Marketing Cloud Personalization | Troubleshooting Cart Abandonment Triggers

Fundamental Operation of Cart Abandonment

• Definition of Abandonment: A "Cart Abandonment" event is registered when a user adds an item to their cart (i.e., Personalization receives an "Add to Cart" event) and then ceases activity on the site for a continuous period of 30 minutes without completing the purchase.
• Evaluation Timing: The Personalization platform checks for cart abandonment events every 15 minutes. Consequently, a trigger may not fire at exactly 30 minutes post-abandonment but could be delayed by up to approximately 45 minutes, even without a configured delay setting.
• Execution Constraints:
  • Once a trigger has been executed for a specific set of cart contents, it will not be executed again for the identical cart contents.
  • If the user returns to the site and modifies the cart's contents (e.g., adds/removes another item, changes quantities), the trigger becomes eligible for execution again.

[Point] If a user frequently updates their cart, it may result in multiple, unintended trigger executions. It is advisable to configure campaign-wide Frequency Limits in conjunction with the trigger settings to manage this behavior.

Reference:

• Cart Abandonment Trigger

How to Verify Trigger Execution Status

1. For Individual Users: Event Stream
The execution or failure of a trigger for a specific user can be verified via the Event Stream on the individual user's profile.

• Trigger Execution: This event is logged when a trigger fires successfully.
• Trigger Disqualification: This event is logged when a trigger is determined not to be applicable and therefore doesn't fire. The reason for the disqualification can be found in the Reason field within the Event Detail.

Note: If neither of these events is present, the user may not have been evaluated for the trigger campaign at all. This is often due to the user being excluded by rules or filters configured in the campaign. As a prerequisite check, also ensure that an Add to Cart event has been logged for the user.

2. For Overall Trend Confirmation: Triggered Campaign Statistics

If the target user cannot be identified, or if a large, unspecified number of users are not triggering the event, check here. While you won't be able to see the specific reasons why individual users didn't trigger, understanding the overall error trend can help in troubleshooting campaigns that aren't firing as expected.

• Total Triggers: The total count of cart abandonment events (a user adds an item to the cart and is inactive for 30+ minutes). This metric is counted before any campaign filters are applied. If a single user abandons a cart multiple times, each instance is counted.
• Eligible Triggers: The subset of Total Triggers that matched all campaign conditions (e.g., segments, filters).
• Disqualified Triggers: The subset of Eligible Triggers that were ultimately disqualified due to post-eligibility checks, such as re-evaluation after a configured Delay or reaching Frequency Limits.
• Failed Triggers: The number of triggers that failed to process due to a technical issue.
• Successful Triggers: The subset of Eligible Triggers that were processed successfully and resulted in the configured action being executed.

Reference:

• View Triggered Campaign Statistics

Common Reasons for Trigger Failure
If a Cart Abandonment Trigger is not executing as expected, review the following common causes and solutions.

Prerequisites

• Sitemap Implementation: Confirm that cart-related events, such as Add to Cart, are correctly configured in your Sitemap, are being sent to Personalization, and are visible in the Event Stream.
• Campaign Status: Ensure the target campaign is set to a "Published" state.

Common Disqualification Scenarios
After confirming the prerequisites, verify that the following conditions are not met:

• Cart Contents Purchased: The trigger will be disqualified if the user purchases any or all of the items in their cart. Verify this by checking the user's Event Stream.
• All Cart Contents Removed: The trigger will be disqualified if the user removes all items from the cart without making a purchase. Verify this by checking the user's Event Stream.
• Exclusion by Campaign Rules/Filters: The trigger will not execute if the user or the cart contents do not meet the criteria defined in the campaign rules (e.g., Catalog Filters, Behavior Filters).
• Frequency Limits Reached: The trigger will not fire if the user has reached the Campaign Frequency Limits or the global trigger frequency limits.
• Missing User Data for Journey Builder: The trigger will be disqualified if essential user data required for the Journey Builder integration (e.g., CustomerID, email address) does not exist for that user in Personalization.
• Disqualification After Delay Period: If a Delay is configured in the campaign, the user's eligibility is re-evaluated after the delay period ends. The trigger will not fire if the user meets any of the disqualification criteria at the time of this re-evaluation.
   
  • Example:
    • A campaign has a scheduled delay, only allowing triggers between 9:00 AM and 9:00 PM.
    • A user abandons a cart at 10:00 PM.
    • The user purchases the item at 6:00 AM the next day.
    • At the 9:00 AM re-evaluation, the system detects the purchase, and the trigger is disqualified.
      
      
• Data Integration Issues: A trigger may result in a Failed status if there is a data mismatch between Personalization and the Data Extension associated with the API Event in Marketing Cloud Engagement (Journey Builder). Common examples include:
  
  
  • Example: 

• • Data Type Mismatch: The data type being sent from Personalization (e.g., String, Number, Date) does not match the data type of the corresponding field in the Data Extension.
  • Null Value for Required Field: A field defined as "required" in the Data Extension receives no data (a null value) from Personalization.
  • Field Length Exceeded: The data being sent exceeds the maximum length defined for the field in the Data Extension.
  • Field Name Mismatch: The field names defined in the Personalization trigger template do not exactly match the field names in the Data Extension.
  • Primary Key Violation: The incoming data violates a primary key constraint configured on the Data Extension.

Other Potential Issues: Journey Builder Problems
In some cases, the trigger may fire successfully from Personalization, but an issue within Journey Builder prevents the desired action. In this scenario, investigate the API entry into Journey Builder. Common areas to check include Journey Re-entry settings, contact filtering, or the availability of the contact's address information.

Frequently Asked Questions 

Q: Is there a way to check a specific user's current cart contents?
A: Yes, this can be done using the simulation feature within a Recipe.

1. Open the target Recipe and click Add Users to Test Group.
2. In the "Search by name, email, or ID" field, enter the user's information and click the + icon to add them to the test group.
3. In the Simulation section at the bottom of the screen, hover your cursor over the cart icon next to the user's name to view their current cart contents.

Q: In Triggered Campaign Statistics, why is the 'Total Triggers' count sometimes larger than the sum of 'Eligible Triggers' and 'Disqualified Triggers'?
A: Total Triggers represents the gross number of cart abandonment events counted before any campaign rules or filters are applied. In contrast, Eligible Triggers and Disqualified Triggers reflect the counts after these rules have been evaluated. Therefore, if a significant number of triggers are filtered out by your campaign's segment or filter criteria, the Total Triggers count will be higher than the sum of the other metrics that depend on initial eligibility.