The 3-email cart recovery sequence

A single cart abandonment email recovers about 5% of abandoned carts. That's decent. But a three-email sequence recovers about 12%. The extra emails aren't spam if they're spaced and structured right.

Email 1: Send within 1 hour. Subject: "You left something behind." No discount. Just a reminder with the product image and a direct link back to their cart. This catches the people who got distracted, lost their tab, or had to answer the door.

Email 2: Send at 24 hours. Subject: "Still thinking it over?" Add social proof. A review, a rating, or a customer count. This handles the people who hesitated because they weren't sure.

Email 3: Send at 72 hours. Subject: "Last chance + 10% off." Now you offer the incentive. But only to the people who didn't respond to the first two. This is your final play for the price-sensitive segment.

The sequence matters. If you lead with a discount, you train people to abandon carts on purpose. If you lead with a reminder and social proof, you recover the genuinely interested buyers first and only discount for the fence-sitters.