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Set up your Abandoned cart recovery automation
Bring customers back to your store with an automated flow when they leave items in their cart without checking out.
April 10, 2026
For Shopify eCommerce stores only
🏷️ The Abandoned cart recovery automation is unlocked with the Marketing add-on.
Before you get started
Some key details to note about the Abandoned Cart Recovery Automation:
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The Abandoned Cart Recovery Automation is prebuilt in your Marsello app admin.
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This prebuilt automation follows the process below:
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The automation is triggered when a customer leaves the website without completing their purchase.
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The first email is sent 1 hour after the cart is abandoned, prompting the customer to return and complete their order. These emails will only include the items that were in the customer’s cart, not products they were browsing.
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If the first email does not result in a purchase, a second email is sent after an 18-hour delay, followed by a third email 24 hours after that. The second and third emails are marketing emails, so they only go to customers who accept email marketing.
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Once the flow is complete, the customer doesn't receive any further messages. The customer also leaves the flow as soon as the customer returns and completes their purchase.
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The Abandoned cart recovery automation is fully customizable to suit your brand's needs. You can add/remove emails, SMS messages, Delays, and Points stesp in the automation and even update the discount settings
How to open the Abandoned Cart Recovery Automation for editing
1. In the Marsello admin, go to Marketing > Automations. Select Recover abandoned carts and then click Edit.
📝 Note: If the automation is on, you need to turn it off before you can edit it. Click Edit next to the automation's name. In the pop-up, click Yes, disable and edit. Turn the automation back on when you finish editing.
Adding emails, SMS, delays, and/or points to your automation
2. Open the automation editor of your automation and click the ⨁ icon to insert an Email, SMS, delay, or add points into your flow.
3. Choose the step you will be adding to the flow (Email, SMS, Points, or Delay) and click Continue.
⚠️ Important: Add a delay of at least 2 hours between emails. Marsello has a 2-hour safe-sending period between emails, so without a delay, customers only get the first email.
Modify trigger, delay, and email blocks
In addition to adding new emails and delays, you can:
Edit your automation's Trigger settings
The Trigger controls when the automation starts. To update your automation's Trigger settings:
4. Click the cog icon to open the trigger settings menu
5. Set the order count that the first email will be triggered by
6. Click Save Changes
Adjust, clone or delete Delays
A Delay is the time between one step and the next in the flow. To update your automation's Delay settings:
7. Click the pencil icon on the Delay step to update the Delay settings
8. Select how much time to wait before the next email in the flow will send and select Save changes
9. If you need to repeat a delay in the automation, go back to the pencil icon next to the Delay step and click on the three dots. Next, select Clone step
10. If you need to delete the Delay step, go back to the pencil icon and click on the three dots. Next, select Delete
Edit, clone or delete Email templates
Email templates hold the content and messaging of the actual emails that are sent to your customers.
Edit your email template
11. Click the pencil icon to update the contents of your Email template
Clone your email template
12. Scroll to the email template in the automation that you wish to clone and click on the three dots next to the pencil icon. Then select Clone step.
Delete your email template
13. Scroll to the email template in the automation that you wish to delete and click on the three dots next to the pencil icon. Then select delete.
📖 Learn more: Here are some helpful guides with tips on customizing your emails.
FAQs
Q. Do customers need to accept marketing to get abandoned cart emails?
A. Not for the first message. It's currently transactional, so it can go to customers who haven't accepted marketing, unless the Only send transactional messages to opted-in customers setting is on. Every message after the first needs marketing consent on its channel.
Q. Why did my customer get the first abandoned cart email but not the second or third?
A. The second and third emails are marketing emails. If the customer hasn't accepted email marketing, the flow ends for them after the first email. The customer also leaves the flow if they complete their purchase.
Q. Why is the estimate lower than my number of customers when I turn on the automation?
A. The estimate only counts customers the flow can reach on its channels. Email-only flows count customers with email consent, SMS-only flows count SMS consent, and flows with both count customers with either.
Q. Can I use the Abandoned cart recovery automation with Lightspeed or another POS?
A. No. It's only available for Shopify eCommerce stores.
Q. Our store applies a refundable credit card hold to each order. We want to use the abandoned cart automation, but we’ve noticed that the price in the emails includes the credit card hold. Is there a way to set up the automation so it only shows the actual item price and not the hold amount?
A. Currently, there isn't a feature that will allow you to do this. If this is something you'd like to see added, feel free to vote for this feature. Your feedback goes directly to our product team and helps us prioritize what’s most important to you!
Q. Why is my abandoned cart automation not delivering?
A. This can sometimes happen due to cached browser data. Please clear your browser cache and history, then repeat the abandoned cart steps again. This helps make sure old data isn’t affecting the test. If it’s still not working after that, please let our support team know and provide the email address you are testing with so they can look into this further.
ℹ️ Disclaimer: As of September 15, 2025, the Abandoned Cart Automation is included in the Marketing add-on for all new sign-ups. Customers on legacy pricing plans will continue to access this feature under their existing plan—no changes required.
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