Seven out of every ten online shoppers who put something in a cart never buy it. That’s not a guess: it’s the headline figure from the Baymard Institute, which puts the average documented cart abandonment rate at 70.22%, based on 50 separate studies. For most stores, that’s the single biggest revenue leak on the site, and it’s the exact problem email remarketing exists to fix.

Meanwhile Kiwis keep spending more online. Total online spending in New Zealand grew 10% in 2025, with domestic retailers taking a bigger share of it, according to NZ Post’s e-commerce market sentiment data reported by the NZ Herald. More carts are being built. Most are still being abandoned. Here’s what email remarketing actually is, what the real numbers say about it, and how to run it properly in New Zealand.

First, what email remarketing actually is

Email remarketing (sometimes called email retargeting) is the practice of sending automated, triggered emails to people who’ve already shown intent on your site or in your store, but didn’t complete the action. It’s not a newsletter and it’s not a one-off promo blast. It’s a set of “if this, then that” flows that fire on customer behaviour:

  • Abandoned cart — someone adds a product to their cart and leaves without paying.
  • Browse abandonment — someone views a product (or category) repeatedly but never adds it to cart.
  • Post-purchase and win-back — a customer buys once, then goes quiet, so you re-engage them before they forget you exist.
  • Welcome and onboarding — a new subscriber or first-time buyer gets nurtured toward a second purchase.

The common thread: every email in the sequence is triggered by something the person actually did, not by the calendar. That’s what makes it perform so much better than a generic campaign; you’re emailing people who are already halfway to buying, not cold traffic.

The numbers: why this is worth building properly

Three figures matter here, and each one is worth being precise about.

1. The abandonment problem is large and stable. Baymard’s 70.22% average has held remarkably steady for years across the 50 studies it aggregates, which means the opportunity isn’t shrinking. Every additional customer you can win back at that stage is close to pure margin: you already paid to acquire them, and they were seconds from paying.

2. Recovery flows genuinely work, though the honest numbers are more modest than the marketing hype. Klaviyo’s own benchmark report, built from over 143,000 real abandoned cart flows, found the average abandoned-cart email drives a 50.5% open rate, a 6.25% click rate, and converts 3.33% of recipients into a placed order, generating $3.65 in revenue per recipient on average. Because this is Klaviyo reporting on its own platform’s performance, treat it as a vendor benchmark rather than an independent audit, but the sample size (143,000+ flows) makes it a reasonable industry reference point. The gap to the top performers is the real story: Klaviyo’s top 10% of senders hit a 65.34% open rate, a 13.33% click rate, and $28.89 in revenue per recipient, roughly eight times the average. That gap is almost entirely down to segmentation, timing, and offer discipline, not luck.

3. Email’s return on spend is hard to match. Litmus, an email platform whose research is widely cited in the industry, states that “on average, email drives an ROI of $36 for every dollar spent, higher than any other channel”. As with any vendor-published figure, take the exact multiple with a grain of salt; the direction is what matters. Remarketing flows sit at the highest-intent end of email, so they typically outperform that blended average, not underperform it.

The core flows worth building, in order

If you’re starting from nothing, build these in this order, because each one has a shorter path to revenue than the next:

  1. Abandoned cart (2–3 emails). First message within an hour or two, a reminder the next day, and a final nudge with urgency or, sparingly, a small incentive. Klaviyo’s own research shows multi-email sequences consistently outperform a single reminder.
  2. Browse abandonment (1–2 emails). Lower intent than cart abandonment, so keep it soft: show the products, add social proof, skip the hard discount.
  3. Post-purchase and win-back (ongoing). Thank the customer, cross-sell what pairs with what they bought, then re-engage on a schedule tied to their normal repurchase cycle, not a fixed 90 days for everyone.
  4. Welcome series (3–5 emails). New subscribers are at their most engaged in the first week. Use it to earn the first purchase, not just say hello.

The New Zealand compliance angle most stores get wrong

This is where email remarketing differs from most other channels: New Zealand has its own spam law, and it applies regardless of which platform you send from. The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 covers any commercial email sent to, from, or within New Zealand. Per the Department of Internal Affairs’ own guidance, three things are non-negotiable:

  • Consent — express, inferred, or deemed consent before you send. An abandoned-cart trigger from someone mid-checkout is straightforward; a browse-abandonment email to someone who merely visited a page without engaging is a greyer area, so check your consent basis before automating it.
  • Accurate sender identification — the recipient must be able to tell who authorised the message and how to contact them.
  • A working unsubscribe facility — every message, every flow, no exceptions.

