How abandoned checkout recovery wins back sales
Understand the one email Knola sends a buyer who typed their address and then walked away, when it goes, and how to word it yourself.
By Knola5 min readSome buyers get as far as your checkout, put in their email, and then a child shouts or a meeting starts. Knola sends exactly one reminder to bring them back, and it is on unless you turn it off.
Why the email step at checkout matters
On a funnel checkout, a buyer who is not signed in is asked for their email address before the payment form appears, with a Continue to payment button and the reason underneath: "We'll email your receipt and save your spot if you need to come back."
That small step is what makes recovery possible at all. Someone who leaves before typing an address cannot be contacted, so there is nothing to send.
What counts as abandoned
A checkout is abandoned once it expires without payment. Every funnel checkout has an expiry, set on the checkout step under Expire after (minutes), which defaults to 30 and can run from 5 minutes to a full day.
So the reminder arrives shortly after that window closes: half an hour after they walked away, on the default. Shorten it for a flash sale, lengthen it if your buyers tend to go and ask a partner first.
What the buyer gets
One email, in your school's branding, headed "You were one step away". It names what they were buying, reassures them their spot is saved, and carries a Finish checking out button that drops them straight back on the checkout step they left.
The footer makes a promise on your behalf and it is not editable: they are told this is a one-time reminder because they entered their email at checkout, and that ignoring it means they will not be emailed about it again. Knola keeps that promise. One abandoned checkout, one email, ever.
Switch it off, or make it yours
Go to Students → Notifications and find the Abandoned checkout recovery card. It is the one marked Optional, and it carries an On / Off switch. Everything else on that screen is transactional and always sends.
- Preview shows the real email with your logo and colours.
- Edit copy lets you replace the subject line and rewrite the opening paragraph. Leave either blank to keep Knola's wording.
- The button, the structure and the footer stay fixed, which is what keeps the link working and the email out of spam folders.
The full tour of that screen is in the emails Knola sends.
Which checkouts this covers
Recovery is a funnel feature, because the funnel checkout is where the email step lives. A buyer arriving through a payment link or a funnel checkout is covered. A signed-in student is covered too, because Knola already knows their address.
Sales through your own payment processor are not, since that checkout is not Knola's to watch.
How long after someone abandons does the email send?
Shortly after the checkout expires, which is 30 minutes by default. That timing comes from Expire after (minutes) on the funnel's checkout step, so you set it per funnel anywhere between 5 minutes and 24 hours.
Will a buyer get more than one reminder?
Never. One abandoned checkout produces at most one email, and the footer tells the recipient exactly that. There is no follow-up sequence.
How do I turn abandoned checkout recovery off?
Go to Students → Notifications, find the Abandoned checkout recovery card and switch it to Off. It is the only optional email on that screen; everything else is needed for buyers to reach what they paid for.