workflow to add them.
In SMS messages, add the abandoned checkout URL link to direct customers to their checkout page with all abandoned products pre-loaded.
The SMS will have the link populated once customers trigger the automation:
Advanced Targeting Settings
You can further tailor your automation by targeting your messages to specific contacts. There are two ways to do that: using the audience filters in the trigger block or a separate split block.
Audience Filters
Audience filters are checked at the same time the contact triggers your automation. If you want to filter out contacts at the first stage, this is the best option. You can filter contacts based on their personal data, including tags, segments, and more.
Please note that if contacts do not meet the audience filters at the time the automation is triggered, they will not enter the automation. If you’d like to filter contacts at later stages—for example, after a message is sent or once contacts enter a segment—it is better to use a split block instead, since you can delay when the filter is checked.
Conditional Split
The split condition can be verified with a delay at any stage of automation. You may want to use a split after an email is already sent to everyone who entered the automation. With the help of split, you can divide customers who match the selected rule and those who don't into different paths and have different journeys.
To add a split, drag and drop it into the automation sequence:
With the help of splits, the automation workflow lets you target your contacts based on the following:
Trigger and trigger filters (cart value, products, quantity, variants, etc.);
Contact properties (segments, tags, country, and custom properties);
Message engagement (opened and clicked message).
💬 Check the dedicated instructions for more information on each of these block settings:
Improve Performance with A/B Testing
After you turn on the automation, we also suggest measuring its performance. A/B testing is the best way to identify how your contacts respond to every variation in your sequence content.
Adding the A/B test option, you should decide what you’d like to test. For example, if you want to find the subject line that generates the most sales, you can send two different emails with different subject lines to see which one drives more revenue.
In the following example, we are testing the best time to send the email by sending the same message with two different delays.
💡 If your open rate is high but the conversion rate is low, test new content items for your emails. Try adding personalization (like the customer’s name or product recommendations), making your call-to-action clearer, and offering incentives such as discounts, free shipping, or limited-time deals.
Testing Abandoned Cart or Checkout Automations
If you only want to check the message's layout in the email editor, you can preview your email with a test contact.
If you'd like to check the email in your inbox, please note that you need to trigger a real email. Test emails do not populate the abandoned cart block as they're sent to a test contact with no event data.
To test with a real email, you need to go to your store → add products to your cart if you want to trigger the Abandoned Cart flow or proceed to checkout if you want to trigger the Abandoned Checkout flow. To speed up the process, we recommend changing the trigger inactivity time. You can add an Audience Filter to the automation trigger settings to ensure the workflow doesn't get triggered for your contacts.
Remember that due to the Frequency setting restriction, each contact can trigger only one Abandonment workflow within 24 hours. This restriction prevents the workflow from being triggered multiple times within the same browsing session. Therefore, you can either disable this setting or use different email addresses while testing.
We also recommend starting a new session every time you test the workflow. The best way to achieve this is to open your store using the incognito window of your browser.
Native Abandoned Cart Workflows
Using abandoned cart reminders in Omnisend and your store platform (applicable for Shopify and Bigcommerce) is not recommended. When these two features overlap, they will overwhelm your customers. Before enabling the Abandoned Cart flow in Omnisend, ensure your cart abandonment workflow is disabled on the store platform.
Important! Enabling the Abandoned Cart flow in Omnisend doesn't automatically disable your store platform's flow. It should be disabled manually.
FAQ
Will the Abandoned Cart sequence be sent to non-subscribed contacts?
Yes, but you can manage contact statuses under the workflow channel settings, where you decide who can enter your automation: subscribers, non-subscribers, and/or unsubscribers.
Is it possible to not show the selected product in the Abandoned Cart sequence?
Unfortunately, choosing which products can or cannot be shown in the Abandoned Products content block is impossible. You may only decide not to trigger the workflow for specific products.
Reach out anytime! Our support team is available 24/7 via in-app chat or at [email protected].