How to Set Up Browse Abandonment Emails (Without Annoying Shoppers)

Most stores email the people who put something in a cart and ignore the much larger group who looked at a product page and left. Those visitors already told you what they were interested in. The problem is that a clumsy follow-up (“We saw you looking!”) two minutes after they closed the tab feels like being followed around a shop, and a follow-up that never fires because tracking is broken does nothing at all.

Browse abandonment emails sit between those two failure modes. Done well, they are a low-pressure reminder with the exact product the shopper viewed. Done badly, they collide with your cart recovery flow and a shopper gets three emails about the same pair of shoes. This guide walks through the setup in the four platforms most small stores use, with the timing, filters and exit conditions that keep the flow polite.

The timing is also good. GetResponse added a dedicated “Considered products” block on August 19, 2026, which means browse abandonment is no longer a Klaviyo-and-Omnisend-only feature for mid-sized stores.

Prerequisites

Check these before you open any flow builder. Nearly every “my browse abandonment flow isn’t sending” complaint traces back to one of them.

• A connected store. Browse data comes from your ecommerce integration or a tracking script, not from email activity. Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce are the best supported. Custom stores usually need a JavaScript snippet on product page templates.
• Onsite tracking switched on. In Klaviyo this is the Viewed Product metric; in Omnisend and GetResponse it is the store’s web tracking script. If the event never arrives, nothing downstream works.
• Identified visitors. Every platform in this guide can only email visitors it can tie to an email address. Anonymous browsers are invisible until they sign up, click a link in one of your emails, or enter an address at checkout.
• An existing abandoned cart flow. Browse abandonment is the softer, earlier stage. Build or review your abandoned cart sequence first, because the browse flow has to defer to it.
• A plan that includes the feature. This varies more than you might expect, and it is covered per tool below.

Step 1: Confirm product views are being recorded

Browse a product page yourself before you build anything, using a browser where you are identified (click a link from one of your own test emails first).

In Klaviyo, go to Analytics, then Metrics, and search for “Viewed Product.” If the metric shows no recent data, the flow will never trigger. On Shopify, the metric comes from Klaviyo’s app embed; BigCommerce stores add a tracking snippet during setup.

In Omnisend, use the Trigger Preview Tool inside the workflow to confirm the Viewed Product event was received.

In GetResponse, product views are captured by Web Connect tracking on your site, and the workflow condition is called Product viewed (there is also a Product liked condition for wishlist-style interest).

Klaviyo is the most flexible option here. It ships pre-built browse abandonment flows, plus separate abandoned collection and abandoned search flows for Shopify stores, and every filter in the flow is editable. The weakness is cost at scale: Klaviyo bills on active profiles, so a large list of cookied browsers you rarely convert still pushes you up a tier. Paid plans start around $20/month for small lists; check Klaviyo’s pricing page for your profile count.

Step 2: Pick the right trigger

“Browse abandonment” means slightly different things depending on the platform, and choosing the wrong trigger is the fastest way to send an email with no product in it.

Omnisend splits it into three workflows. Browse Abandonment fires when a contact viewed pages but not a specific product, so no product data is captured. Product Abandonment fires when they viewed a specific product page and did not add it to the cart; the last product viewed appears in the email. Search Abandonment covers Shopify visitors who searched and left. For most stores, Product Abandonment is the one you want first.

Klaviyo uses one trigger (Viewed Product) and lets you shape the audience with filters.

GetResponse builds it from a condition. Start the workflow with Product viewed or Product liked, then add the Email subscriber filter. That filter is not optional: GetResponse’s web conditions also track anonymous visitors, and marketing messages can only go to people already on your list.

Mailchimp offers a “Shopify abandoned browse” trigger, along with related triggers for viewing products, searching and adding to cart. All of them require a connected Shopify store on the latest version of the integration.

Omnisend has the most granular funnel of the four, and its automation workflows are available on every plan, including Free (250 contacts, 500 emails/month). Standard costs $16/month for 500 contacts and 6,000 emails. The weakness is in the email content itself: the Abandoned Products block always shows only the last product viewed, even if you set it to show four. To display several browsed items you need the separate Personalized Product Recommender block. Omnisend’s Product Abandonment documentation spells this out in its FAQ.

Step 3: Set filters and exit conditions before anything else

This step decides whether your browse flow is helpful or spammy. You are telling the platform who should not get the email.

In Klaviyo, the recommended profile filters for a custom-built flow are:

1. Placed Order zero times since starting this flow
2. Started Checkout zero times since starting this flow
3. Has not been in this flow in the last 30 days
4. Added to Cart zero times since starting this flow (if you also run a flow triggered by Added to Cart)

In Omnisend, the default exit condition is Placed Order. Add Added product to cart and Started checkout as extra exit conditions if you run cart or checkout recovery, and turn on Skip Contacts so anyone already in those workflows is excluded. Omnisend’s trigger also filters to in-stock products by default. Leave that on.

In GetResponse, the Email subscriber filter from Step 2 handles identity. Handle overlap with your cart flow by making sure purchasers and cart-starters leave the workflow, and decide whether the workflow elements should Run multiple times. That setting lets the same contact re-enter every time they view a product, which is usually too often.

Step 4: Choose a delay that respects the shopper

Browse intent is weaker than cart intent, so the delay should be longer than your cart recovery delay.

Klaviyo recommends a time delay of at least one hour. Omnisend sets its minimum recommended delay for Product Abandonment at two hours, which gives shoppers time to keep browsing and add the item themselves.

