5 Best Shopping Cart Abandonment/Rescue Services

Which Email Marketing Software Provides The Best Support For Rescuing Abandoned Shopping Carts? GetResponse vs Ontraport vs. Active Campaign

It was a single mouse click away, but that sale was lost.  Or was it?  There are some serious players offering a tight eCommerce to email marketing Win Back service to recoup the abandoned shopping cart.  But it does not end there; if you want a fully integrated and automated eCommerce solution, then read on.

Abandoned Shopping Carts Are A Problem in eCommerce


1. Ontraport: Winner, Most Integrated Solution for CRM, eCommerce & Shopping Cart Abandonment.

Ontraport Email & Ecommerce

Review Winner

Ontraport is the complete CRM & email marketing solution that becomes exceptionally cost-effective for enterprises with large contact lists of more than 50,000 subscribers.

Ontraport is simply one of the best email marketing services around with a set of fully integrated CRM & eCommerce services that will grow your business.

Ontraport Review Summary Likes Dislikes
★ Best In Class Pricing For Large Clients ✘ Pricey for Startups
Great Abandoned Shopping Cart Automation
★ Complete eCommerce Solutions
Visit Ontraport ★ Fully Integrated Landing Pages & Payment Gateways
★ Dedicated Line To Account Manager

 

Ontraport Pricing

When it comes to pricing, Ontraport is clearly targeting fast-growing businesses and medium to large enterprises.  Below you can see that Ontraport currently offers one of the lowest price points, and interestingly offers the broadest most integrated set of services for all business needs.

Primary Features: Sales & Payments

The key to being able to automate the sales funnel shown in the previous section is to have the ability to integrate the landing pages into the process.  Many small businesses using WordPress, for example, will struggle to structure and host high-quality landing pages.  The challenge is getting your website to communicate with PayPal, Stripe, or Square.  If you have a reoccurring payment model, for example, a membership program, this is close to impossible to manage by yourself.

Not only does Ontraport offer a fully integrated landing page and payment processing service, but they also have integrated abandoned cart follow-ups, and active customer Win Back automation.  This is an impressive collection of integrated services, which means you do not have to worry about using 3rd party integrators or solutions to try to automate your workflow.  This is as beneficial for SMB’s as it is for enterprise businesses.

Generating Your Own Salesforce – Partner Program

Ontraport is the only marketing automation company in our extensive research that offers an integrated partner management program.

Consider this, you have a great product, but you do not have the budget to fund a salesforce, or even more importantly, you want to be able to scale a workforce quickly and efficiently.  This is where Affiliate Marketing or a Partner Program excels.  You offer a fixed or recurring revenue stream to other businesses to promote your product, e.g., $50 per sale.

Implementing this by yourself is a seriously tricky challenge, tracking sales, payments, returns, it can quickly become a nightmare.  There are many companies out there that will offer this as a service, but believe me, they are expensive.

Ontraport solves this problem by offering a turnkey solution to partner management. The best thing about it is it is all included in the price, no extra charge.

[Related Article: Full Ontraport Service Details – Review & Test]

Customer Relationship Mgt (CRM) & Remarketing

As mentioned previously, the CRM integration enables the full service to integrate seamlessly.  Many email marketing companies claim to have an excellent CRM service, but only a few offer a lead rating system and cross-platform customer tracing.

Ontraport CRM Overview Video

 

Ease of Use & Customer Ratings

Using as many independent sources as possible, we have rated the services provided.

Our rating on ease of use and design ☆☆☆☆☆
Using the independent ratings from Trustpilot Users – we also filtered out obviously biased ratings. ☆☆☆☆
Customer Twitter Sentiment Index ☆☆☆☆☆
Support (Chat, Email, Phone) Chat, Email
Support Times 12/7
Response Time Immediate
Average Ratings of Support Times, Response Times & Accessibility ☆☆☆☆

Ontraport scores highly in both ease of use and their modern approach to design.  Despite the vast and powerful array of features and functions, the service is easy to navigate and use.

