Starting in a quiet corner of Covent Garden, London, in 1981, Neal’s Yard Remedies is a modern apothecary, handcrafting natural and organic health and beauty products. Today, the company is a global leader, with a growing presence across five continents that includes stores and a thriving online store, that is the fastest growing part of the business.
Enhancing cart abandonment email strategy for increased revenue
Neal’s Yard Remedies has long understood the value of using a cart abandonment email to generate new revenue from its UK online store. The company was attempting to manage the entire process in-house, using a rudimentary module from Shopify to send emails to customers who placed products in their cart without making a purchase. However, it lacked the functionality, control and measurement to fully automate and optimise the process.
CRM Manager at Neal’s Yard Remedies, Jessica Fox, explains: “We recognised that we were not maximising the sales potential of our cart abandonment emails and went in search of a purpose-built platform. This would give us the control over the design, content and scheduling of emails, as well as the ongoing performance monitoring that we needed to succeed.”
The task of transforming Neal’s Yard Remedies’ cart abandonment strategy was given to Dotdigital and its Professional Services team. “We had already worked with the team to introduce an automation for sending messages to customers at the point at which they are likely to need to replenish their products,” added Fox. “Following the success of this initiative we decided to explore new opportunities to expand our collaboration with Dotdigital.”
Implementing a personalized and automated email solution
Fox added: “We handed over all the technical implementation to Dotdigital’s Professional Services team and our customer success managers, who carried out a customer journey mapping exercise before building the entire automation for us. All that we had to do was provide creative and copy for the emails.”
Today, when customers fill their cart with products but leave the website without buying, they automatically receive a personalised email within 20 minutes, showing the items along with a direct link to the checkout. Customers who do not return within the next three days to make the purchase are sent a follow-up email.
The advanced functionality of the Dotdigital platform has enabled Neal’s Yard Remedies to quickly and easily trial different approaches and benchmark sales performance. One such example is its use of A/B testing, to compare the success rates of emails that include a 10% discount code with those sent with only basket information. “The introduction of a promotional code had a positive impact on sales,” explains Fox. “However, the conversions and uplift from the new and improved approach to our cart abandonment emails have been remarkable.”
Case study
About Neals Yard Remedies
For over 40 years, Neals Yard Remedies has been harnessing the power of the finest natural and organic, ethically sourced herbs, botanicals and essential oils to make award-winning collections, helping their customers find the perfect balance between outer beauty and inner health.
The approach is always collaborative working with Dotdigital, and for someone who works pretty autonomously in a CRM team this is always very beneficial and enjoyable.
Achieving remarkable growth and leveraging Fresh Relevance for personalization
The upgraded cart abandonment strategy has had a huge impact. Neal’s Yard Remedies saw a 419% increase in revenue from this email flow after partnering with Dotdigital, compared to their earlier approach. In fact, cart abandonment emails now deliver the company’s best email conversion rates across all campaign types.
This success isn’t confined to just one campaign. Jessica says: “We have grown automation campaigns massively with Dotdigital. We had one automation live, we now have seven, and these account for around 25% of our email revenue every month. These were our most high revenue-driving and high-converting campaigns, and they tick on in the background which is great for us when we have a small team.”
Encouraged by these results, the brand also began experimenting with SMS marketing. So far, they’ve launched 11 SMS campaigns, re-purposing email content for quick yet effective mobile outreach. This new channel alone has driven an impressive £68,000 in revenue, highlighting the strength of integrated, cross-channel marketing.
Looking to the future, Neal’s Yard Remedies is working with Dotdigital’s personalisation engine, Fresh Relevance, to bring their engagement strategies to the next level.
India Bosley, Trading Manager at Neal’s Yard, says: “Through the personalisation platform, we’re able to look at different experiences for different customer types. We’ve been able to break down how a customer sees the site and sees it differently, so each of those people would see a difference experience to the previous person. We’re able to rely less on promotions and more on full-price products.”
With Dotdigital’s personalisation tool, the brand will roll out tools like product recommendations, personalised offers, pop-ups, and loyalty-driven banners. Whether a customer is browsing the website or reading an email promotion, they’ll see content tailored specifically to them – reinforcing brand trust and boosting the chances of repeat purchases.
The team is also preparing to replicate this model for its growing U.S. operations. With the power of real-time personalisation, better data insights, and creative automation tools, Neal’s Yard Remedies is positioned not just to grow, but to lead the way in ethical digital marketing within the beauty and wellness industry.