A practical starting point is two to four hours for the first email. If you add a second email, wait another one to two days and change the angle (reviews, sizing help, related products) rather than repeating the first message louder.

Step 5: Build the email around the product

The product image, name, price and a link back to the page carry the email. Everything else is support.

Klaviyo. Do not clone your abandoned cart email. Klaviyo’s help center warns that the cart message uses a Dynamic block, while a browse abandonment message needs a Static block with event variables: event.ImageURL for the image, and {{ event.Name }}, {{ event.Price }} and {{ event.URL }} in text and link fields. Switching an existing block from Dynamic to Static erases its contents, so copy the tags first. The full walkthrough covers which product appears when someone views several.

Omnisend. Use the Abandoned Products item in the email step. SMS and push steps can also be added to the same workflow, with a personalization tag that links back to the product.

GetResponse. Create an automation message, open the Ecommerce section in the editor, and drag in the Considered products block. You can show 1, up to 2, or up to 4 products, and only one block is allowed per message. There is a Show previous price option that displays the old price crossed out above a discounted one, which pairs well with GetResponse’s promo price support from August 2026. Then select that message in the workflow’s Send message action.

GetResponse is the newest entrant here and the most reasonable choice if you already use it for newsletters, webinars or courses. It also added an AI assistant on August 31, 2026 that suggests an automation template from a plain-language description, which helps if you are building your first behavioral flow. The weakness is plan gating. According to GetResponse’s help article, the Considered products block is only available on Marketer, Creator and MAX accounts, and it works only in automation messages. Marketer costs $59/month at 1,000 contacts on monthly billing; Starter ($19/month) includes just one custom automation workflow and does not get the block. See the GetResponse pricing breakdown for higher tiers.

Mailchimp. Its Shopify browse triggers work with standard product content blocks. The weakness is reach: if your store is not on Shopify, there is no equivalent abandoned browse trigger. The Viewed a page trigger only covers pages on a Mailchimp-hosted website with tracking enabled.

Mailchimp suits Shopify stores that already run newsletters there and want a basic browse reminder without switching tools. For anything beyond one simple flow, the dedicated ecommerce platforms give you more control over filters and product content.

Step 6: Test with a real browsing session

Every platform lets you fake the timing so you are not waiting hours for a test email.

1. Shorten the delay to two or three minutes.
2. Temporarily disable the frequency or re-entry limit so you can trigger it repeatedly.
3. Make sure your test address is on the list and your browser is identified (click through from one of your own emails).
4. Open the store in that browser, view an in-stock product, and leave without adding it to the cart.
5. Check that the email arrives with the correct image, name, price and link.
6. Repeat, but add the item to the cart. Confirm you leave the browse flow and enter the cart flow instead.

Restore the real delay and frequency settings before you switch the flow on. Omnisend specifically calls this out, because its frequency setting also blocks retesting with the same address.

Common Mistakes

Running browse and cart flows with no exit conditions between them. The shopper views a product, adds it to the cart an hour later, and receives both a browse reminder and a cart reminder for the same item. Always make “added to cart” and “started checkout” exits in the browse flow.

Offering a discount in the first browse email. A product view is weak intent. Discounting it trains repeat visitors to browse and wait. If you want an incentive, Klaviyo’s docs suggest limiting it to people who have never purchased, using a Placed Order equals zero over all time filter.

Leaving out-of-stock items in. An email that links to a sold-out product wastes the click. Omnisend filters for in-stock items by default; check that your other platform does the same or add the filter yourself.

Expecting the flow to reach everyone. On all four platforms, the audience is identified visitors only. If very few people enter the flow, the fix is usually more signup forms and more clicked emails, not a different trigger.

Letting a broken integration fail silently. Revisit the Viewed Product metric or trigger preview after theme changes, app updates or a platform migration. A new theme can drop the tracking snippet without anyone noticing.

What Success Looks Like

A healthy browse abandonment flow has a few recognizable signs.

• Entries track traffic. The number of contacts entering the flow should move roughly with product page traffic from known visitors. A sudden drop to zero means tracking broke.
• Few people get more than one abandonment email per visit. If your reports show contacts receiving browse and cart emails for the same session, your exit conditions are wrong.
• Unsubscribes stay close to your campaign average. A browse flow with a noticeably higher unsubscribe rate is firing too fast, too often, or too pushily.
• Revenue is attributed separately. Klaviyo and Omnisend report flow revenue, and GetResponse added per-message and per-workflow revenue attribution in April 2026. Judge the flow on its own numbers, not blended ecommerce totals.

If you are still choosing a platform, our ecommerce email marketing roundup and the Klaviyo vs Omnisend comparison cover how each handles the rest of the ecommerce lifecycle. For stores that want the deepest filter control and are comfortable with profile-based billing, Klaviyo remains the reference point; read the Klaviyo review for where it falls short.

Sources

1. Klaviyo: How to create a browse abandonment flow — accessed 2026-09-24
2. Omnisend: Product Abandonment Automation — accessed 2026-09-24
3. Omnisend: Pricing — accessed 2026-09-24
4. GetResponse: How to include considered products in a message — accessed 2026-09-24
5. GetResponse: What's new — accessed 2026-09-24
6. GetResponse: Pricing — accessed 2026-09-24
7. Mailchimp: All the Marketing Automation Flow Triggers — accessed 2026-09-24