Ontraport Review Summary

Ontraport may be the giant you have never heard about.  But they were established in 2006 and offer the single most well-rounded solution for growing your business. Offering a full CRM, BPA, a complete Email Marketing & Automation Service, Landing Pages, and even payment gateway services, this is already a great package.  Add to that, Membership Site management and a completely automated Partner Management solution, and you have a worthy review winner.

Visit Ontraport


2. GetResponse: Best Features & Pricing With Autofunnels, Landing Pages & Shopping Cart Abandonment Automation

GetResponse A Leader in Email Marketing Automation

Review Winner

GetResponse is simply one of the best email marketing services around, with a complete portfolio of services.

Combining fantastic entry-level pricing with a set of powerful CRM & eCommerce services that will grow with your business and also drive your business forward.

 

GetResponse Review Summary Likes Dislikes
Excellent Shopping Cart Abandonment Solution ✘ No Free Tier
★ Excellent Email Deliverability ✘ Spam Check Very Stringent
★ Full Suite of CRM Features
★ Unique AutoFunnel Solution
Visit GetResponse ★ Fully Integrated Landing Pages & Payment Gateways
★ Dedicated Line To Account Manager

 

GetResponse Pricing

When it comes to pricing, GetResponse has done their homework.  Below you can see that GetResponse currently offers one of the lowest price points but also offers by far the broadest most integrated set of services for all business needs.  So, for the features you get combined with the pricing, GetResponse is the winner.

Competitor Pricing Table – All Email Marketing Services

Value RatingsSendX Email ServiceGet Response Email Marketing ServiceAWeber Email Marketing ServiceBenchmark EmailConstant Contact Email ServicesConvertKit Email & Sales ServicesMailchimp Email ServiceActive Campaign Email ServicesiContact Email Marketing ServiceOntraport Email & CRM ServicesMailJet Email ServiceSendinBlue Email Service
Value☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
ModelContactContactContactContactContactContactContactContactContactContactEmailEmail
Free-TierNoNoNoYesNoNoYesNoNoNo6K/m - $09K/m - $0
#Contacts
500$7.49$15$19$13$17$25$15$9$30$7930K/m - $9.6540K/m - $25
2,500$15$25$29$30$38$49$50$39$50$14760K/m - $18.9560K/m - $39
10,000$39$65$69$76$81$119$99$111$110$297150K/m - $69120K/m - $67
25,000$112$145$149$144$191$166$219$179$199$497450K/m - $230350K/m - $173
50,0000$172$250$392$237$295$316$299$239$379$599=< 125K
Unlimited$2,999$99 per extra 100K
Cost per Contact (cents)0.390.650.690.740.81111.110.672.97NANA
Visit SendX ServicesVisit GetResponseVisit AWeber ServicesVisit BenchmarkVisit ConstantContactVisit ConvertKitVisit MailchimpVisit ActiveCampaignVisit iContact ServicesVisit OntraportVisit MailJet ServicesVisit SendinBlue

These are the prices for the basic plan, which includes:

  • Email Marketing
  • Abandoned Cart Automation
  • Autoresponders
  • Unlimited Landing Pages
  • Automation Templates
  • Forms & Surveys
  • Exit Popups
  • Facebook Adverts Integration
  • 150+ integrations

At industry-leading low price points, GetResponse offers more features than nearly every other competitor, which means a great deal for you.

View the GetResponse pricing page to view the tiers of service for yourself.

GetResponse Email Marketing Visualization – Screenshot

GetResponse Advanced Automation Image
GetResponse Advanced Automation Visualizes Complex Automation with Simplicity – Click to Zoom.

Primary Features: AutoFunnel

Only 3 of our tested companies provide a Sales Funnel service.  GetResponse arguably does this better than it’s competitors by having services that cover the entire sales process.

