Key Takeaways

• Cross-selling subscriptions can increase your AOV by 60%.
• 70% of shoppers won’t convert if checkouts are complicated. 1-click simplifies the customer experience to bypass complexity.
• 1-click checkouts increase total CLTV by 28%. Add 1-click cross-sell opportunities to Order Reminder emails and texts.
• 80% of modern consumers expect a personalized shopping experience. Ordergroove lets you make product-specific 1-click cross-sell recommendations. 
• Returning customers spend 67% more than new customers. Leverage your returning subscriber base and cross-sell new or seasonal products through 1-click add-ons.
• Employ strategic messaging to drive urgency to convert for add-ons and order management actions.
• Overstock accounted for 27% of 2023 eCommerce subscription cancellations.* Prevent these cancellations with proactive opportunities to delay an upcoming order in Order Reminder notifications.

Order Reminder messages are a core feature to any solid subscription experience; letting customers manage their subscription and order options and fostering a culture of consumer trust (more on transactional comms here). But they’re also a great opportunity to promote cross-sell and order management opportunities to your subscribers; making the most of mandatory communication to actually increase your profits and retention. Our Klaviyo and Attentive integrations (and our native Ordergroove transactional emails) empower you to send more than just 1 Order Reminder, so busy-inbox customers are more likely to actually see these reminders.

As discussed in our prior module, cross-selling is a crucial component of a profitable subscription experience - driving an up to 60% proven increase in your subscription Average Order Value (AOV) without the cost of acquiring an additional customer to your business. Ordergroove’s cross-sell feature makes it possible for subscribers to add items to their upcoming subscription order as either a one-time or recurring subscription add-on. It's no surprise, then, that adding even easier 1-click cross-sell opportunities to a customer journey can increase total CLTV by 28%.

Plus, 27% of all eCommerce subscription cancellations in 2023 were due to overstock.* You can minimize these by offering subscribers the option to delay their upcoming order (in just 1 click) from their Order Reminder notification. 

So here’s why and how you should leverage 1-click actions in Order Reminder messaging to increase subscriber spend, retention, and lifetime value.

1-click checkouts increase total CLTV by 28%

More than ever, convenience is a driving factor in consumer decision making. Research estimates that 70% of shoppers leave a site before paying if the checkout experience is too complicated. 1-click checkouts streamline the customer experience, bypassing complexity to drive conversion. 

A recent Cornell study found that utilizing a 1-click checkout increased a customer’s total CLTV by around 28%. And not only were 1-click customers spending more per order; but 1-click purchasing actually increased the number of visits to the site, the length of each visit, and the expansion of purchases across categories. 

1-click purchasing for subscriptions also includes the added benefit of consolidating shipping and manageability for customers, and makes it easy for your business to weave cross-sell opportunities into the subscription management process.

The Order Reminder email is a routine transactional email that alerts subscribers to an upcoming subscription order. You can embed cross-sell opportunities in these messages with 1-click CTAs to leverage necessary communications to cross-sell subscribers. There are a few different ways to do this to drive real conversion, so let's break those down.

Personalized product cross-sell recommendations boost conversion

Research shows that more consumers than ever - a near 80% - expect a personalized shopping experience. Recommendations drive powerful outcomes: a Salesforce study of product recommendations concluded that visits where the shopper clicked a recommendation comprised just 7% of total site traffic, but made up 24% of orders and 26% of revenue. 

Real customer feedback reveals that shoppers prioritize:

• Originality and relevance of recommendations (Based on past purchases)
• Timing (Most are more open to recommendations while already shopping)
• Helpfulness (Reminders of a product purchased previously that may be running low, etc.)
• Familiarity and recognizance (Consumers appreciate being recognized and more heavily consider products based on recent life events or interests) 

With these insights in mind, a one-time “add to order” for specific products like in the example below will curate a more personalized subscription experience for your subscribers and can boost AOV for your subscription program. You can group products by relevancy to be recommended when one of them is purchased, like Tata Harper. They call out customers who are subscribed to that particular product, with relevant product recommendations:

Leverage tailored copy for your vertical

In addition to recommending oft-dually purchased products, you can also recommend products as part of a "routine" or similar combination/ritual specific to your vertical, with a relevant call to action. Here are a few examples from our most common industries.

