Detects when a guest starts a booking and leaves without finishing, then brings them back with a recovery email and an on-site reminder bar the next time they visit.
What it does #
Cart Abandonment Recovery watches for booking intent on your site. When a guest begins checkout on a property but does not complete the booking, Conversion Kit treats that as an abandoned cart. It can then recover that guest two ways:
- Recovery email: after a delay you set, the guest gets an email nudging them back to finish the booking they started. This needs the guest’s email, captured during checkout.
- On-site reminder bar: when the guest returns to your site, a small reminder bar can resurface the property they left behind so they can pick up where they stopped. This works from the browser session alone and does not need the guest’s email. By default it shows once per browser session rather than on every page, stays off single property pages and search-results pages so it doesn’t compete with a booking already underway, and never appears on checkout. If a guest has more than one abandoned cart, the card always follows the newest one, so dismissing it doesn’t roll an older listing back into view.
It is built to recapture the highest-intent guests you have, the ones who got all the way to checkout and then got distracted. Recovering even a fraction of them is some of the easiest revenue your site can earn.
The recovery email’s wording and look are yours to edit from Conversion Kit’s shared Emails section, alongside every other Conversion Kit email. You can rewrite the subject, headline, intro, button label, urgency line, and footer note, choose whether to show the trip total and a guest-review snippet, and optionally override the heading color, background color, button color, and logo for this email specifically. Before you rely on it, you can send a real test copy to any address to check how it reads and confirm it lands in the inbox.
Because recovery emails are single, time-bound messages rather than an ongoing subscription, they do not require a separate email verification step. The guest’s email is captured during the booking flow, and the tool stops sending the moment a guest completes the booking.
How guest accounts fit in #
The on-site reminder bar works on its own from the browser session, no guest identity needed. The recovery email is the piece that needs to know who to email: it relies on the guest identity layer to link a returning visitor’s session to the email address captured during checkout. See Guest Identity and Guest Portal for how that profile is built and persists.
How to turn it on #
1. Open the Conversion Kit tools #
Go to HomeRunner > Conversion Kit and find Cart Abandonment Recovery in the tool list.
2. Enable the tool #
Toggle Cart Abandonment Recovery on. Conversion Kit ships with selectors tuned to the standard HomeRunner booking widget, so tracking works out of the box on a standard setup.
3. Confirm your email delivery #
Recovery emails send through your site’s email, so make sure your site can send email reliably.
4. Customize the recovery email (optional) #
Open Conversion Kit > Emails and find Cart Abandonment Recovery to edit the wording and look. Anywhere a wording field can name the listing or your site, type {property} for the listing name and {site} for your site name, and Conversion Kit fills them in per guest. From the same panel you can send a live test copy with sample booking details to any address. If you leave this panel alone, the email uses its built-in defaults.
Settings #
- Recovery Delay (Minutes): how long to wait after abandonment before the recovery email goes out (default 60).
- Max Recovery Emails: the most recovery emails sent per abandoned cart (default 2).
- Email Cooldown (Hours): minimum wait between two recovery emails (default 24).
- Book Now / Checkout / Success Selectors: the page elements the tool watches to detect that a guest started or finished a booking. The defaults match the standard HomeRunner widget. Change these only if your site uses a custom checkout.
- Enable On-site Reminder: show the returning-visitor reminder bar (default on).
- Reminder Delay (Seconds): how long after a return visit the reminder bar appears (default 3).
- Show Frequency: “Once per visit” shows the reminder card a single time per browser session, so a returning guest isn’t reminded on every page (default and recommended). Switch to “On every page until dismissed” to restore the original always-show behavior.
- Where It Shows: off by default, so the card stays off single property pages and search-results pages, where the guest is already booking and a reminder for a different listing would just compete for attention. Turn it on to also show the card there. The card never shows on checkout pages either way.
- Hide on Mobile: off by default. Turn it on to stop the reminder card from appearing on mobile devices, where screen space is tighter and the card can crowd the sticky booking bar.
- Card Layout: whether the reminder bar shows a property photo, an icon, or text only. Properties with no photo fall back to the icon automatically.
- Accent Color: the color used for the reminder bar’s button and icon (default
#ff385c).
Recovery email content and appearance #
These live in Conversion Kit > Emails, under Cart Abandonment Recovery. Every wording field below accepts the {property} and {site} tokens. Leave a wording field blank to restore its default text, and leave a color or logo field blank to use the tool’s own defaults.
| Setting | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Subject Line | The email’s subject. Default: “Still thinking about {property}?” |
| Headline | The large heading inside the email. Default: “Still thinking about {property}?” |
| Intro Line | The opening sentence under the headline. Default: “You were so close to booking! Your selected dates may still be available.” |
| Button Label | The text on the booking button. Default: “Complete Your Booking”. |
| Urgency Line | The small print below the button. Default: “Availability and prices can change at any time. Book now to secure your dates.” |
| Footer Note | The note at the foot of the email explaining why the guest received it. Default: “You’re receiving this because you showed interest in booking.” |
| Show Trip Total | Includes the guest’s trip total in the email when it’s available (default on). |
| Guest Reviews Block | Include a star rating and review snippet when review data is available (default on). |
| Heading Color, Background Color, Button Color | Optional per-email overrides. Leave blank to use the tool’s own colors (heading #333, background #f5f5f5, button #ff385c). |
| Logo Image URL | A logo shown centered above the headline. Leave blank for no logo. |
| Send Test Email | Send a live copy of the email, with sample booking data, to any address you enter. |
Tips #
- Leave the selectors at their defaults unless you have customized your checkout. They are tuned to the standard HomeRunner booking widget, and the wrong selector means nothing gets tracked.
- A 60-minute delay is a good starting point. Soon enough to catch the guest while intent is warm, late enough to avoid emailing someone who simply stepped away for a minute.
- If you want the on-site reminder to work harder, turn on Where It Shows to also surface it while a guest is browsing properties or search results, not only on other pages.
- Send a test to yourself after editing the email so you see the exact wording, colors, and logo a guest would receive, and so you can confirm it reaches the inbox rather than spam.
- Pair Cart Abandonment Recovery with Booking Reminder to cover both the guest who started checkout and the guest who was only browsing.