GetResponse Auto Funnels Lead the Industry
GetResponse Auto Funnels Lead the Industry – From Social Acquisition to Lead Pages That Generate Sales

[Related Article: Read the Full Detailed GetResponse Review]

Amazingly AutoFunnel is part of the GetResponse Plus Plan, and for only $179,- per month, you can host 25,000 contacts and get access to the entire portfolio of AutoFunnel related services.

Primary Features: Sales & Payments

The key to being able to automate the sales funnel shown in the previous section is to have the ability to integrate the landing pages into the process.  Many small businesses using WordPress, for example, will struggle to structure and host high-quality landing pages.  The challenge is getting your website to communicate with PayPal, Stripe, or Square.  If you have a reoccurring payment model, for example, a membership program, this is close to impossible to manage by yourself.

Not only does GetResponse offer a fully integrated landing page and payment processing service, but they also have integrated abandoned cart follow-ups, and effective customer Win Back automation.  This is an impressive collection of integrated services, which means you do not have to worry about using 3rd party integrators or solutions to try to automate your workflow.  This is as beneficial for SMB’s as it is for enterprise businesses.

Customer Relationship Mgt (CRM) & Remarketing

As mentioned previously, the CRM integration enables the whole service to integrate seamlessly.  Many email marketing companies claim to have a great CRM service, but only a few offer a lead rating system and cross-platform customer tracing.

Lead Scoring & Cross-Platform Journey Reporting

Consider this example, a customer sees your Facebook advert and takes action to visit your website for further information. They then ask a question via site chat to your helpdesk.  They click around your website, looking for further information on a product. Then later, they signup to your email list and then send an email to the support team.  All of these interactions will be captured and reported in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. This appears to be a very interested and active customer.  Based on the Scoring System rules you create, you can flag a customer as a hot prospect and assign the task to a member of the sales team to reach out to them.

This exemplifies the cross-platform journey of a potential customer and enables you to reach out to hot prospects for a sale.

Ease of Use & Customer Ratings

Using as many independent sources as possible, we have rated the services provided.

Our rating on ease of use and design ☆☆☆☆☆
Using the independent ratings from Trustpilot Users – we also filtered out obviously biased ratings. ☆☆
Customer Twitter Sentiment Index ☆☆☆☆☆
Support (Chat, Email, Phone) Chat, Email
Support Times 24/7
Response Time Immediate
Average Ratings of Support Times, Response Times & Accessibility ☆☆☆☆

GetResponse scores highly in both ease of use and their modern approach to design.  Despite the vast and powerful array of features and functions, the service is easy to navigate and use.

GetResponse Summary

GetResponse offers a fully integrated service with practically every feature you can imagine.  Surprisingly they can compete effectively at both ends of the price spectrum, offering industry-leading low prices for Startups and SMB’s but also offering a full spectrum Pro service for the enterprise.  Whichever tier of service you choose, you can be sure GetResponse will grow with and help grow your business.

Try a GetResponse Free Trial


3. ActiveCampaign: Good Abandoned Cart Win Back, CRM & Customer Service.

Active Campaign

Review Winner

ActiveCampaign is simply one of the best email marketing services according to our testing, combining high-quality analytics, landing pages, full payment gateways, and multi-platform customer journey tracking.

They are a class act.

 

ActiveCampaign Review Summary Likes Dislikes
★ Excellent Customer Satisfaction Ratings ✘ Higher Than Average Pricing
★ Excellent Email Deliverability
★ Full Suite of CRM Features
Sales Funnels & Strong Abandoned Cart Win Back
Visit ActiveCampaign ★ Fully Integrated Landing Pages & Payment Gateways
★ Dedicated Line To Account Manager

 

Special Features: Customer Experience Automation (CXA)

Customer Experience Automation (CXA) is the ability for automation to customize itself to every individual customer—so you can get better results from the same amount of work. When you create next-gen automation, you create a single simple flow. Machine learning and other dynamic features turn that flow into hundreds of unique experiences–created fresh for every person. Our automation accomplishes this in a few ways:

  • Timing: Create individual pauses and send times so that every message arrives at the perfect moment.
  • Predictive Sending: this product is a significant step to providing automation that helps you give every customer a truly unique experience.
    • Send automation emails at the most impactful time for each individual.
    • Truly optimized send times at the contact level vs. account level
    • Available in Professional and Enterprise plans
  • Routing: Send people through the unique sequence that makes sense for them.
  • Content: Customize every message for each person who sees it.

