If you run an eCommerce store, you already know the pain of cart abandonment.
Someone adds products to their cart, shows clear buying intent, and then disappears. That’s precisely why abandoned cart emails exist: to bring those shoppers back and recover lost revenue.
At FunnelKit, we’ve spent years helping WooCommerce store owners do just that. With over 40,000 stores using our automation tools, we've seen firsthand which abandoned cart emails get opened, which get ignored, and most importantly, what actually drives customers back to checkout.
The scale of the problem is hard to ignore. According to Baymard Institute’s 2025 analysis of 50 studies, the average cart abandonment rate is 70.22%. In simple terms, about 7 out of every 10 shoppers leave without completing their purchase.
The good news? Abandoned cart emails are still one of the most effective automated campaigns in eCommerce.
Klaviyo’s 2024 benchmark report shows that abandoned cart flows generate an average revenue per recipient (RPR) of $3.65, which is 37.74% higher than the next best-performing flow, welcome emails.
However, there’s one critical detail many store owners overlook.
Your email won’t convert if it doesn’t get opened and your subject line is the single most significant factor that determines that.
In this guide, we’ll break down the abandoned cart subject line strategies that actually work, based on real patterns we’ve observed across thousands of WooCommerce stores, not generic advice or guesswork.
Table of Contents
- 1 Why Your Abandoned Cart Subject Lines Matter More Than You Think
- 2 Five Proven Types of Abandoned Cart Subject Lines
- 3 How to Send Abandoned Cart Emails from WordPress?
- 4 4 Best Practices for Writing High-Converting Subject Lines
- 5 Common Mistakes to Avoid
- 6 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Abandoned Cart Subject Lines
- 7 What’s the best time to send the first abandoned cart email?
- 8 Should I offer a discount in every abandoned cart email?
- 9 Should I include emojis in my subject lines?
- 10 How do I prevent my cart recovery emails from going to spam?
- 11 Ready to Set Up Cart Abandonment Sequences to Recover Your Store's Revenue?
Why Your Abandoned Cart Subject Lines Matter More Than You Think
Your subject line is the gatekeeper to your entire cart recovery strategy.
If it doesn’t grab attention, nothing else in your email matters, not the discount, not the product, not the beautifully designed template.
Abandoned cart emails already have a significant advantage. Research shows they average open rates between 39-45%, far higher than most marketing emails. But those results don’t happen automatically. They only show up when your subject line cuts through the noise.
And there’s a lot of noise.
The average person receives around 121 emails every day. Your abandoned cart email competes with work messages, invoices, newsletters, and notifications. In that inbox, a generic subject line like “Complete your purchase” barely registers.
The data makes this even clearer.
Studies show that subject lines that explicitly mention the “cart” see roughly 10% higher open rates than those that don’t. Adding personalization, such as the customer’s name or a specific product, can boost open rates by around 22%.
What’s more surprising is how many brands get this wrong. Nearly 70% of abandoned cart subject lines aren’t conversion-focused, leaving most stores on the table. Simply testing different subject lines can increase conversions by as much as 25%.
The takeaway is simple: small changes to your abandoned cart subject lines can have a disproportionate impact on opens, clicks, and recovered revenue.
A Common Mistake in Most Cart Abandonment Campaigns
On average, around 8 out of 10 online shoppers abandon their carts.
Most eCommerce stores have moved upfront to tackle cart abandonment scenarios by setting up automated sequences in their store.
They use decent abandoned cart subject lines, preheaders, and the content in their emails.
However, the result is not too noticeable.
But why? Because they often stop at just one email!
Sending multiple (at least three) abandoned cart emails brings in 69% more orders compared to one email.
Apart from sending out a well-spaced sequence of emails, craft subject lines that stand out and don't get lost in the clutter.
Performance of Different Abandoned Cart Subject Lines Used By Businesses
47% of email recipients open their emails after reading the subject lines.
Therefore, you must pay attention to subject lines when crafting your abandoned cart email campaigns.
As per Popupsmart, these are the stats of different abandoned cart subject lines:
- Subject lines with “left something behind” get an open rate of 47.67% and a click rate of 11.21%
- Writing emojis in the subject line gets an open rate of 39.09% and a click rate of 8.58%
- Including the term "discount" in your abandoned cart email subject lines get an open rate of 38.31% and a click rate of 10.75%
Emails with captivating abandoned cart subject lines get more open and convert more often than usual.
Now that we have understood the importance of abandoned cart email subject lines let’s look at some tips to write them.
Five Proven Types of Abandoned Cart Subject Lines
After working with thousands of WooCommerce stores, we’ve noticed that high-performing abandoned cart subject lines fall into just five categories.
