Recover Abandoned Bookings with Cart Abandonment Emails

Cart abandonment emails are automatic follow-up emails WaveRez sends to customers who begin a booking on your online booking portal and leave without completing checkout. WaveRez sends the email 30 minutes after the customer's cart expires, and the cart expiration time is set per Trip under Resources > Trips > Marketing in the Expiring Cart Time field. Cart abandonment emails are turned off by default and must be enabled under Marketing > Emails > Templates > Cart Abandonment. You can customize the subject line, the message body, and the button text, and you can include a promo code in the message to encourage the customer to return. The customer must have entered their contact information before abandoning the cart, because WaveRez needs an email address to send to.

You need a WaveRez Admin login with access to the Marketing section. Cart abandonment emails apply to bookings started on your online booking portal only. Orders that originate from an integrated OTA (TripShock, GetYourGuide, or Viator) never trigger a cart abandonment email, because those bookings do not pass through your WaveRez booking portal.

A cart abandonment email is triggered by a two-stage sequence. First the customer's cart expires, and then WaveRez waits 30 minutes before sending the email.

The cart expiration time is not a fixed value. Each Trip has its own Expiring Cart Time setting, measured in minutes, found under Resources > Trips, then the Marketing tab of the individual Trip. A Trip with Expiring Cart Time set to 5 means a customer's cart for that Trip expires 5 minutes after it is created, and the abandonment email sends 30 minutes after that expiration.

Three conditions must be met before WaveRez sends a cart abandonment email. The Cart abandonment emails enabled toggle must be switched on under Marketing > Emails > Templates > Cart Abandonment. The customer must have entered their contact information, including an email address, before abandoning the booking, because WaveRez has no way to contact a customer who never provided an address. And the cart must actually expire, which means the customer must leave your booking portal rather than continue browsing it.

The cart expiration time controls how long a customer's booking cart stays active before it expires, and it is configured separately on each Trip.

Step 1 — Click General in the left sidebar, then click Resources, then click Trips. WaveRez Admin displays your list of Trips.

Step 2 — Click the Trip you want to configure. WaveRez Admin opens that Trip and displays a row of tabs including General, Media, Tickets, Options, Availability, Schedules, Equipment, and Marketing.

Step 3 — Click the Marketing tab. WaveRez Admin displays the Booking Portal Settings section at the top of the page.

Step 4 — Enter a value in the Expiring Cart Time field, measured in minutes. A value of 5 means a customer's cart for this Trip expires 5 minutes after the customer creates it.

Below is the Marketing tab of a Trip showing the Booking Portal Settings section with the Expiring Cart Time field and the Customer Comments Field checkbox.

Step 5 — Save the Trip. WaveRez Admin applies the new cart expiration time to future carts created for this Trip.

Cart abandonment emails are turned off by default. No cart abandonment emails send to your customers until you switch the feature on.

Step 1 — Click the back arrow at the top of the collapsed left sidebar to expand the full navigation menu, then click Marketing. The Marketing submenu expands and displays Promotions, Emails, and Booking Portal.

Step 2 — Click Emails, then click Templates. WaveRez Admin opens the Email Templates page.

Step 3 — Click Cart Abandonment in the template panel on the left. WaveRez Admin loads the Cart Abandonment template in the editor.

Step 4 — Switch the Cart abandonment emails enabled toggle on. WaveRez Admin begins sending cart abandonment emails to customers who abandon a booking, 30 minutes after their cart expires.

Step 5 — Click Save layout in the bottom right corner. WaveRez Admin saves the enabled setting.

The Cart Abandonment template has four editable elements: the enable toggle, the Subject line, the Content block, and the Button text. Unlike the confirmation, cancellation, pre arrival, and review templates, the Cart Abandonment template does not use content modules and has a fixed layout.

Step 1 — Click Cart Abandonment in the template panel on the left of the Email Templates page. WaveRez Admin loads the Cart Abandonment template in the editor.

Step 2 — Edit the Subject field to change the subject line customers see in their inbox. The default value is "Did you forget something?"

Step 3 — Edit the message body under the Content heading. Click Rich Text for a visual editor with formatting buttons for bold, underline, italic, strikethrough, bulleted and numbered lists, alignment, links, and images. Click HTML to paste raw HTML instead.

Step 4 — Edit the Button text field to change the wording on the call to action button that returns the customer to their booking. The default value is "Finish your booking."

Step 5 — Click Save layout in the bottom right corner. WaveRez Admin saves your changes to the Cart Abandonment template.

Below is the Cart Abandonment template showing the enable toggle switched on, the subject line, the content editor containing the default message, and the button text field.

There is no promo code field or discount selector on the Cart Abandonment template. To offer a discount to customers who abandoned a booking, create the promo code first, then type the code into the message body as text.

Step 1 — Click Marketing in the left sidebar, then click Promotions. Create the promo code you want to offer to customers who abandoned a booking.

Step 2 — Click Marketing, then Emails, then Templates, then click Cart Abandonment in the template panel on the left.

Step 3 — Type the promo code directly into the Content block, along with instructions telling the customer to enter the code at checkout. For example: "Come back and finish your booking, and use code COMEBACK10 at checkout for 10% off."

Step 4 — Click Save layout in the bottom right corner. WaveRez Admin saves the promo code text into the cart abandonment email.

Confirm the Cart abandonment emails enabled toggle is switched on under Marketing > Emails > Templates > Cart Abandonment, since cart abandonment emails are turned off by default. Confirm the customer entered their email address before leaving, because WaveRez cannot send an email to a customer who never provided contact information. Check the Expiring Cart Time on the Trip under Resources > Trips > Marketing, and remember WaveRez waits an additional 30 minutes after that expiration before sending.

A cart is only treated as abandoned once the customer leaves your booking portal. Keeping the booking portal tab open, even while browsing other tabs, does not expire the cart. Close the booking portal tab entirely, then wait for the Trip's Expiring Cart Time plus an additional 30 minutes. Also confirm you entered a valid email address during your test booking, since WaveRez has no address to send to otherwise.

Cart abandonment emails apply to bookings started on your WaveRez online booking portal only. Bookings from TripShock, GetYourGuide, and Viator take place on the OTA's own platform and never create a cart in WaveRez, so no cart abandonment email is possible for those customers. This is expected behavior.

The cart abandonment email does not generate or validate promo codes. Any code included in the message must already exist as an active promo code under Marketing > Promotions. Confirm the code is active, has not passed its expiration date, and has not reached its usage limit.