Customer Experience Automation (CXA) Video

Reporting & Analytics

ActiveCampaign has a robust set of basic and advanced reporting and analytics.  You will have the ability to analyze and improve your campaigns with reporting that allows you to compare desktop versus mobile, regional performance, or even global performance.  The reporting features also map the individual to their location on a map and uncovers open rates, click rates.  This can be invaluable if you are planning a roadshow, conference, or any regional activity as you can visualize and target your clients in that area. In addition, they even have a timeline view where you can replay the opens and clicks as they happened. Very nice.

[Related Post – Compare All Email Marketing Services Side By Side]

Of course, you can also see list growth, unsubscribes, and even social shares.  Finally and importantly, A/B Testing, the ability to test the email performance with different subject lines and content, is included even with the Basic starter package.

Visit ActiveCampaign

Killer Feature: Funnels

Only 3 of our tested companies provide a Sales Funnel service.  ActiveCampaign arguably does this better than most by having services that cover the entire sales process.

Deal Pipelines With ActiveCampaign
Deal Pipelines With ActiveCampaign

[Related Article: Active Campaign Pipelines Details in Our Full Review]

Customer Relationship Mgt (CRM) & Remarketing

As mentioned previously, the CRM integration enables the whole service to integrate seamlessly.  Many email marketing companies claim to have a great CRM service, but only a few offer a lead rating system and cross-platform customer tracing.

Win Probability & Cross-Platform Journey Reporting

Consider this example, a customer sees your Facebook advert and takes action to visit your website for further information. They then ask a question via site chat to your helpdesk.  They click around your website, looking for further information on a product. Then later, they signup to your email list and then send an email to the support team.  All of these interactions will be captured and reported in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. This appears to be a very interested and active customer.  Based on the Win Probability, a customer will be flagged as a hot prospect and can be assigned to a member of the sales team to reach out to them.

This exemplifies the cross-platform journey of a potential customer and enables you to reach out to hot prospects for a sale.

Ease of Use & Customer Ratings

Using as many independent sources as possible, we have rated the services provided.

Our rating on ease of use and design ☆☆☆☆
Using the independent ratings from Trustpilot Users – we also filtered out obviously biased ratings. ☆☆☆☆
Customer Twitter Sentiment Index ☆☆☆☆☆
Support (Chat, Email, Phone) Chat, Email
Support Times 10/5
Response Time Immediate
Average Ratings of Support Times, Response Times & Accessibility ☆☆☆☆☆

ActiveCampaign scores highly in customer service and customer satisfaction.  Despite the vast and powerful array of features and functions, the service is easy to navigate and use.

ActiveCampaign Review Summary

ActiveCampaign offers an almost complete set of tools, and what it does not provide natively is covered with 250+ integrations.  Its customers are delighted and are willing to pay a little more to get the highest levels of customer service and personal support.  Innovation in A.I. and Machine learning is allowing great features to bubble to the surface, such as predictive sending and predictive win probability reporting.

Visit ActiveCampaign


 

Benchmark Email

4. Benchmark Email: Free for Up to 2,000 Contacts + Abandoned Cart Integration

Great for Startups Needing A Good Free Service for 2,000 contacts.  The Pro Service is Also Competitively Priced With Innovative Features Like Abandoned Cart Resue.

California based Benchmark Email was established in 2004.  They offer a robust set of features for a competitive price.  Neither the price leader nor the features leader, Benchmark, occupies a place in the industry offering simplicity and value for money.

