Most abandoned cart emails are embarrassing.
"You left something behind!" with a sad little cart emoji. Maybe a 10% discount that trains your customers to abandon carts on purpose. A subject line that reads like it was written by a guilt-tripping aunt.
The problem isn't the email. The problem is that the person who wrote it didn't understand what an abandoned cart actually means.
An abandoned cart is not a forgotten cart. It's a considered cart. The customer looked at your product, added it, and then stopped. That stop has a reason. Your job is to address the reason — not just remind them the cart exists.
The 3-email sequence that recovers revenue
High-performing abandoned cart flows aren't a single email. They're three separate conversations:
Email 1 (1 hour after abandonment): Soft reminder
No pressure. No discount. Just a clean, useful reminder that the cart is waiting. This email exists because sometimes people get interrupted. Give them the benefit of the doubt.
Email 2 (24 hours after): Address the objection
This is the money email. You need to identify the most common reason people abandon your specific product and address it directly. Is it price? Shipping cost? Uncertainty about sizing or fit? Returns policy anxiety? Pick the right objection and write directly to it.
Email 3 (72 hours after): Final nudge
Small incentive if you're going to use one — and only here, never in Email 1. Urgency framing if your inventory or offer genuinely warrants it.
Three different conversations. Three different jobs. One generic email does none of them well.
The prompt that writes all three
Here's the exact prompt structure I use. Copy it, fill in your product details, and run it in Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini:
You are a DTC email copywriter who specializes in abandoned cart recovery. You write emails that feel like they came from a real human, not a marketing automation tool.
I run an e-commerce store selling [PRODUCT TYPE] to [TARGET CUSTOMER]. My brand voice is [ADJECTIVE, ADJECTIVE, ADJECTIVE — e.g., "direct, warm, slightly irreverent"].
The most common reason customers abandon our carts is [YOUR MAIN OBJECTION — e.g., "shipping cost uncertainty" or "unsure if the sizing will work for them"].
Write a 3-email abandoned cart sequence:
- Email 1 (1 hour post-abandonment): Soft, no-pressure reminder. Subject line + body under 120 words.
- Email 2 (24 hours): Directly address [MAIN OBJECTION]. Subject line + body under 180 words.
- Email 3 (72 hours): Final nudge. Include [small incentive or urgency framing]. Subject line + body under 150 words.
Tone rules: No exclamation points. No "You left something behind!" No guilt. Write like a confident brand that knows the product is good.
Run that once with your real product details and you'll have a draft sequence worth editing. Not a template worth deleting.
Why this works when generic prompts don't
Most AI prompt packs tell you to "write an abandoned cart email for [brand]." That's a brief, not a prompt. The AI has no idea:
- What objection to address
- What tone your brand uses
- How long each email should be
- What role it's playing in the sequence
The prompt above gives the AI a job (DTC email copywriter), a context (your product, your customer, your objection), a structure (3-email sequence with specific timing and word counts), and a constraint (tone rules). That's the difference between a generic draft you spend 30 minutes fixing and a draft you spend 5 minutes editing.
The 49 other prompts
This is one of 50 prompts in the AI Prompt Pack for E-Commerce — a collection I built to cover every writing task a Shopify, Etsy, or Amazon seller actually faces.
The pack covers:
- Product descriptions and listings (10 prompts)
- Email marketing sequences (10 prompts, including the full abandoned cart flow above)
- Customer service responses (10 prompts)
- Ad copy and creative briefs (10 prompts)
- Analytics and growth strategy (10 prompts)
Every prompt includes the prompt itself, an example output, and a customization tip. PDF + Markdown format — paste directly into Notion or Obsidian.
$19. One purchase. Use them forever.
Get the full pack on Gumroad →
If you try the abandoned cart prompt above and it doesn't produce something usable, leave a comment with your product details and I'll debug the prompt with you.