Each one taps into a different psychological trigger and works best at a specific point in your recovery sequence.
Let's break them down in each section.
#1: Reminder subject lines (“forgot something?”)
Best for: The first email in your sequence (sent within 1-4 hours)
These subject lines work because they’re friendly and non-pushy. Instead of pressuring the customer, they assume positive intent that the shopper simply got distracted, ran out of time, or accidentally left the website.
Take a look at the following email from Chubbies:
Subject Line: Forget something?
Chubbies is known for injecting humor into its marketing copy.
Although their subject line doesn’t mention the cart or any products, it engages customers with friendly language to attract their attention.
Here are some interesting subject lines that online stores send to shop abandoners:
- You left something behind
- Ooops, you forgot something
- Did you forget something
- Looks like you forgot to checkout, complete your purchase
- Your cart is ready
- Saved your cart for you, [Name]
- Head’s up: Your items are waiting
- Is everything okay with your checkout?
Such abandoned cart subject lines serve as a reminder for the user to complete their purchase.
#2: Incentive-included subject lines
Best for: Second or third email (sent 24-72 hours after abandonment)
48% of online shoppers abandon their cart due to high additional costs, including shipping, taxes, handling fees, etc.
To encourage them to complete their purchase, marketers often use incentives in cart recovery emails.
The offer could be anything, such as dropping the price on a particular item, offering free shipping, a percentage discount, or more.
Here’s an amazing example from Alex Mill:
Subject Line: Get Them for 15% Off!
Notice how straightforward this email is.
The brand offers an exclusive 15% discount to shoppers as an incentive to complete their purchases.
Here are a few incentive-based subject lines that many companies use:
- Empty your cart with 10% off
- Hey, forgot something? Here’s 15% off
- Free shipping on your order
- Price drop on your order! Complete your purchase now
- Cold feet? Here’s something extra with your order
- A little something to help you decide
- 10% off just for you (expires soon)
- Free shipping if you finish checkout now
- Unwrap your exclusive discount
- You earned a discount!
- Would 15% off help?
- Don't pay full price for your cart
These incentivized subject lines help attract shoppers to make the purchase.
#3: Urgency-driven subject lines
Best for: Final email in your sequence (sent 48-72 hours after abandonment)
You can capture your shoppers’ attention by creating a sense of urgency in your abandoned cart subject lines.
Urgency-driven campaigns prompt people to act fast on a deal or product, at the risk of missing out.
Take a look at this beautifully-crafted recovery email:
Subject Line: Our Sale’s Ending, Your Cart’s Calling
Parachute, a brand known for selling household products, creates a sense of urgency with the limited sales strategy.
They inform their shoppers that they have a limited time to purchase until their exclusive sale ends.
Here are some common urgency-driven email subject lines used by different marketers:
- Your shopping cart is about to expire
- Get your {item name} before it sells out
- Hurry, the items in your cart are selling fast
- Your cart is about to expire, still interested?
- Your item is almost sold out
- Your basket is feeling lonely
- A surprise for your cart?
- 3 reasons to complete your order
Using urgency-driven subject lines in your abandoned cart emails lets your users know about the limited time they have to make a purchase.
#4: FOMO-inducing subject lines
Best for: Products with high demand or limited availability
FOMO (or fear of missing out) is similar to urgency-driven subject lines but it rather focuses on the popularity of your product among other shoppers.
Such abandoned cart subject lines bring FOMO in their aid to draw shoppers back to their website and complete the purchase.
Look at this email from Vinomofo:
Subject line: We’re meant to be together
As you can notice, it complements the reader's great taste.
It also reminds them that there’s a lot of competition for the product among other shoppers, so they have to act fast to avoid missing out.
Here are some FOMO subject lines used by many brands:
- Look at what other customers love about {product name}
- Still deciding? Let’s hear from other shoppers
- Other shoppers are looking for the items in your cart
- Shoppers are waiting - we might be unable to hold on to your cart
- Let’s hear from {random shopper’s name} about {product name}
- Can I help you finish this?
- Quick question about your order…
- High demand: Your items are going fast
- Last chance to grab your items
- Stock Alert: [Product Name] is running low
- Final reminder for your cart
- Cart expiring in 10 minutes
Using FOMO-inducing subject lines in your cart recovery email, followed by social proof from shoppers, will surely help seal the deal.
#5: Suggestive (nudge) subject lines
Best for: Customers who seem ready to buy but need a gentle push
These subject lines work on the assumption principle, which focuses upon that your customer is ready to make a purchase - all they need is a little nudge.
Here’s an example of suggestive subject lines along with the email:
Subject Line: Let’s check this off your list
It’s quite a straightforward abandoned cart email.
Instead of giving reasons or asking anything, it simply suggests that the user complete their purchase.
