Tracking Website Sessions and Abandonments

SlickText helps you track website sessions for your visitors. If a visitor is already a known contact on your SlickText account and brand, SlickText can link session tracking information to them. If they’re not yet a contact, their session is still tracked and will automatically be linked once they become a SlickText contact. This unlocks powerful automation opportunities—especially for handling abandoned website sessions.

For example, if a visitor leaves your site without completing an action, that abandonment can trigger a workflow in SlickText. You can use this to send follow-up text messages, reminders, or any other automated action you build into your workflows.

In this article:

Setting Up and Using Website Session Tracking
How Website Abandonment is Defined
Using Website Session Tracking with Automated Workflows

Setting Up and Using Website Tracking

To use website session tracking in SlickText:

1. Install the SlickText Tag on your website.
2. Enable Website Session Tracking. This can be found in the SlickText Tag settings.
3. Configure abandonment settings to define when a session is considered abandoned and how frequent follow-ups can occur. These settings are found in the Ecommerce Settings.
4. Use the Website Abandoned workflow trigger or choose an appropriate workflow template.
   
   

How Website Abandonment Is Defined

A website session begins when a visitor lands on your site. That session is considered active as long as the visitor is engaging with your site—for example:

• Viewing additional pages

• Starting a checkout

• Adding a product to the cart

• Removing a product from the cart

If no activity occurs, the session is considered inactive and may eventually be flagged as abandoned. You control when this happens through two settings:

Time to Website Abandonment

This setting determines how long a visitor can remain inactive before their session is marked as abandoned. For example, if you set this to 60 minutes, a visitor must remain inactive for one full hour before the session is considered abandoned. Any new activity during that period will reset the timer.

Website Abandonment Cooldown Time

This setting prevents multiple abandonments from being triggered too frequently for the same visitor. It defines the amount of time that must pass after an abandonment (or a completed purchase) before a new abandonment can occur. For instance, if the cooldown is set to 24 hours, no matter how many times the visitor goes inactive within that timeframe, only one abandonment will be recorded.

Example Scenario

Let’s say a shopper lands on your website at 2:00 PM. They browse a few product pages and add an item to their cart. At 2:15 PM they stop interacting with the site.

• You’ve set Time to Website Abandonment to 60 minutes. That means if the visitor does nothing else by 3:15 PM, their session will be marked as abandoned.

• However, at 2:45 PM, they return and view another product page. Because they became active again, the 60-minute timer restarts. The new abandonment time would be 3:45 PM.

• If they remain inactive until 3:45 PM, the abandonment is recorded, and your workflow could trigger a follow-up text.

• You’ve also set a 24-hour Website Abandonment Cooldown Time. This means that the same visitor cannot have another abandoned session in the next 24 hours. If the same visitor comes back later that evening, abandons again, and goes inactive, SlickText won’t count it as an abandonment. The visitor will have to engage with your site after 3:45 PM the next day before being eligible for another abandonment.

This ensures you can capture genuine abandonments without over-messaging your contacts.

Using Website Session Tracking with Automated Workflows

Once website session tracking is enabled and the SlickText Tag is installed on your site, you can use Website Abandonment as a workflow trigger. This lets you automatically follow up with visitors who leave your site without completing an action—like finishing a checkout, completing a purchase, or even viewing a key page.

You can also add a Website Page Viewed condition to a workflow to check whether someone has viewed specific pages on your site before advancing them. This makes it easy to branch workflows or send personalized follow-ups based on actual page visits—such as showing different offers to visitors who’ve already seen your pricing page or browsed certain products.

You can either create a workflow from scratch or start with a pre-built template.

Creating a Website Abandonment Workflow

1. Create a new workflow. Follow the steps to create a new workflow.

2. In the Triggers menu, find the Website Abandoned object and drag it onto the canvas.

3. Configure the object.

   • Click the gear icon on the Website Abandoned object to open configuration options.

   • Verify Abandonment Timing: Check that your Time to Website Abandonment and Website Abandonment Cooldown Time are set as desired.

   • Carts must contain at least one item (optional): Toggle this on to only trigger the workflow if the visitor’s cart includes at least one product. Use this for abandoned cart messages. Requires an ecommerce integration.

   • Checkout process must be started (optional): Toggle this on to only trigger the workflow if the visitor has started checkout. Use this for abandoned checkout messages. Requires an ecommerce integration.

   • Sessions must meet pageview rules (optional): Define rules based on pages the visitor has or has not viewed before the workflow is triggered. For example, you might only trigger abandonment if a visitor viewed your “Pricing” page but didn’t move forward.

4. Build your workflow. Add actions such as sending a text message, applying a tag, or updating a contact record.

5. Save and activate your workflow. Once your workflow is complete, save it and switch it to Active to begin sending automated abandonment messages.

Using a Website Page Viewed Condition

1. Create a new workflow. Follow the steps to create a new workflow.

2. In the Conditions menu, find the Website Page Viewed object and drag it onto the canvas.

3. Configure the object.

   • Click the gear icon on the Website Page Viewed object to open configuration options.

   • Determine if the website  Contains, Starts with, or Matches Regex of the value you will specify in the next step.

   • Enter the value that the website page should contain, start with or match regex.

   • Define the time frame in which this condition is valid.

4. Create separate branches by connecting to different subsequent objects by dragging the arrow over Yes (matches condition) or No (does not match condition).

5. Finish building your workflow. Add actions such as sending a text message, applying a tag, or updating a contact record.

6. Save and activate your workflow. Once your workflow is complete, save it and switch it to Active.

Suggested Privacy Policy Language

Below is sample language you may adapt to your own policy if you enable website session tracking in SlickText.

Edit and add this to your privacy policy:

Category of Personal Information
Commercial information – may include records of personal property, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies.

• Source(s): Directly from you.

• Purpose(s): To fulfill or meet the reason you provided the information (e.g., to respond to an inquiry or process your order), including disclosures to third parties to fulfill various business purposes.

• Disclosure for business purposes: Disclosed to third parties such as payment processors, delivery services, data analytics providers, and marketing/advertising companies.

Category of Personal Information
Internet or other similar network activity – may include browsing history, search history, and information on a consumer’s interaction with our website, applications, or advertisements.

• Source(s): Directly and indirectly from you (e.g., from observing your actions on our site, apps, or advertisements), and from third-party service providers such as data analytics providers.

• Purpose(s): To fulfill or meet the reason you provided or we collected the information (e.g., to provide targeted advertising), including disclosures to third parties.

• Sale to: Advertising networks.

• Disclosure for business purposes to: Internet service providers, payment processors, data analytics providers, and marketing/advertising companies.