Abandoned search recovery
Track search queries and page views, and retarget potential customers with automated messages.
In this guide, we'll show you how to use web tracking to see what holidays potential customers are searching and viewing, and how to use journeys to retarget them with personalized offers.
1. Add website tracking
If you have already installed one of the ecommerce platform integrations, such as Shopify, the web SDK is automatically installed on your store website.
The first step to setting up abandoned search recovery is to add tracking to your website. To do this, you'll need to install Bird's web SDK.
With the web SDK installed, you'll be able to:
Identify visitors
Track page views
Track searches
This tracking information will automatically be added to contact profiles and used to create segments.
2. Create a segment
Now that you're capturing search and page view information, you can create a segment to group users that are searching for a specific destination.
To do this:
Go to the Marketing section of your workspace, then go to Audience > Lists & segments > Create new > Create new segment.
Then, in the Segment definition section, use Something was or was not done and select Page viewed and Search submitted as events.
For the Search submitted event, you can match the query terms to a specific country search such as 'Bahamas'.
Take a look at the screenshot to see how it's done.
Save your segment.
Visitors to your website who view a specific page or submit a specific search will now automatically be added to the segment.
3. Build a dynamic email template
Now you can build a dynamic email template with variables.
You can add variables by typing {{ or clicking the Add variables icon, and selecting the variable that you want to use.
For example, you might want to populate the subject line as follows:
Ready to book your next {{contact.attributes.interest}} vacation?
Go to Content > Email templates, and use the drag and drop builder to design an email or set of emails that you want to send to website visitors who have abandoned a search.
To personalize the email with information relevant to the destination they were searching for, use variables.
Test and Publish your template so it's ready to send as part of a journey.
Tips
Remember to create and publish email templates for every stage of the journey!
4. Set up a journey
Next, set up a journey to send your email templates.
From the Marketing section of your workspace, go to Journeys > Create journey > Create from scratch.
For the trigger, use Added to segment and select the segment you created in step two. When a contact is added to that segment, the journey will automatically start to run.
Next, add a Wait step, and set the wait time to s few hours. You don't want to email your customers the second that they view something, as that can be a bit overwhelming!
Below the Wait step, add a Send an email step, then select the first email template you created in step two. Remember to configure any of the variables you added by using the panel on the right-hand side of your screen
Repeat this process for the other email templates you have created
When you're ready, Publish your journey to set it live.
Tips
Use Wait steps to adjust how long your journey should wait before sending the next email.
Use Conditions to only continue the journey if the customer hasn't completed their booking (see screenshot below)
Add steps to target customers on other channels such as SMS and WhatsApp to increase engagement.
Conditions example:
You've just set up an abandoned search recover journey!
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