If you were to list the blockages to success in an email marketing campaign you would probably put opening the email up near the top, then might come engaging your subscriber sufficiently for them to be convinced, and coming in third might well be clicking on the ‘Buy’ link. After all, when they get to the landing page they’ve shown they are interested, they like the price, so what’s to stop them going further? Yet cart abandonment percentages are high across the board.

There is a plethora of reports on checkout problems online and a simple search will reveal hours of reading material, including in-depth research with evidenced conclusions. The odd thing is, you could probably guess the results. They’ve been consistent in the years I’ve been researching and writing about email marketing, but oddly, nothing seems to have changed.

Not clearly specifying shipping costs has been one of the most common reported reasons for cart abandonment, and the only thing that surprised me is the 22% of the public giving that as a reason for abandonment. That’s much lower than I anticipated. Perhaps things have improved. But 22% is no reason for celebration.

It is wrong to depend on one’s own experience when working out why customers abandon carts, so it is refreshing to discover that it is not only me who is irritated by complex and involved payment processes. If the sale was being completed face-to-face in a high street outlet, the sales staff would be all smiles and helpfulness. ‘Would you like that wrapped?’. In other words, most of the criticisms would fall under the heading of lack of customer consideration.

This helps us in a way. The problem from an email marketing point of view is that reasons for abandonment are all but impossible to discover just by a simple split test. Given the number of factors at the payment stage, the process would be interminable, and probably not statistically dependable. If you alter one factor, it will have an effect on the others. So what to do?

You could ask for specific feedback from your subscribers. However, you probably already know the likely low-level of response from such questionnaire. If you assess the purchasing process by buying a product, ask yourself at every stage and when every response required, whether you, as a customer, feel your path has been made as smooth as possible. Be particular, be fussy, be easily irritated; after all, your subscribers will be.

When you find a process which a customer might find challenging, work out why it is there and whether it can be streamlined without loss. It is often all too clear that the process has been designed for the purposes of the vendor rather than the purchaser, and that’s not the way it should be. Ease the journey for your subscribers, even if it costs you a little extra effort.

There’s a balance to be made between costs and benefits of changes. That is the time to split test any modification you are considering as you’ll have a clear choice.