The time period when email is sent is fully customizable. We suggest some guidelines for delays so that emails would still be effective and yield expected commercial impact. For example, an abandoned cart reminder sent two weeks after the visit, doesn’t typically carry any relevancy for the recipient, while an email sent just an hour or half an hour ago might generate the desired effect: A returning visitor and a conversion.

For order follow-up a best practice is to send an order follow-up email around the time a customer receives the shipment and possibly again after they have used and tested the product. Asking for a customer testimonial is also a good idea in order follow-up email.

For a we miss you-activation email, sending a message 30, 60 or 90 days after the last visit is a best practice, but please consider what time period would be the best match for your business as preferred times depend on business and items you sell.

For Order Follow-Ups (OFU) and We Miss You (WMU)  triggers and time periods are relatively simple, whereas testing Abandoned Cart Emails (ACE) is often distracted by a harmless user error.

OFU triggers when a customer buys something thus an email is dispatched roughly at the same time of the day, after the given time period as a delay is exceeded.

WMU is triggered by a purchase or visit to the site. Basically the time period delay clock is always reseted by a visit after a possible purchase. Note that WMU is also dispatched to users that Nosto is able to identify through a registration, newsletter subscription or by a pop-up, meaning that a recipient of a WMU isn’t necessary a customer who has bought something, albeit this is the most common customer type.

ACE is sent after a cart abandonment is detected after the session expires and only to users which Nosto is able to identify. A session expires after 30 minutes of inactivity and emails are sent in batches, meaning that if a delay is set to 30 minutes, an email is sent about an hour later after a user has effectively left the site and session.

A common misconception while testing an ACE is to leave a cart behind, but in many cases by not logging-in when Nosto is able to tie the session with a browser. Logging-in is required only once until cookies are cleared, but in many cases emails are tested on a browser by a user which is not identified by an email address. Therefore, in case you would like to simulate cart abandonment, log-in to your site and review that email address and cart tagging is sent to Nosto using a debugger and then leave your site with items left in the cart. Don’t visit the site thereafter before receiving an email from Nosto as this might activate your session again, which in practice resets the delay time and clock.