The email assures the shoppers that customer care is nearby and will help if they encounter any issues during checkout.
Some common suggestive abandoned cart subject lines include:
- Ready to buy?
- You’re nearly there
- Your new {product name} is just two clicks away
- Is your wi-fi okay? You’re so close
- Checkout will only take a few minutes
- Technical issue at checkout?
Now that we have looked at some classy examples, let’s implement them in our recovery email.
How to Send Abandoned Cart Emails from WordPress?
We need to set up automated sequences to send out cart abandonment emails.
Therefore, we will be creating an abandoned cart automation with 3 emails with specific delays like this:
Setting up multiple emails in our sequence with impressive abandoned cart subject lines will help boost your conversion rate.
We will use FunnelKit Automations to create this automation.
FunnelKit Automations is the best marketing automation engine and broadcast platform for WordPress.
It has a variety of events and actions to fulfill all your use cases without writing a single piece of code.
Follow the step-by-step instructions below to create your cart abandonment automation in FunnelKit Automations.
Step 1: Install FunnelKit Automations
First, you need to get a copy of FunnelKit Automations.
FunnelKit Automations is available for free. However, if you have some advanced requirements, get the premium version here.
Go to your FunnelKit account and download the zip files of FunnelKit Automations that you get with your purchase:
1. FunnelKit Automations Lite (base plugin)
2. FunnelKit Automations Pro
3. FunnelKit Automations Connectors
Install and activate all the files in the same order.
Next, copy the activation code from your account and paste it into the FunnelKit Automations settings.
Clicking on Activate will lock your license key and you’ll then be able to use FunnelKit Automations.
Step 2: Install an SMTP plugin
Setting up your WordPress site with an SMTP plugin ensures that none of your emails land in spam.
Out of all the SMTP service providers, we recommend the following plugins:
- WP Offload SES Lite for Amazon SES
- WP Mail SMTP for SendGrid, Mailgun, and Sendinblue
- Postmark for WordPress to set up Postmark SMTP
Here, we will use the WP Mail SMTP plugin:
Configure the settings for WP Mail SMTP by going through the setup wizard:
Proceed through the setup and configure the SMTP plugin.
Here is a quick guide to set up the SMTP plugin on your WordPress website.
Step 3: Add a new automation
Go to Automations under Campaigns, then click 'Create Automation'.
You'll see a list of pre-designed automated recipes. We'll import the 'Abandoned Cart Reminder' recipe and customize it to our liking.
To do that, click on that automation recipe.
Select 'Start from Scratch' and enter the name of your automation.
We will name it ‘WooCommerce Abandoned Cart Recovery’.
Clicking on Create will add your automation.
Step 4: Customize your first abandoned cart recovery email in WooCommerce
You can create the content of your email with rich text, HTML, or using FunnelKit Automations’ built-in visual drag and drop builder.
Here, we will select Visual Builder to create our first cart abandonment email.
Write your personalized abandoned cart subject lines, preview text and click on Launch Editor to design your email.
Import an abandoned cart email template and customize it as per your needs.
Drag and drop content blocks, such as images, columns, text, headings, and call-to-action (CTA) buttons, to create your email content.
Your cart recovery link is already attached to this template.
You can even send a test email from here to see how it looks in your email.
Learn More: Refer to our detailed WooCommerce cart abandonment guide to recover lost revenues effortlessly.
Similarly, write the following subject lines for other two emails:
Email 2 (After 24 hours): Add Value
- Subject: Still thinking about {{cart_items template='list' type='comma-separated'}}?
- Preview text: Here's why customers love it
- Include social proof, reviews, or address common objections
Email 3 (After 48-72 hours): Final Incentive
- Subject: 10% off expires tonight
- Preview text: Don't miss your exclusive discount
- Create a personalised, time-sensitive coupon code using FunnelKit's dynamic coupon feature
Ensure to craft a perfect abandoned cart subject line in your emails and check everything before you make the automation live.
Step 5: Go live with your automation live
Now, make the automation live by turning the toggle to Active.
Well done, you have successfully created and activated your abandoned cart workflow.
4 Best Practices for Writing High-Converting Subject Lines
Before you start drafting your abandoned cart email subject line, here are the four tips you must follow.
1. Limit the characters on your subject line
The length of your abandoned cart subject lines is one factor that affects your email's open rate.
It’s important to convey your offer to shoppers with the right character count.
Keep your subject lines short and sweet!
Here’s a good example to start with:
Since more than 50% of people read their emails on mobile devices, limiting the characters in your abandoned cart subject lines is important.
Experts recommend using 6 to 10 words (around 40 to 45 characters) in your abandoned cart subject lines to achieve explosive open rates.