The penalty for getting this wrong runs up to $500,000. Most breaches aren’t malicious; they’re a poorly configured flow that keeps emailing someone who bought once and never opted into marketing, or a browse-abandonment sequence built on assumed rather than actual consent. Building this properly the first time is cheaper than fixing it after a complaint.

Where email remarketing goes wrong

Across the accounts we’ve audited, the same mistakes show up again and again:

  • One email, then nothing. A single abandoned-cart email leaves most of the recovery on the table. Two or three, spaced properly, consistently do more.
  • Discounting by default. Training every customer to expect 15% off if they just wait erodes margin permanently. Use urgency and relevance before you use a discount code.
  • No deliverability monitoring. A flow with a great open rate on paper is worthless if half the sends are landing in spam. Sender reputation needs active management, not a “set and forget” assumption.
  • Measuring opens instead of revenue. Open rates are increasingly unreliable thanks to bot-driven pre-fetching by mail clients. Revenue per recipient and placed-order rate are the numbers that actually tell you if a flow is working.
  • Treating every customer identically. A first-time browser and a five-time repeat buyer shouldn’t get the same win-back timeline or offer.

How to judge whether your email remarketing is working

  • Revenue per recipient on each flow, not just the flow’s open or click rate.
  • Recovery rate against your abandoned-cart volume, benchmarked against your own history month to month, not just an industry average.
  • Deliverability health — inbox placement, spam complaints, and unsubscribe rate trending in the right direction.
  • Flow coverage — are all four core flows live, or is cart abandonment doing all the work alone?
  • Compliance hygiene — consent records and unsubscribe response times you could defend if the Department of Internal Affairs ever asked.

How BeyondClix approaches email remarketing

We build full-funnel and seasonal email sequences on Klaviyo or whichever platform a store already runs on, with abandoned-cart and win-back flows configured around actual customer behaviour rather than generic templates. Deliverability gets monitored on an ongoing basis so the emails you’re paying to send actually land in the inbox, and reporting is built around revenue per email and per flow, the numbers that tell you whether the channel is earning its keep.

If your store is relying on Shopify’s or your platform’s default abandoned-cart email and nothing else, there’s very likely revenue sitting on the table. Explore our full range of services, or get in touch with the BeyondClix team for a straight look at what your current setup is missing.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between email remarketing and a regular email newsletter?

A newsletter goes to your whole list on a schedule you set. Email remarketing is triggered by what an individual customer actually does, like abandoning a cart or going quiet after a purchase, so each message is relevant to that person’s specific behaviour. Triggered, behaviour-based emails consistently outperform scheduled blasts because they’re timed to genuine intent.

How much revenue can abandoned-cart emails realistically recover?

Klaviyo’s benchmark data across 143,000+ flows shows an average placed-order rate of 3.33% and $3.65 revenue per recipient, with top-performing brands reaching a 7.69% placed-order rate and $28.89 per recipient. Treat these as a vendor-reported industry reference rather than a guarantee; your own results depend on your traffic quality, offer, and how many emails are in the sequence.

Is it legal to email someone who abandoned their cart in New Zealand?

Generally yes, provided you have a valid consent basis under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007, accurate sender identification, and a working unsubscribe link in every message. Someone actively checking out has usually given inferred consent through the transaction itself, but it’s worth confirming your specific flow against the Department of Internal Affairs’ guidance rather than assuming.

Do I need Klaviyo specifically, or will any email platform do?

Klaviyo is popular for ecommerce because of its deep Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce integrations and behavioural segmentation, but the principles (triggered flows, segmentation, deliverability monitoring) apply on any capable platform. The platform matters less than whether the flows are actually built and properly configured.

How many emails should be in an abandoned-cart sequence?

Two to three is the common sweet spot: an initial reminder within a couple of hours, a follow-up the next day, and a final message with genuine urgency. Going beyond that tends to hit diminishing returns and higher unsubscribe risk.

What should I track to know if my email remarketing is actually working?

Revenue per recipient and placed-order rate per flow, not open rate alone; open rates are increasingly distorted by automatic mail-client pre-fetching. Also track deliverability health and whether your consent and unsubscribe records would hold up to scrutiny.

Sources

Published by BeyondClix — a full-service digital marketing and growth agency in Auckland, New Zealand.

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