Benchmark Email Review Summary Likes Dislikes
★ Free Service for 2,000 contacts ✘ Image Storage Costs $5/m
★ Easy to Use Automation Pro ✘ Reports of Email Deliverability Issues
★ 24/7 Phone & Chat Support in 9 Languages
★ Good Twitter Sentiment Ratings
Visit Benchmark Email Abandoned Cart Rescue

 

Benchmark Email Marketing Features

Like all of the services reviewed, Benchmark Email offers a selection of pre-designed email templates and a good selection of high-quality images for use in your email campaigns.  The email design process is also fully drag-and-drop, making crafting your message a breeze.

In fact, Benchmark Email has a collection reasonable of newsletter templates, but unlike many of its competitors, it does not offer a large selection of licensed images, you will have to source your own, which can be costly and time-consuming.

Benchmark Email Key Features

Highlights of the Benchmark Email Pro Service:

  • Email Marketing Automation
  • Unlimited Email Sends
  • Segmentation, Tagging, Autoresponders, Drip Campaigns
  • Automated Customer Journey Funnels
  • Abandoned Cart Automation
  • Facebook Audiences Integration
  • CRM Integration
  • Events Management
  • Polling & Surveys

Benchmark Marketing Automation

Most software providers offer Autoresponders, Email Sequencing/ Drip Campaigns, Customer Tagging, and Segmentation.  Benchmark Email provides all of these services included in the price.  The automation is straightforward and very visual, which means you can really see a customer’s journey through the process.  Take a quick look at the video below.

Benchmark Automation PRO Video

Benchmark Email’s Features for Enterprise & Ecommerce

Benchmark Email is also taking aim at SMB customers by offering a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Most small email marketers do not really need this level of functionality. But if you are part of a larger team that needs CRM, you will want to consider GetResponseActiveCampaign, or Ontraport.  GetResponse has a great price point and a complete set of features.  However, Benchmark does have some enterprise functionality.

Multiple User Accounts & Collaboration

Benchmark Email does, however, allow you to host multiple accounts to enable better workflow and collaboration in the marketing department.  You can add different accounts with different permissions.  Permissions are simple; you either have the administrator or contributor privileges.

Benchmark CRM

Benchmark Email also has a CRM service, it is not really enterprise-ready but has some excellent features like the ability to track all user actions and the ability to work directly with Gmail (via a plugin) that allows you to tag leads directly from your inbox.

Ease of Use & Customer Ratings

Using as many independent sources as possible, we have rated the services provided.

Our rating on ease of use and design ☆☆☆☆
Using the independent ratings from Trustpilot Users – we also filtered out obviously biased ratings. N/A
Customer Twitter Sentiment Index ☆☆☆☆☆
Support (Chat, Email, Phone) Phone, Chat, Email
Support Times 24/7
Response Time Immediate
Average Ratings of Support Times, Response Times & Accessibility ☆☆☆☆☆

 

Benchmark Email scores highly in customer service and customer satisfaction.  Whatever problem you may be facing the talented and passionate support team is available instantly, the support service is easy to navigate and use.

Benchmark Email Review Summary

Benchmark Email has a strong portfolio of tools, including effective visual automation, smooth A/B testing, and useful analytics.  Social integrations to Facebook, Twitter, and even LinkedIn & Slack show a well-rounded product feature set.  A reasonable CRM for small businesses is also included.  Starting at Free for up to 2,000 contacts, but even the Pro service is very competitively priced and well worth considering.

Visit Benchmark


5. MailChimp: 3rd Party Abandoned Cart Rescue Service, But Customer Satisfaction Issues

An industry leader, falling behind on system stability, value for money, and customer satisfaction.

mailchimp logo

MailChimp is one of the older email marketing services, and since its launch in 2001, it made great strides in gaining small business customers across the digital marketing industry.  It became one of the email newsletter behemoths.  As you can see from our article on choosing the best email software, many entrepreneurs still use MailChimp.  But during the thousands of hours of researching and testing email marketing services, we have found MailChimp’s service to be lacking.

