Recouping abandoned customers

[Nigelb]

We have just been contacted by a potentially interesting partner - they monitor shopping cart abandonment and then email the abandoners with a 'can we help' email.

They say they can identify when someone has entered an email address on a checkout page, before they click 'next' - by inserting a small piece of java script on the page where the email is entered.

They need to know the url of the page in question, and the page after (actually they prefer the completion page, but for reasons below, we don't want to give them that).

Could this work with actinic?

because, on current site (v9.05), the page in question - where the email is entered - has url http://www.nigelsecostore.com/cgi-bin/os000001.pl,
as does the page after http://www.nigelsecostore.com/cgi-bin/os000001.pl

We already email any PSP Pendings who don't later complete. As we already do this, I don't think I want to start paying someone else to do it, but it would be great if they could contact people at the stage before ie when they've entered their email but it's not been recorded.

Anyone any idea if this could work?

[Duncan Rounding]

I had a request to include this on a client site a short while ago however the client decided not to go ahead on the basis of data protection and also not wanting what is essentially a keylogger running on the site.

I would have thought that emailing the PSP pendings would be much the same.

[Nigelb]

I had a request to include this on a client site a short while ago however the client decided not to go ahead on the basis of data protection and also not wanting what is essentially a keylogger running on the site.

are there problems with keyloggers?

[Duncan Rounding]

As a customer I wouldn't be very happy knowing that a bit of script was monitoring my keystrokes.

It would also be very useful info for your competitors to have if it went 'astray'.

[NormanRouxel]

Hmmm... Not really a keylogger. More likely an "onchange" event on a specific email field in the checkout. However capturing a non-customers email address when they've no idea that they're sending it to you does sound rather suspect.

[Nigelb]

However capturing a non-customers email address when they've no idea that they're sending it to you does sound rather suspect.

We send an email for PSP pendings, with no complaints whatsoever. I'm not worried about that side of things, customers will soon tell us if they're not happy and we can quickly cancel the service if so...

Back to my original question, technically, is it possible with actinic?

[leehack]

Technically speaking yes, ethically probably not. To have provided you with an email address they could be as little as 10-20% through the process, not even told you where to ship the item to or what delivery service they want and certainly not agreed to any terms of service.

Whereas with PSP pending, these are largely down to an inconvenience or disruption at payment stage and usually much further on in the process. I think using these is fine as they will have progressed a considerable way along the purchasing journey, many will have just failed at payment stage having given all info and most importantly having confirmed they've seen your T&Cs and ticked about their privacy.

[Mike Hughes]

I kind of agree with the others. Technically it doesn't sound hard to do, just use javascript to file the email address once it's been entered (or before the user moves away).

Ethically I'm not sure this is the right thing to do. The nearest analogy I can think of is a paper form in a shop. The customer starts to fill it in but changes their mind, scrunches it up and throws it in the bin. You then take it out of the bin, straighten it up and use the data to contact the customer. Right thing to do? I'm not convinced.

Mike

[Nigelb]

Interesting discussion. Thanks for the feedback!

[Sean Williams]

Ethically - I'm agin it.
Data Protectionally - I'd say it was against the rules as the potential customer is never offered the opportunity to agree to your T&C's.

[Steve G Griggs]

I agree with Sean:

Ethically - I'm agin it.
Data Protectionally - I'd say it was against the rules as the potential customer is never offered the opportunity to agree to your T&C's.

I would be against this for three reasons:
1 It's bad ethics.
2 Data protection, it could very easily be in a grey area if not in contravention, as Sean said regarding T&C agreement it's not good practice.
3 It sounds suspiciously like e-mail address harvesting for third parties.
This definitely sounds dodgy to me.

As an aside is "protectionally" a real word......?

[Sean Williams]

It is now

[Steve G Griggs]

Well we are using it, so I suppose it is now. Protectionally is now a part of the English language..

[robmob]

Nigel

Did you progress this - I have just seen some stats that indicate up to 12% of online retailers are now communicating with shopping cart abandoners and that where they do over 50% open and conversion rates are up to 10%.

This site provides a bit more info on the subject http://www.ondemand.redeye.com/
(I am not affiliated to them in any way)

Also on your psp pending contacts do you email through actinic or your email marketing platform?