As the battle against shopping cart abandonment intensifies, 1800Flowers.com relied on segmentation, A/B testing and push notifications to effectively target mobile shoppers this past Valentine’s Day, resulting in a five percent lift of abandoned carts conversion.

The floral and gourmet foods retailer teamed up with mobile marketing automation platform Appboy in a bid to entice more customers to follow through with the mobile checkout process during a recent sales-driving holiday, Valentine’s Day. After segmenting its audience and testing a variety of messages on mobile, 1800Flowers.com experienced a lift of approximately five percent in abandoned virtual cart conversion between Feb. 1 and Feb. 16 of this year.

“This case study is centered around an app user’s action rather than a specific time of day,” said Marissa Aydlett, vice president of marketing at Appboy. “There are many factors that contribute to message/campaign success. In this case, the success metric was the conversion: a product purchase.

“By using personalization and iterating quickly, 1800Flowers was able to see a 5 percent lift on abandoned cart conversions during Valentine’s Day promotions, an especially popular time of the year for the brand,” she said. “With Appboy’s triggered messaging based on user behavior, 1800Flowers was able to re-engage users when its app was still top-of-mind rather than focusing on a specific time of day.”

Arranging testing methods
1800Flowers.com sought to combat the worrisome trend of consumers abandoning their mobile shopping carts at last minute ahead of one of its most lucrative holidays, Valentine’s Day. Shopping cart abandonment typically results in high amounts of lost revenue for online-based retailers, with the average documented rate clocking in at 69 percent, per the Baymard Institute.

The floral delivery service opted to join forces with Appboy and leverage the platform’s mobile push notifications to fuel more sales and persuade additional shoppers to follow through with their purchases.

Appboy’s segmentation techniques advised 1800Flowers.com to primarily target consumers who recently abandoned their carts within the brand’s app. This strategy helped reach customers who were close to making a purchase, but had reneged at the last second.

Mobile app users are also generally more engaged shoppers, as many users are unwilling to relinquish their smartphone real estate for an app from a retailer for which they have no affinity.

1800Flowers.com complemented its segmentation with A/B testing as well, which led the company to discover that offering a promotional code would convince more customers to complete the checkout process.

Consequently, 1800Flowers.com and Appboy distributed a 15 percent-off coupon code a half-hour after individuals abandoned their shopping carts. The promotional code was sent via push notifications.

Consumers responded positively to the unexpected discount, which resulted in a five percent shopping cart conversion during the first two weeks of February.

“The segmentation here was specific to those that abandoned carts but generally speaking, segmenting messages based on past purchase behavior vs. users who have not made purchases can be beneficial as well,” Ms. Aydlett said.

The campaign also enjoyed optimal timing. For customers attempting to decide which retailer to use for their Valentine’s Day gift orders, an impromptu promotional code was likely the very push they needed to select 1800Flowers.com over a competitor.

Benefits all around
These types of conversion-boosting strategies offer a multitude of benefits for customers and brands alike.

With the help of segmentation and A/B testing, marketers are able to glean valuable insights into shopper behavior and adjust their forthcoming targeting tactics accordingly. Meanwhile, app users receive timely push notifications reminding them of their forgotten shopping carts, in addition to exclusive discounts.

Another campaign done in conjunction with Appboy resulted in an abandoned cart conversion lift of more than 350 percent over the industry standard during an activation period between Nov. 3 and Feb. 15.

1800Flowers.com has been a longtime supporter of mobile commerce, as evidenced by its commitment to exploring new trends and keeping up with constantly-evolving customer demand.

Executives from MillerCoors and 1800Flowers at the Mobile Media Summit Upfront at Internet Week 2015 conference highlighted their brands’ dedication to innovating in the mobile messaging space, particularly with emojis, in a bid to drive sales of products and reach millennial consumers (see story).

Additionally, a 1800Flowers executive at eTail West 2016 claimed that the speed and half-life of change within mobile is fundamentally different from other digital channels, meaning that brand leaders should leverage mobile internally and externally to break down silos and drive sales among new customers (see story).

“We learn a lot from our clients and the ways in which they use our technology to create better experiences for their end-users, each with their own unique use cases,” Ms. Aydlett said. “Customers have more control over the messages they receive from brands than ever before, so watching 1800Flowers understand and act on customer behavior in a smart way that benefits the customer and the brand is really great to see.”