How to set up an abandoned cart campaign

Shoppers who add items to a cart and leave without buying are some of the easiest conversions to recover. They’ve already shown intent.

This guide shows how to send them an abandoned cart email in Pushwoosh: fire the PW_AbandonedCart event from your store, show the left-behind items in the email with the Products block, and trigger the send from a Customer Journey.

What is PW_AbandonedCart

PW_AbandonedCart marks that a user left items in their cart without buying. It is not a built-in default event. It is a shared event name used across Pushwoosh e-commerce integrations so journeys, the Products block, and segments all work the same way.

• Magento integration: sends PW_AbandonedCart and PW_OrderCreated for you automatically.
• Any other store or custom backend: your team sends both events via postEvent with the names and attributes in How to send abandoned cart reminders.

What happens when you send PW_AbandonedCart

Sending PW_AbandonedCart does two things on the Pushwoosh side:

1. It’s recorded like any other custom event, so you can see it in Event statistics and use it in segments.
2. Pushwoosh stores the cart contents and tags the user with:
   • PW_AbandonedCartID: an identifier for the current cart, used to fetch its contents at send time.
   • PW_AbandonedCartDate: the abandonedDate value from the event payload.

What happens when you send PW_OrderCreated

When the shopper places an order, send PW_OrderCreated (or PW_OrderUpdated). Pushwoosh clears PW_AbandonedCartID and PW_AbandonedCartDate for that user right away. It does not match orderId values: any order from the user removes both tags, even if the purchase was for a different cart.

Example: A shopper abandons cart ORDER-100, then buys ORDER-200 before the reminder goes out. Pushwoosh clears the tags, so they won’t get a reminder about ORDER-100.

What appears in the reminder email

The Products block reads the cart stored on the user profile at send time. It does not use the item list from the PW_AbandonedCart event that started the journey.

• Same orderId: each new PW_AbandonedCart overwrites the stored cart. The reminder shows the latest items.
• Different orderId: Pushwoosh stores a separate cart. Items are not merged.

How to send abandoned cart reminders

Follow these steps to create the events, send them from your store, build the email, and launch the Customer Journey.

Create the events in your Control Panel

1. Go to Audience → Events in your Pushwoosh Control Panel and click Create Event.

2. Create a custom event named PW_AbandonedCart with these attributes:

   Attribute	Type
   email	string
   orderId	string
   customerId	string
   orderUrl	string
   abandonedDate	date
   createdDate	date
   totalPrice	decimal (price)
   shippingAmount	decimal (price)
   taxAmount	decimal (price)
   discountAmount	decimal (price)
   currency	string

3. Repeat for PW_OrderCreated with a single orderId attribute.

Use the correct attribute types

Pushwoosh only stores attributes you declared when you created the event, and only in the types you chose. Extra fields, missing fields, or values that don’t match the type are dropped without an error. postEvent still returns success, so you won’t see in the response that data was lost.

For abandoned cart to work, match the types in the table above:

• Money fields (totalPrice, shippingAmount, taxAmount, discountAmount): use decimal (price). Declared as string, the cart is not stored and no tags are set. Declared as integer, 129.90 becomes 129.
• Dates (abandonedDate, createdDate): use date.
• items: do not add it to the event definition. Send it in the JSON payload as an array of objects. Use real JSON numbers for price and quantity, not quoted strings.

Learn more about creating custom events.

Send the events from your backend

Developer assistance needed

You’ll need your development team’s help to send events from your store or backend. Please share this guide with them.

Ask your development team to call postEvent whenever a cart is abandoned, using this attribute schema:

{
  "request": {
    "hwid": "8f65b16df378e7a6bece9614e1530fb2",
    "application": "XXXXX-XXXXX",
    "event": "PW_AbandonedCart",
    "attributes": {
      "email": "shopper@example.com",
      "orderId": "ORDER-10293",
      "customerId": "CUST-4471",
      "orderUrl": "https://yourstore.com/cart/restore/ORDER-10293",
      "abandonedDate": "2026-07-28T10:15:00Z",
      "createdDate": "2026-07-28T09:40:00Z",
      "totalPrice": 129.90,
      "shippingAmount": 9.90,
      "taxAmount": 0,
      "discountAmount": 0,
      "currency": "USD",
      "items": [
        {
          "productId": "SKU-4821",
          "name": "Wireless headphones",
          "quantity": 1,
          "price": 119.90,
          "sku": "SKU-4821",
          "description": "Over-ear, noise-cancelling",
          "imageUrl": "https://yourstore.com/media/sku-4821.jpg",
          "productUrl": "https://yourstore.com/products/sku-4821",
          "category": "Audio"
        }
      ]
    },
    "userId": "shopper@example.com"
  }
}

When the cart converts into an order, send PW_OrderCreated with just the orderId to clear the cart tags:

{
  "request": {
    "hwid": "8f65b16df378e7a6bece9614e1530fb2",
    "application": "XXXXX-XXXXX",
    "event": "PW_OrderCreated",
    "attributes": {
      "orderId": "ORDER-10293"
    },
    "userId": "shopper@example.com"
  }
}

Tip

If you use the Magento integration, you don’t need to send these events from your backend. Magento sends PW_AbandonedCart and PW_OrderCreated for you on a schedule.

Add a Products block to your email

1. Open the email content editor and add a Products block to the canvas.
2. In the settings panel, set Source to Cart.

Note

The Products block Cart source needs Content Templates on your plan and an API access token. See Products block.

3. Set Max products shown to limit how many cart items appear in the email.

4. Style the grid and card template as needed. See Style the grid.

When the email sends, the Products block looks up each recipient’s stored cart using their PW_AbandonedCartID tag. It then fills the block with the current cart items: image, title, price, and a link back to the cart. The layout comes from the card template you set in the editor. Recipients without that tag (nothing abandoned, or already ordered) skip the block instead of showing empty content, so it’s safe to use in a broader campaign too.

Tip

The Cart source is available in the email content editor. To remind shoppers with a push instead, use a Push step with personalization that references the cart details from the event.

Build the Customer Journey

1. Add a Trigger-based Entry using the PW_AbandonedCart event.
2. Add a Wait for Trigger step. Set its waiting period to an hour or two. Name the branch Order placed and add the PW_OrderCreated event to it.

Caution

Set the waiting period on Wait for Trigger itself. Do not add a separate Time Delay step before it.

Wait for Trigger only starts listening for PW_OrderCreated once the shopper reaches that step. If Time Delay comes first and the shopper places an order during that delay, the order event goes undetected. The shopper moves to the Not triggered branch, but PW_OrderCreated has already cleared PW_AbandonedCartID. The Products block finds no cart and skips it. The shopper still receives the abandoned cart email with no products, even though they already completed their purchase.

3. Route the Order placed branch to Exit. The user already bought, so don’t remind them.
4. Route the Not triggered branch to the Email step. Save the email you built in Add a Products block to your email as email content, then select it as this step’s content.

Test before you launch

1. Send a test PW_AbandonedCart event for a test device. Don’t set the PW_AbandonedCartID tag manually: the Products block loads cart contents from the stored cart that the event creates, not from the tag value. Without a real event, the block renders empty.
2. Preview the email and confirm the layout and product content before sending to real shoppers.