#2: Personalize your emails
Personalizing your emails enhances engagement.
22% of shoppers are more likely to open their emails with a personalized subject line than usual.
Some good CRMs, like FunnelKit Automations and a few others, offer options to personalize your subject lines and preheader text.
You can directly include merge tags such as the shopper’s first name, the item they added to their cart, etc., in your abandoned cart subject lines.
For instance, look at the following personalized subject line:
Using personalization tactics in your emails will surely get your shoppers’ attention.
#3: Leverage the preview text
Marketers leverage their email preview text to add continuity to their attention-grabbing subject lines.
Preview text is not mandatory, unlike the subject line; however, writing your own preheaders gives you more control over helping your reader notice.
Look at this impressive example:
Notice how the subject lines and preheader text work together to excite the reader to open this email.
#4: A/B testing
Eventually, no marketer can craft the ideal abandoned cart email subject line.
They consistently use the A/B testing feature within their CRM to test multiple variants of the subject lines, preheader text, and body content.
Use different words or language in your subject lines and see which variation turns out the best among your recipients.
Then, implement these learnings to continuously refine and improve the performance of your cart abandonment emails.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Even well-designed abandoned cart emails can underperform if a few common mistakes slip in.
Here are the ones to watch out for and how to avoid them.
- Stopping at one email
Relying on a single reminder leaves money on the table. Multi-email sequences (usually three emails) consistently recover more orders.
A proven timing framework is the first email (1-4 hours after abandonment), the second email (around 24 hours later), and the third email (48-72 hours after that).
- Leading with discounts
Offering a coupon in your very first email might boost short-term conversions, but it creates a bad habit.
Customers quickly learn to abandon carts intentionally to get a discount. Hold back incentives and use them only in follow-up emails when needed.
- Overusing urgency language
Terms like 'Last Chance', 'Act Now', or 'Hurry' don’t just sound pushy. They’re also common spam triggers.
Use urgency sparingly and weave it in naturally rather than shouting it in all caps.
- Ignoring mobile optimisation
Most abandoned cart emails are opened on mobile devices. If your subject line is too long, it gets cut off before the message lands.
Always preview how your subject lines look on different screen sizes.
- Treating all customers the same
A first-time cart abandoner and a repeat customer should receive different messaging. Segment your automation based on customer behaviour and cart value.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Abandoned Cart Subject Lines
What’s the best time to send the first abandoned cart email?
Ideally, send the first email within 30 minutes to 4 hours of abandonment. This is when purchase intent is still high and the product is fresh in the customer’s mind. If you wait too long, shoppers are more likely to forget, get distracted, or buy from a competitor. Our data shows emails sent within this window consistently outperform those sent later.
Should I offer a discount in every abandoned cart email?
No. Offering discounts in every email, especially the first one, trains customers to abandon carts to receive offers deliberately. Reserve incentives for your final email or for high-value carts. Consider using FunnelKit's conditional logic to offer different incentives based on cart value (e.g., 10% off for carts over £50, 15% off for carts over £100).
Should I include emojis in my subject lines?
Emojis can work, but only when used sparingly. On average, subject lines with emojis achieve open rates of about 39% and click rates of around 8.58%. That said, overusing emojis can look unprofessional or even trigger spam filters. The safest approach is to test them with a small segment of your audience and make sure they align with your brand tone before rolling them out broadly.
How do I prevent my cart recovery emails from going to spam?
Several factors affect deliverability. Use a reputable SMTP service, avoid spam trigger words ('FREE', 'URGENT', 'ACT NOW' in all caps), maintain a clean email list, and include clear unsubscribe links. Authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. Also, balance urgency-based language by avoiding phrases like 'last chance' and 'hurry', which increase spam risk.
Ready to Set Up Cart Abandonment Sequences to Recover Your Store's Revenue?
Abandoned cart recovery is one of the highest-ROI opportunities in eCommerce. When nearly 70% of carts are abandoned, even small improvements in how you follow up can unlock meaningful revenue that would otherwise be lost.
And it all starts with the subject line. It’s the first and sometimes only chance you get to earn the open.
By understanding the psychology behind different subject line types, personalising your message, and testing minor variations over time, you can dramatically improve open rates and recover more sales without increasing traffic or ad spend.
But to do that in WordPress without letting any of your emails land in spam requires the right tool!
This is where FunnelKit Automations comes in.
It's a full-fledged tool that makes it easy to set up powerful abandoned cart sequences and various automated use cases that help dominate your business.
Whether you’re setting up cart recovery for the first time or fine-tuning an existing sequence, the frameworks in this guide will help you write abandoned cart subject lines that don’t just get opened but convert.
Get FunnelKit Automations now and get off to a flying start!
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