MailChimp Review Summary Likes Dislikes
★ Facebook & Instagram Adverts Integrated ✘ Customer Satisfaction
★ RSS to Email ✘ Pricing
★ Email Updated to Facebook ✘ Trustpilot Ratings
★ Abandoned Shopping Cart Follow-up ✘ Limited Features
Visit Mailchimp ★ Customer Specific Delivery Times
★ Time Zone Delivery Times

 

MailChimp Pricing

In the case of MailChimp, we had to select their second most expensive tier “Standard” for a good feature comparison with over email marketing services. Their pricing means for up to 10,000 contacts; you will pay 1ct per month.  This is 3 times the price of SendX and 50% more than GetResponse.

To their credit, they do have a free tier of service, which will store up to 2,000 contacts and although the email templates and forms will have MailChimp branding, you will have access to the Facebook and Instagram lead generation tools.

MailChimp does offer four levels of service, but the Standard service will be the one to opt for if you want any kind of meaningful automation.  It includes:

  • Email Marketing Automation
  • Unlimited Email Sends
  • Segmentation, Tagging, Autoresponders
  • Signup Forms, Email Templates & Stock Photos
  • Email to RSS, Facebook & Twitter
  • Abandoned Cart Automation
  • 200+ integrations to other platforms

Things to Know About Mailchimps Pricing

Surprisingly, MailChimp is far from being a price leader, and despite the fact it can seem expensive as the Standard service does not even include phone support.  For that, you have to go to the Premium service, which is significantly more costly.

Marketing & Automation Features

MailChimp also has pre-designed email capture forms, which are also fully customizable. The types of form on offer are Inline, Pop-Over, Lightbox, and Pop-Up.  The only thing missing is an Exit Intent form.

Most software providers offer Autoresponders, Email Sequencing, Customer Tagging, and Segmentation.  Mailchimp’s implementation of automation is quite basic, similar in fact to AWeber, and when compared to GetResponse or ActiveCampaigns slick automation visualizations, it is way behind.

Features for Enterprise & Ecommerce

MailChimp is clearly not aiming at enterprise customers.  There is some limited possibility to host multiple accounts to enable better workflow and collaboration in the marketing department.

There is also no mechanism for customer relationship management (CRM).  So if you are part of a larger team, you will want to consider Ontraport or GetResponse.

Out of all tests, only three software vendors offer a fully integrated site chat function, Mailchimp is not one of them.

Ease of Use & Customer Ratings

Using as many independent sources as possible, we have rated the services provided.

Our rating on ease of use and design ☆☆☆
Using the independent ratings from Trustpilot Users – we also filtered out obviously biased ratings.
Customer Twitter Sentiment Index ☆☆
Support (Chat, Email, Phone) Chat, Email
Support Times 24/7
Response Time Delayed
Average Ratings of Support Times, Response Times & Accessibility

MailChimp has recently raised its prices, which does not impress its customers, but the most significant issues are the levels of customer service and the technical problems with the service availability.

Take a look and the Twitter Sentiment (type MailChimp into the query box), and you can see the negativity and tweets categorized.  You can also look at the Trustpilot scores for MailChimp, with 55% of its own customers rating it Bad.

MailChimp Review Summary

MailChimp offers a free service to host up to 2,000 contacts, which is unique and useful for startups with a $0 budget.  But MailChimp is also suffering a host of problems, with unhappy customers, a high price to features ratio, and system availability technical issues. With crushing Trustpilot ratings, can MailChimp pull through?.


Summary: Email Marketing Services With Shopping Cart Abandonment

For a great shopping cart abandonment and, in fact, a completely seamless eCommerce experience, Ontraport takes first place with its turnkey service.  However, GetResponse and Active Campaign also hit the spot with their excellent eCommerce services.

Barry's 25 years of experience with Silicon Valley Corporations such as IBM, Compaq, Hewlett Packard, Hewlett Packard Enterprise & DXC Technology enables him to share his knowledge of succeeding in today's professional corporate environments and develop a great work life for yourself.