Pet

Beauty

Hot Beverage

Food

If personalization isn’t possible, use “best sellers” add-ons

While personalization can only increase your customer engagement with cross-sells, it’s also a good idea to include a short list of your best selling products as one-click cross-sell opportunities on your general Order Reminder email for products without related SKUs. Take a look at this email from Maelys:

And for merchants unable to access our one-click actions via our ESP integrations, we highly recommend linking to a landing page with all cross-sell-eligible products from your Order Reminder email, like in the example below.

Leverage strategic messaging to cross-sell new or seasonal products

As we've learned before, returning shoppers spend 67% more than new customers; making subscribers your ideal customer to cross-sell and promote new products with.

On top of leveraging these odds of returning conversion, increasing urgency with strategic messaging and CTAs in your Order Reminder email is a powerful tactic to sell new or seasonal products via 1-click add-ons. 

In the following example, we've incorporated intentional copy like "Last chance" to increase urgency, and leveraged personalized messaging of "your pet" (which drives disproportionately strong conversion, a Salesforce study found!) to cross-sell seasonal products. While we've chosen the winter holidays specifically, you can do this for any seasonal sale or promotion.

And displaying labels like "new," "popular," "limited stock," or "trending" can use scarcity mentality to drive conversion for add-ons, like our example below.

Emphasize your cross-sell discount

If you're offering the same discount for your cross-sell items as the rest of your subscribable catalog, we recommend emphasizing that this discount applies to add-on items.

You can do this through banners, like the below:

Or through strategic messaging, like this example:

Position cross-selling above the fold, and rinse + repeat

It's a pretty commonly accepted fact that nobody has the time (or willpower) to read a full email. So consider bumping your cross-selling CTA above the fold, and even above the confirmation of their pending product. Be sure to clearly message what the subscriber is receiving, and what they have the option to add-on; like in the example below:

And as is the case with all messaging, repetition drives the message home. You can build an Order Reminder Flow or Journey through our Klaviyo or Attentive integrations to schedule an additional message targeting only cross-selling before the actual Order Reminder email. Here's an example of an cross-sell-specific message.

Prevent 27% of unnecessary cancellations with 1-click delay 

27% of 2023 eCommerce subscriptions were canceled due to overstock, or having too much product.* There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the product or subscription service, but the customer hasn't had the chance to consume their previous order; and can often get frustrated and cancel the entire subscription rather than taking the time to delay or pause their next order.

The same principles outlined above apply here - 1-click actions realize far more conversion because up to 70% of shoppers dislike complicated processes enough to abandon a checkout because of them. Our Klaviyo and Attentive integrations empowers subscribers to delay (rather than cancel) their upcoming order directly from their Order Reminder notification with just 1 click. 

Our integrations also offer a "days until place date" property, letting you customize Order Reminder messages to drive urgency for customers to either delay or add-to their upcoming subscription order. You can also send more than just one order reminder to make sure you remind busy-inbox customers of upcoming orders.

📝 Try it Now!

Here’s how to make products eligible for cross-sell.

If you’re leveraging our integrations with Klaviyo or Attentive, we’ve built native 1-click functionalities to support cross-selling.

Here’s more on our Klaviyo 1-click functionality, and here’s more on Attentive’s.

If you’re not using either of the above integrations, your development team can set up 1-click cross-sell through any ESP that can dynamically generate URLs and has been custom integrated with Ordergroove through webhooks 2.0.

Here’s a general overview of this functionality, and here’s our developer documentation on how to set this up (set up will depend on if you’re using our main.js script tagging or not). 

Suggested next modules

• Talking to Your Subscribers: Transactional Notifications Best Practices